Chapter 4: God’s Call Of The Heart

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cited above as your guide to knowing God’s will. When you can discern God’s will for your life and you choose to obey it, God truly has your heart.

When you give your heart to God, you won’t have any problem saying: “Let it be according to Your Word” like Mary did when she was informed that she was going to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit. You can just imagine the family dynamics of that one. Can’t you? Still, do you think

it mattered to Mary? No. God had her heart.

Mary’s prayer was the same kind as Jabez’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 4:10. It was a simple prayer from the heart. It was: Use me Lord. It was: Have your way with me Lord. When you can pray like Mary and Jabez and

really mean it, God truly has your heart.

These are some examples of the many people whom God has called and who said yes. They were not perfect people. Many had problems of sin. However, they all decided to give God their heart and start anew with Him.

For me too, a day came when I suddenly met God. Like others, I had ignored His call and wandered in my own wilderness for the first thirty-two years of my life. Like others, God had never stopped calling me even when I wasn’t really listening. Then one day “I knew” Him. I had wandered

enough and struggled enough on my own. Much like Jacob and others, I had my own baggage full of sin. It didn’t matter with God. He was patiently waiting for me to exhaust my options. I think that is exactly what happened to me on a spring day in May of 1978 when I finally looked upward and

said: “I understand God. From now on you lead and I will follow.”

That was the day I stopped trying to live life on my own. That was the day my intellect became insufficient and my spirit started to kick in. Looking back I now recognize all of the flag waving that God had done to

get my attention in my early years. How He orchestrated my life and placed me in position to get the Word eventually. Why did it take me thirty-two years? That is a question I now ask with tears in my eyes. Tears of sadness that so much of my life was not lived to the fullness it could have been had I

lived it with Him. The tears come from a repentant heart knowing the depth of the love that God must have for a sinner like me.