My students, mentees, clients, and family know this about me: I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in God-incidents. Scripture tells us that God cares so much about each of us that He counts the hairs on our head. It is my belief that God is moving in and ordaining every second of every day.

And it’s our choice as believers to listen and see and recognize His presence and His voice in our lives.

It’s important to pay attention to HOW God moves in your life. For me, one of the ways He shows up is in “out of the blue” requests from others, which has historically looked like stepping in to serve in a place where I felt quite unqualified. God often talks to us through others (and sometimes even through others who are NOT believers!) Lately, He has also be giving me words of knowledge or impressions. Some I sense are for my own knowledge, and others are for me to share with people.

It’s not easy to have this conversation: “God gave me a word of knowledge for you….”
But we’re called to be immediately obedient. We’re called to trust so implicitly in God’s love for us that we act on what He tells us.

But what if what He tells us is hard, uncomfortable, or feels almost confrontational?
In those moments I think it’s important to remember the heart of the Father. Innumerous times in scripture we are told the heart of God is Love. That is a truth we need to lean in to.
If the heart of the Father is LOVE, and we hear a word or get an impression that is difficult for us to imagine speaking, I believe the next step is for us to engage God and ask, “What is your heart for this situation/person?”

The “ask” of God may be difficult, but the “why” behind the ask is most certainly rooted in love. And scripture confirms this truth over and over.

Was the “ask” of the teenage virgin, Mary, difficult? YES!!

“You’ll be an unwed teenage mother in a time when the penalty for THAT reality is being stoned to death. Is that ok with you, Mary?”
Who says yes to that?
Someone who knows the Heart of Love and the heart of God.

Because the heart of the Father in that request was the salvation of the world.
God is never changing. He is who He has always been. And that means the “hard asks” are rooted in Love. That is a truth we can lean on.

And here’s the lesson: Sometimes the “hard word” we get is hard because of the lens through which we are looking. None of us sees the world the same way. This is most important to consider when the “hard word” is for another person. But this is where we get to engage in a conversation with God and ask him to give us HIS understanding of how this word relates to a person’s life.

What an awesome privilege to ask God to help us see the world through someone else’s reality.