What about when God speaks, and we don't like the answer?
Into the midst of my personal cloud of unknowing God finally spoke. I thought I heard that I should read Psalm 99 and verse 6 & 7 caught my eye and my heart. It says, "Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel was among those who called on his name; they called on the LORD and he answered them. 7 He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud; " Since my name is Samuel and I had been telling everyone I felt like I was in a cloud and I was asking God to speak - this verse hit me like a ton of bricks! Amazingly, within 3 hours I had been contacted by three companies, and ultimately was offered jobs at all three!
Sounds wonderful and amazing doesn't it? In a large part it was, the only problem was that the best job I was offered was for less than 1/2 what I was making before, in a completely different industry. I really loved the job, the people, everything about it - except it meant we would have to sell the house. My biggest problem with this all, was that I never heard God say that we needed to sell the house - we were forced to that point through circumstances. Here I had been seeking God every day for 6 months and He never once mentioned that we needed to sell the house! I couldn't believe this was what God meant when He said He had taken care of it all, but we saw no other choice.
We spent quite a bit fixing up the house, eating further into our meager savings, hoping that we would have a quick sale and be able to move on with our new lives, in a smaller home, with a bit of equity. Again, we were seeking the Lord every day, praying for a buyer - and weeks turned into months and the housing market got softer and softer. It soon became apparent that to get an offer on our house, we would have had to drop the asking price lower than what we paid for it 11 years earlier! I couldn't believe that this was what God meant when He said He had taken care of it all, but we saw no other option!
Why wouldn't God have told us what we were going to need to do from the start? Why remain silent about such important matters, and allow us to be buffeted by circumstances, backed into a corner with no other option? Even though I heard God speak, saw His apparent direction, I clearly wasn't liking what I was hearing or seeing. Again, my main issue was that He hadn't told us what He was doing! Why was He quiet? Clearly God was doing something - I just wasn't sure what!
