Ignoring the Cue

I can think back to some of the most important and most God-involved times of my life and can also identify how the people around me—both close friends and new acquaintances—yielded to the prompting they received from the Lord. I remember their participation so vividly because of their beautifully-orchestrated involvement and their simplistic words. God doesn’t need a showstopping performance from us. He just needs someone to show up when they’re called.

Over the years, I have encountered cues from the Lord that were easy to interpret and accept. I met a young woman in the church parking lot to sell some boots of mine and felt an urge to merely give her the boots. I was only asking $20 for them, but a quick review of her social media profile uncovered that she was newly married and purchasing second-hand items may have been a normal practice for her.

After receiving her “I’m here” text message, I grabbed my keys and headed out to the parking lot to exchange the boots, already deciding that I was going to give them to her for free. Her car was parked a couple spaces beside mine, so I approached it from the back corner. Before arriving at my vehicle to retrieve the boots, I heard her husband yelling at her inside their car. I was unable to decipher his words, but I could see the effect of his verbal attack in the look of her eyes gazing out the window. She appeared to be one of the saddest and loneliest people I had ever seen.

She stepped out of the passenger door after I gently tapped on the back window. She tried recovering from her husband’s quickfire assault, but miserably failed. I handed her the boots and said, “God asked me to just give these to you. Please keep your money.” With her hands clenching the new-to-her boots, she smiled in gratitude before reentering her car.

I’m not sure why God prompted me to give away the boots, but I doubt it was about just kindness. Maybe the woman’s husband was upset she was spending money in the first place. Maybe it had nothing to do with the boots but a deeper, underlying problem within their young and unstable marriage. Whatever it was, I knew I made the right decision and vowed to myself to pay attention to the Lord’s cues so I could continue spreading bits of His hope and blessing—even in the form of second-hand boots.

Plenty more instances of similar encounters have occurred in the years since the one above, but nothing more memorable than what happened in early 2019. While serving in my church’s Wednesday night youth ministry, I ran out to my van to grab cookies I brought for my high school group.  I overheard another parking lot conversation between a man and whoever was on the other end of his phone call. I was in and out of earshot, but concluded he must’ve been speaking with his wife or a woman of extreme importance. I could sense the dire tone in his voice and instantly felt the urge to tell him, “Fight for it.”

God placed those words on my heart so heavily that I could feel pressure in my chest. I knew God’s prompting in me was timely and intentional, but I was unsure if this man would kindly receive my assumption and invasion into his privacy. In the seconds between closing my passenger door and approaching him, I convinced myself to remain quiet and reentered the building.

Instant regret flooded my mind as I questioned why my muscles overruled my heart. My entire body felt stiff and my focus grew foggy. I speak so frequently to the teenagers within our youth ministry about being willing to move when called. About reflecting the Lord in their words and actions. About extending kindness and grace so enormously that God’s presence is never overlooked. But in a moment in which I was prompted to step out of comfort and speak life into a situation, I utterly failed. In a moment in which I was prompted to speak God-given words to a person who needed them, I ignored the cue.

I carried that failure and wondered of that man’s relationship for months. Maybe I had overthought the whole thing.  Maybe I wasn’t a necessary instrument in his life after all. I tried forgetting that I had ignored the Lord’s cue for a while…until God put that man right back in front of me. Literally.

I stood over a spill at church one Wednesday evening, preventing anyone from slipping and waiting for someone to bring a mop and towels, when that man approached to help clean the mess. The next week, my check-in badge malfunctioned and he was the person paged to resolve the issue. Two weeks in a row, for two very different reasons, I stood face-to-face with him. It was unquestionable that God wanted my cooperation this time, so I swallowed my pride, fought against my nerves, and prepared to share with him what I hadn’t faced the months before.

I am positively certain he thought I was crazy, but I feel like God had already worked so much in his situation that my contribution was simply icing on the cake. He shared with me how God proved Himself faithful in that relationship over the past few months. I was relieved to learn that my hesitation months prior didn’t hinder this man’s story, but shocked and humbled to learn the Lord had also prompted him to fight for the relationship. Through Scripture placed on his heart, God instructed him to stay the course and “fight.” Fight! The single word given to me the day I overheard his phone call. The single word I kept to myself.

I felt so embarrassed that I had deliberately ignored the cue, but I was grateful to see the lesson. This man’s story became my story and revealed to me that, just like God had called others to participate in my life through their yielding, He also calls me to do the same. The prompting He placed on my heart so heavily that day was timely and intentional. It was about being willing to move when I was called. About reflecting the Lord in my words and actions. Months after ignoring the cue, I learned the importance of yielding when I’m called.

“Moses said to the Lord, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’”
Exodus 4:10-12 (NIV)