When God Whispers in Your Ear

I have never had an angel of the Lord speak to me. I have never heard what I thought was the audible voice of God. The Lord has spoken to me through the scriptures. He has impressed things on my mind. He has placed feelings on my heart. He has sent other people to me with directives and words of encouragement. But an angel of the Lord has never whispered in my ear or showed up in a mid-night dream.

 

But when God spoke to Joseph he did so through His angel. Joseph was engaged to a young girl named Mary. Word got out that she was pregnant and Joseph knew he was not the one responsible. In despair he wonders what he should do. In a restless night of sleep an angel of the Lord appeared to him and made the situation clear. “Mary is a virgin and what is happening to her is an act of the Spirit of God. She is bearing a son and you are to name him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins”. And Joseph woke up from that dream and took Mary as his wife and did not have relations with her as his wife until after the child was born. As commanded they named the boy Jesus.

 

Not long after Jesus was born an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph again in a dream. The command this time was simple but it was direct and urgent. “Get up, and take the boy and his mother to Egypt and don’t come back until I tell you it is ok, for King Herod in his wickedness is searching for the child in order that he might kill him”. So Joseph arose in the middle of the night and departed to Egypt. Joseph in the course of a year or two had encountered the angel of the Lord twice and each time he had been called to radical action that altered his ordinary ambitions and asked him to do something strange and uncomfortable. What he was being asked to do was helping fulfill the words of the Lord spoken by the prophets but it was greatly changing his life. I think it is true that obeying the commands of God always push us to do and be something different than we ourselves had planned for our lives.

 

Joseph and his family lived maybe two years in Egypt. Then one night an angel of the Lord awoke Joseph again in a dream and said “you can go back to Israel now. Herod has died and it is safe to go home”. So he arose and went back to Israel. But once you have been gone from home, going home is never the same. When Joseph got back to the borders of Israel he discovered that Herod’s son Archelaus was ruling over the region of Judea and he was as bad as his father. Once again he received a message from God in a dream and he had to alter his plans of going back to his original home and instead went to the region of the Galilee. There Joseph and Mary set up housekeeping in a city called Nazareth. My guess is they were never quite at home. The people of the region of Galilee probably looked upon them as outsiders. But there Jesus and his brothers and sisters grew up. In that area Jesus developed his trade. Within the small parameters of that region Jesus brought forth His teachings, called His disciples, and developed His ministry. It all happened like this so that the words of the prophets could be fulfilled; the Messiah “would be called a Nazarene”.

 

One of the lessons this teaches us is the importance of obedience. A simple young man named Joseph, in the midst of stress and confusion, heard the voice of the Angel of the Lord and obeyed. Maybe he argued a little bit, but we do not have any record that he did. What the record states is that he obeyed even though it may have meant ridicule, added stress and increased responsibilities, making uncomfortable journeys, and the loneliness of living in strange places. He obeyed even though it greatly altered his life. He obeyed because he believed the voice of God was trustworthy and that heeding that voice would lead to the will of God being fulfilled.

 

God communicates to us in a lot of ways. We never know what method he might use. It might even be through an angel. But I wonder, if God gives a directive to us, will we obey? Will we follow His instructions even if doing so calls us to unusual and even radical actions? Will we do it believing that our obedience leads to the fulfilling of God’s ultimate will?