Is that really you, Lord?
Lessons on Hearing God from the Story of Youth with a Mission
Youth with a Mission (YWAM) is now a global organization with 18,000 staff, operating in over 1,100 locations in 180 countries. But it all started with a handful of young people learning to hear God’s voice. The incredible story is recorded in Loren Cunningham’s book, Is That Really You, Lord? – I highly recommend it!
- David Legge, Dwellings Team
YWAM’s webpage (ywamsalem.org) summarizes the story:
In 1956, 21-year-old Loren Cunningham was on a mission trip in the Bahamas to evangelize and gather young people together. He found himself kneeling beside his bed, asking God about the message he was about to speak that evening to the youth. At the time, young people were not considered candidates for missions, and Loren was struggling to inspire the youth with a compelling vision.
As he prayed about this, he looked up at the white walls of his room, and God responded with an unexpected vision that would lay the foundation for one of the largest volunteer mission movements in history - that would soon become Youth with a Mission. Loren recounts this moment of looking up at the walls of his room while praying and describes what he saw:
"Suddenly, I was looking at a map of the world, only the map was alive and moving! I could see all the continents, and waves were crashing onto their shores. Each wave went onto a continent, then receded, then came up further until it covered the continent completely. The waves became young people - kids my age and even younger - covering all the continents of the globe. They were talking to people on the street corners and outside bars. They were going from house to house and preaching the Gospel."
This was the vision for Youth With a Mission. Loren had asked God to speak to him, and God had answered. A world-changing modern missions movement was birthed - through a young person’s obedience to God’s voice. Why should this surprise us when we see how the original twelve young disciples turned the ancient world upside down? (Acts 17:6)
How can we also hear this world-changing voice? How can we know if that’s really you, Lord? If we are seeking to hear the voice of God, we may want to consider Jesus’ example of fasting in the wilderness before he began His ministry. This is what God brought to Loren’s mind one day early in the ministry with YWAM when Loren had prayed, “Father….I’m trying to listen. Please help me to see the next step you have in mind.” Could God be calling Loren to fast?
Loren fasted for a period of time that he describes as “a companionable silence.” About three days into the fast, God began to show Loren areas of his life that needed attention and even repentance. Loren comments, “By the end of the week as I began to come slowly off my fast, I realized that I – and perhaps YWAM – had just passed a turning point common to all who seek to hear the voice of God. We can hear the Lord more clearly if we come to Him with a clean heart.”
Before looking at Loren’s more practical pointers for hearing God’s voice, we shouldn’t rush ahead of this need for confession and clearing away all sinful debris out of the way. “We can hear the Lord more clearly if we come to Him with a clean heart” – a turning point common to those seeking God’s voice. Why not give God time and space to uncover and highlight what we often try to hide?
Loren also warns about how pride had started to develop among the YWAM team because God was using the movement. It was tempting to think that YWAM was God’s “favorite tool; they seemed to be the most spiritual.” In chapter 12, The Danger of Success, Loren observes that success is the most dangerous obstacle to accurately hearing God’s voice.
It is easy to turn away from the Giver of gifts (even the gift of hearing His voice). Guidance is, first of all, a relationship with the Guide. The purging of pride in Loren came by the death of some significant dreams and, consequently, some loss of reputation – but from these came resurrection and glory for God.
Loren learned “Three Steps to Hearing God” from a YWAM mentor, Joy Dawson, that he and the YWAM team began to practice:
Take Christ’s authority to silence the enemy (so you know counterfeits are not misleading you).
Ask the Lord to clear from your mind any presumptions and preconceived ideas (we all have biases).
Wait, believing God will speak in the way and time He chooses (the Bible, audible or inner voice, dreams, visions, etc.).
As a community, the original YWAM-ers would sit and listen for God and take what each was hearing seriously. From their early days, they believed that God could give the same message to all the disparate people in a room, even the same chapters and verses of scripture! They called this the “Wise Men Principle. As the Wise Men individually followed the star and were all led to the same Christ, so God will often use two or more spiritually sensitive people to confirm what He is telling you (2 Corinthians 13:1).”
If you’ve tried these and other means to hear God’s voice, but it’s still not working for you, or you used to hear the Lord, but you’ve lost direction, Loren relays a helpful lesson he and his team learned from Duncan Campbell of the Hebridean Revival, who had taught in their YWAM schools for three years.
Duncan Campbell taught them a story about Elisha and the school of prophets. One of Elisha’s students had lost the head off his ax. Elisha instructed the young man to return to where he last knew he had it. There at that spot, God again gave him the tool he needed. Sometimes, Duncan Campbell said, “we momentarily lose our axe heads – our best cutting-edge tool for ministry, the clear voice of God. It helps to go back to the place where we last knew we had heard the sharp edge of God’s voice.”
PROMPT: Where was the last place you knew God was speaking to you? Do you need some companionable silence to deal with any debris blocking the voice of God to you? This is worth spending some time on. Look at the impact hearing God’s voice can have on the world! Why not get started by finding space, bringing some needs to God and implementing Joy Dawson’s “Three Steps to Hearing God”?
