Divine Speaking

Sometimes the Word of God comes to us from unexpected and surprising sources.  I remember a preacher one time who said that God might speak to us through our wife or husband.  Most married folks will look everywhere else for God's Word to be spoken!  I remember, too, a pastoral visit in a home while at the St. John Church in Columbus. After getting in the house, I discovered that the woman of the house was more than slightly inebriated.  Our conversation took a turn I never could have anticipated.  Somehow the conversation turned to disciplining children in the home.  

I grew up with parents who spanked me more than once for some growing up infraction and so when asked if I spanked my children, I acknowledged that I did as was done to me.  She then asked me, "Rev. Strickland, do you hit people other than your children?"  When I said, "No," she asked, "Why then do you hit your children?"  I had no answer and my children never got another spanking.   It was a Word that seemed to me as one which came from God.  

I would not have thought a woman who had too much to drink would be for me the voice of God, but such is exactly what she became.  We can never rule out a way God might speak to us.  Moses heard the divine voice in a burning bush, Samuel heard it in the still of the night, and Joseph heard it in a dream.  The reality is that God speaks to us and there is no limiting how He might choose to do it.