Did We Hear God Right?

Hey I have a question for you! How do I know, and I mean like really know what the Lord’s will is for my life?

Am I the only one who has wrestled with this question? Obviously, I am not.

I can remember when I was in 6th grade and my brother came home from a youth summer camp raving about the preachings of a pastor named Neil McClendon. I didn’t know anything about this man other than the simple fact that my 9th grade brother was impressed with him. Naturally as any 6th grade boy might do, I looked him up on google and then sent him an email. My subject, “How do I know what God’s will is for my life?” I still have the emailed saved in my google account archive and I certainly find it sweet how desperately I wanted to know what the Lord wanted me to do with my life.

In truth, I am still seeking the answer to this question. Moreover, I am still asking the Lord. In seasons like the one my wife and I are walking through right now, I find myself pursuing the answer with even greater intensity.

For Vesta and I, the last few months have been trying to say the least. Certainly not what we anticipated in the first year of our marriage and not how we expected the Lord to reveal His plan for us.

On May 1st we left our jobs at Grace Church St. Louis anticipating a move to Kansas City. For months prior to our departure we looked for housing and jobs. We searched meticulously and made as many connections as we could with our contacts at the International House of Prayer. Our desire was to be in the Prayer Room together for a number of months to seek intimacy with the Lord. There were options for housing and jobs, but nothing seemed to fit or feel right. With a newborn baby on the way, we knew certain accommodations were necessary. After multiple day trips to KC to check out prospective opportunities, and with time running short on our apartment lease in St. Louis, I felt like the Lord was leading me to spend a week fasting and to ask Him for clarity.

That right there is an example of understanding, maybe more importantly listening, to the will of the Lord. Sometimes He just gives little nudges or ideas that will ultimately, if we choose to trust and obey, lead us closer to Him.

I started to fast and on the third day I was driving to Johnson’s Shut Ins with my dear friend Byron for a camping trip. (Check out the related blog post to see some pictures and read about our adventure!) On the way down, Byron and I were talking about my situation and about the challenges Vesta and I were facing as we tried to understand the Lord’s will regarding our move to KC. Even processing these things out loud with my friend proved to be tremendously clarifying.

In the midst of our conversation I was struck with the value of seeing things from a 30,000 ft. perspective. Or even the idea of having a five-year plan. I started to verbalize what I was thinking to Byron and things became more clear. He laughingly said, “It sounds like you are getting the answer!” I knew that when I got home from this trip, Vesta and I needed to sit down and write out the vision of our family and even come up with a five-year plan. As Byron and I continued to talk, some scripture passages started coming to mind.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

“Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.”

Proverbs 29:18

I will expound more on these passages in a moment.

So upon my arrival home, Vesta and I sat down and we pulled out a journal and began to write and pray. We prayed about everything and we felt a great deal of peace sweep over us as we began to talk about what we wanted for our family and how we wanted to see our family grow over the next few years.

Then we asked ourselves this important question. What do we want our family dynamic to look like in a few years time? We both felt overwhelmingly like we needed to keep working on strengthening the relationships in our family, both immediate and extended. For us, that provided an important answer that we needed from the Lord.

We are staying in St. Louis!

But could it really be that simple? Is understanding and following the leading of the Lord as easy as examining your own desires and then acting on them? I think it can be if the desire is a God-glorifying one and if you feel deep spiritual peace about it. For Vesta and I, family is an extremely important establishment. We highly value the relationships we have with our parents and our in-laws, as well as our siblings, and nieces. Considering the fact that we have a baby boy on the way, we absolutely want to stay close to them so our son can see them and know them and likewise they can know him. When we examined the reality that our baby is coming in four months, we both felt a peace about staying close to home.

In this case, I believe understanding the will of the Lord can be this simple. Personally, I know that throughout my life I have overcomplicated this more times than I can count. Sometimes however, our desires do not align with the Lord’s will at all. And sometimes we can try to do something that we think is the Lord’s will and it actually isn’t. I also believe we can confuse our own will with the Lord’s will and that might be the most common thing believers do. That is another topic of discussion though and one I am still learning about.

So what now?

