God's Voice

Recently I've been thinking a lot about how God speaks to us, how we listen to God, and the spiritual gift of prophesy. I do believe in spiritual gifts and that gifts such as prophesy can be exhibited by people who have the holy spirit within them. However there are also plenty of 'false prophets' and I am cautious when people say 'God told me this...' So many people have said that and weren't proven right; they may have been lying to convince people or perhaps they just wanted it to be true and imagined that God spoke to them. It's easy to misinterpret small coincidences or signs as more than they are. So although I don't automatically accept 'God said..' as undeniable truth, I will keep it in mind and will see if it comes to pass (although generally I won't base my actions solely on it). I can at least evaluate it based on whether it is consistent with God's character as portrayed by the Bible. If the message seems contrary to God's love, holiness, and righteousness, more than likely it came from a source other than God.

Anyways, I was thinking about the role of prophesy or God's guidance in my own life. God speaks in different ways. Most of the time I feel God's presence and sense that he's speaking to me in times of need when I am desperately seeking Him for help and comfort. And the end result is generally that I get some answers I'm seeking, a piece of wisdom that seems like it is too powerful and insightful to have originated from me, and a profound sense of peace. But sometimes it seems like the guidance is more specific, and it generally comes when I'm not even looking for it.

But there were times when I felt that God was speaking more specifically about my future... I don't know if I have the gift of prophesy, but I do know that I should pay attention if I feel that God is trying to get something across to me. And the times when this has happened, my responses varied (possibly depending on whether I agreed with the message or wanted it to be true). I also need to be careful interpreting messages and signs (is this message really from God or is it from me).
(1) Regarding the future:
While in Peru, I got a message which I felt/feel is from God which immediately changed my future plans. We were looking for a site to put a station in a remote area between Cusco and Juliaca where there just weren't many options. Eventually, we found a small road leading down to a river and across a bridge to a small, picturesque, hidden-away village. Now by small I mean like a dozen residents or something like that. A couple of families. There, in the middle of nowhere, I saw a sign saying 'World Vision' a Christian world relief organization that I had supported in the past. It was the first time I had actually seen it in action. I later saw other signs and places where WorldVision was working in Southern Peru. Upon seeing the WorldVision sign, I immediately felt... I guess a sense of joy and purpose. And hope. All my life I've wanted to do things that would somehow lead to being able to help people in need. I originally decided to do geophysics and study earthquakes because I thought it would allow me to be consistent with my undergraduate studies of physics while getting me closer to where I wanted to be, helping people who have been affected by natural disasters. Maybe, I thought, I could work on predicting earthquake hazards and helping people prepare for earthquakes. Or earthquake early warning. But when the project I ended up working on seemed increasingly distant from this purpose and not relevant to society, it seemed like I gave up, lost interest, and my performance most likely suffered as a result.
But back to world relief work... my original plan had been to get a PhD, find a postdoc, and then decide what to do (something involving geophysics and applying to USGS). But in Peru, I realized that maybe God had been preparing me for a different purpose. He's given me a love for traveling, and a desire to help, and I was thinking that some of the happiest times of my life were when I was serving God on mission trips in Mexico. In particular, this one event that happened in Mexico stands out. There was this Christian woman named Carmen with lots of children (eight or something like that). They were packed into this small, square home that looked more like a cardboard box the size of the bedroom in my apartment. And since my apartment is inexpensive, I can tell you that it's not a very large bedroom. It was a bit stronger than cardboard, but not by much. Anyways, Carmen's home was on a steep dirt hill that had been affected by recent rains and a mudslide was pushing up against her house and threatening to send it down the cliffside. Our mission was to dig away the dirt and mud pressing against the backside of the house, reinforce the walls of the house, and build a cement walkway and a cement retaining wall (containing cement bricks) to project the house from future slides. One of the most powerful moments was when my teammates forced me to take a break by taking my shovel away (since I hadn't wanted to stop working), and using only the word 'hola' I somehow managed to get a team of children together to mount our own attack on the intruding mud. Carmen's children had been watching us dig and wanted to help save their home, so we gathered small sticks and stones, got down in the mud, and quietly started digging together. The hole may not have been deep or in an area that actually needed a hole, but somehow working with the children as a team was deeply memorable and moving to me. I can't really describe it, you would have had to have been there. And it's amazing how shoveling mud, mixing cement, or doing construction projects can make me so happy.
So anyways, long story not very short, after seeing the World Vision stuff in Peru, I decided that after getting my PhD, I should travel and apply for a relief organization like World Vision. Because it's consistent with my passions, I feel like God called me to do it, and it gives me a hope and purpose that I had previously been lacking while getting burned out with physics and academics in general.

