In All the Unexpected Places

By: Wendy Duckworth Vance

Years ago, there was a song called “Lookin’ for Love.”   The singer, Johnny Lee, laments that he has been looking for love in all the wrong places, looking at too many faces, but he can’t find the one he dreams of or desires.  With God, however, I would suggest that we, His children, do the opposite.  We do not look in enough places. 

Sincerely, where do you expect to find God?  Where do you expect to hear his voice?  Is the answer simply to find Him in the Bible or church?  Is it possible that we are missing encounters with God because we assume that contact with God can only be made in “His House” or from His Word (Bible)? I contend that we are missing out because I contend that we are missing out on connecting with God because in our limited understanding we have made Him too small.

But “how have we made Him small?” you may ask.   We have decided to place Him in a little box where we visit Him on Saturdays or Sundays.  And there He is to stay until the next week, unless perhaps one reads their Bible and has contact with Him between services. For many people, God is in the church, and that is where their intersection with holiness stops.  But what if God speaks to us whenever and wherever He sees fit? Can He really speak to us in the midst of our mundane lives?

Since Yeshua is God and He walked among us in a sinful and fallen world (many sins then being the same sins that we have today) what makes one think that God would not be among us now? Also, did He not promise to be with us through the presence of His own Holy Spirit? Did He not send the Spirit on the day of Pentecost?  Is the New Testament not filled with encounters with the Spirit in various ways and in various places like prisons (Acts 16:25 - 34) or walking along the road (Acts 9:1-22)?  Did God not say that He would write His law on the heart in the latter days (Jeremiah 31:33)?  Since the answer to these questions is yes, and because God is trustworthy, then the only rational conclusion is that God is, in fact,  among us. 

If the same Spirit that rose Yeshua from the grave, that sent the flaming tongues on Pentecost , that healed the sick, and cast out evil spirits, lives in us, how can we believe that we don’t have access to that Spirit wherever we are? If He lives in us, how do we think we can only connect with Him in designated places?  If the Spirit is inside us at all times, how can we think that we only have access at church? Perhaps we are putting a barrier between ourselves and God by believing that we can only access Him on a specific day, time, and place. What would happen if we unleashed God in our lives at all time? Would it then be possible to encounter God in unexpected places?

Yes! It is not only possible; it happens.  

In April, I took my daughter to a musical called Six.  It is a take on King Henry the Eighth and his wives in which the wives tell their stories from a woman’s perspective.  They also explore what might have been if they had been free to make their own choices instead of having their fates decided by the men in their lives. Even though it is not a Christian musical, God showed up!

In the middle of the production, the actress playing Jane Seymour sang a beautiful song called “Heart of Stone.”  Even though the lyrics were speaking of her love for King Henry and how she would stand by his side no matter what because her heart was as solid as stone, I heard God speaking to my heart.   In the lyrics, He was telling me how much He loves me, that I can try to make Him not love me, but that His heart toward me would stay solid like a stone. I was so overcome that I sat in that crowded theatre and cried.  Here, God took something distinctly not about Him but used it to speak. This was not the first time this had happened to me, but something about this experience changed me.  At that moment in that seat, listening to that song, it was as if my soul released itself from a barrier I didn’t even know was there.  It was a barrier that separated me from knowing the life-changing, life-shaking truth that God is indeed with me at all times, even until the end of the age. 

Today I invite you to join me in looking for God in unexpected places.  Of course, test the Spirit and make sure what you hear is from God, but listen for His voice.  Look for His love in all places and all the faces, He is waiting to speak to you.