You might be wondering about our desire to be a part of the International House of Prayer. The truth is, we still feel a strong call and urge to be a part of a house of prayer. Whether that is in St. Louis or Kansas City is not the most important issue though. We truly believe that the Lord is on the move in a profound way right now and this is a crucial moment in the history of humanity. We have an opportunity to grow closer to the Lord and as Ron Tucker is known for saying, “It will never be easier than it is right now to gain intimacy with the Lord.”

For us, being a part of a prayer room represents an opportunity to grow in intimacy with the Lord through corporate prayer and worship on a more intense scale than simply going to church once or twice a week. We have every intention of being a part of the prayer room culture here in St. Louis and taking our personal intimacy with the Lord to new levels. I plan to continue leading worship in the Prayer Room at Grace Church on occasion and we are very excited to bring our new born child into a house of prayer. That being, our very own home.

We are going to make our house, a house of prayer. Our house is filled with times of worship and prayer and that will not stop.

Regarding employment, Vesta and I are looking for jobs here in St. Louis and preparing for the birth of our child. By the grace of the Lord, our apartment was still available to lease for another year even though we told the landlord we were moving.

We both feel like the Lord has called us out of vocational church ministry for a season and we are pressing into Him to understand what the reason for that is. We love the church. We love God’s people. We love ministering to others. God loves the church and He has called us to love and serve one another. We will not stop doing that.

Pray for us that we find jobs quickly. We have been applying frantically at many places. Personally, I am looking to get into new home construction and project management. So if you know any people that I should meet, please help a brother out!

And now the big answer to the question. Did we hear God right?

I absolutely believe we heard the Lord right. He told us to step down from being on staff at Grace and we followed. He showed us that He was desiring to grow our faith and we followed. Can I explain why everything that happened over the last two months occurred? I cannot.

I can say this though. The Lord has tested our faith. We have been challenged to press into Him like never before. We have certainly had days or even weeks of confusion and frustration. We have had moments of doubt. All the while, He remained the same. Furthermore, He has proven to us that He can be trusted and that He is faithful. We have not gone a single day without a home, food, water, electricity, and money to pay for gas.

The author of the book of Proverbs implores the reader to “trust in the Lord with their whole heart…” Every single corner of our heart, we must give to Him. Surrendering all of our insecurities and all of our desires. This is not easy. As a husband and a father I find it especially challenging as I reckon with the cultural pressures placed on men to be the “provider” for the family. The truth is, only God can provide. He holds the riches of the whole universe in His hands. Yes, I still need to do my part, follow the Lord, and work with my hands and feet. The Lord is the one who ultimately provides.

Then the king of Israel writes on; “…lean not on your own understanding, acknowledging Him in all your ways and He will make your path straight.” Well, that is quite counterintuitive isn’t it? I truly have to acknowledge that I am not the wise one. No amount of knowledge I have gained compares to the infinite understanding the Lord has of all things. He is the creator after all.

I love that promise though. “He will make my paths straight.” I have clung to those words in the past few weeks like never before. Praise be to the Lord for following through on His promises and being the faithful one in this relationship.

Then there is the whole idea of having prophetic vision for the purpose of being anchored in the Lord and what He has shown you. In the context of these scriptures, prophetic vision doesn’t mean seeing into the future with temporal clarity. It means having a plan based on what the Lord has put in your heart and carefully listening to Him, seeking His peace as a guiding rod, in all that you do.

Vesta and I have put the vision for our family on paper and given it to the Lord and asked Him to guide us step by step. “Man establishes the desires of his heart but the Lord determines his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

So here we are, looking for jobs and waiting for the Lord to establish our steps. Many of you have supported us financially and your gifts have blown our minds. We give all the glory to the Lord and we pray that He will bless you financially in ways that blow your minds!

I can safely say through all of this, we were listening closely to the Lord. We did hear Him correctly. He did prove His faithfulness, and He did provide for our every need.

And He still does…

So there is the update!

If you want to hear Vesta and I talk about all of this in more depth, check out her podcast and the episode titled, “Did we hear God right?”

Thank you for reading. We love you. We thank the Lord for your prayers and your encouragement in our lives.

Be blessed in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord!

With love,
Stuart Isaac & Vesta Benze Harrier