Having said this, I don't really think this is necessarily a long term occupational goal. It's just 'Stage A' after finishing up at Caltech. Maybe I'll be traveling and working abroad for 6 months, a year, or maybe more. I don't know. I just feel like I should give it a chance. Obviously it depends on where I'm at in life. If married, I might adjust the plans or timing since my future is not just about me and what I want. 'Stage B' is joining the real world; settling down and looking for a job. Which probably would be a job which is academic in nature or involving geophysics (teaching, oil industry, etc). I don't know what this will be but after Peru I set my immediate sights on pursuing 'Stage A'; whenever asked I told people that after Caltech I will be taking a short break from academics to travel and pursue world relief type work. And I took a first responder course to get some basic medical training which could prove useful for such a purpose.

(2) Another instance when I felt a clear message about the future, involved a relational type situation that I heard this voice telling me from the beginning would not work out in the end. But I ignored it since I really wanted it to be successful. And although it developed for years with lots of ups and downs, it generally always felt like there was something holding the friendship back and keeping it from taking off. Me, situations, issues, etc. I didn't always understand why things weren't working out as I had been hoping and waiting for them to. I basically said that there were plenty of opportunities for things to end, and if it wasn't in God's plan, why didn't it just end when it had the chance. Why would God let things come to pass if they weren't good? Why does God allow me to pursue things that will bring me pain? Somethings I just wished I could see the whole picture and see beyond the things that I want for my immediate future. But there's this issue of free will and the question of whether God has a specific plan for my future. And what if I go a different direction. God obviously knows what I will decide to do. But even my mistakes can have a purpose; hardships can cause me to seek God, grow in experience, knowledge, and character, and can help me get to the place I need to go. Without the mistakes I've made, I wouldn't be where I am today. Am I where I need to be at this current time? The place where God wants me to be? I don't know that, but I do know that (1) I should be satisfied and thankful for what God has given me and done for me and (2) God's not finished with me yet. I still need to strive to be more like God and to become the woman God wants me to be. This generally is what I've felt is God's purpose and will, it's not really about what I'm doing (careerwise, etc), but about who I am. And if the person I am is loving and intent on following God, the actions I will want to take would involve loving others, showing God's love and hopefully pointing people towards God.
But my point is not exactly that I should make mistakes in order to learn from the hardships I face and turn back toward God, the point is that God wants what is best for me and I should pay attention when he speaks to me. Even if it goes against what I want.

(3) And a final thing I've been wondering about which I am not sure whether it's a message from God is this highly unusual dream I had during my last trip to Peru. I've been open to the idea that God can speak to me through dreams. And I had a few dreams in my childhood that were highly symbolic (like allegories or parables) that seemed to be getting a message across; like be pure or beware of evil; seek refuge in God and the church. But never a dream that was highly specific and no dream has come true. Generally I don't dream anyway, and even if I do, it's generally just related to what I've been exposed to recently or nothing meaningful at all. And the dreams generally aren't particularly good or bad; at least they don't provoke any emotional response. It's like how watching TV doesn't effect me because I'm desensitized and I recognize that what's happening isn't real. Which is why I find it interested that people cry during movies. But that's off the subject. This dream was completely different; I remembered it perfectly, it was totally specific, and it was the most emotionally intense dream I've had. I was really shaken up upon waking. And nothing had been happening which could provoke such an emotional dream. Things had been going fine.
Four circumstances happened in the dream (1) my Mom had died which caused me to sob miserably (2) I was offered a boring, tedious job I knew would be painful for me (with the justification that I could handle it better than anyone else because I was used to suffering), (3) something bad happened to my car (4) I was walking with Paul and Robin Otto who were probably being spiritual mentors to me. They kindly asked how I was doing and I broke down and started crying again because everything that had come before had been so painful.

So my hope was that this was just a normal bad dream, despite being a highly unusual dream for me, because I have no past history of prophetic dreams or dreams coming true. But the clarity and intensity of the dream had me worried. Especially when very soon afterwards my Mom told me that she was having problems with her thyroids. I remembered the dream and was extra worried until the Ukiah doctors checked a lump in her thyroids and said it wasn't cancer. So I assumed that the dream wasn't a message from God. But then she got a second opinion from Stanford doctors later, found out there was actually cancer in her thyroid, and would need to get an operation to remove it. So I started worrying again. But then the operation went smoothly except for destroying her parathyroids and I got confused. Should I believe that the dream has meaning? Is my Mom still going to die soon? Or did God have mercy and spare her because of my prayers and the prayers of so many other people? Maybe it was just a warning of what could happen if we didn't pray? Does God change his mind or are prophesies inevitably going to happen? I was looking at the story from Genesis 18:16-33 where Abraham was pleading to God to save Sodom and managed to negotiate so that God said he would not destroy Sodom if 10 righteous people could be found in the city. But apparently there weren't and the city got wiped out (although Lot was spared). This is most commonly used as an example that God can change or delay what he said he would do as a result of prayers.
I still don't know what to think, but I do know that something bad recently happened to my car. And I know that I don't enjoy my current job already. The Ottos would definitely be my first choice for spiritual mentors although they don't live close to me. And as for my Mom, I guess I'm just hoping that she'll be okay since God has protected her so far. Maybe the dream was just a dream.

Anyways, there's more that I could say. I'll conclude by saying that God does speak, we just need to learn how to listen. And when God says to do something, it's probably best to obey.