Go west.

What do you do with something like that?  When God speaks and tells you to go west?  You could:

a. Freak out.

b. Hyperventilate.

c. Figure out how to make it happen.

d. Doubt that God even spoke to you in the first place.

e.  All of the above.

Unfortunately, I think this is precisely the point where we stop and convince ourselves that God does not speak to us.  Mostly because we are terrified that we will have to take action if we really believe that he did speak to us.  It’s self-sufficent suicide to trust God enough to move  into action.  So sometimes we doubt we heard him in the first place – we can’t be responsible for what we don’t know right?

There is an epic scene in Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail where there are a series of tests that have to been passed to enter into the antechamber where the Holy Grail is kept.  One of the tests involve taking a “step of faith” across a chasm.  Indiana, in an effort to save his dying father, risks his life to take that first step and smiles a sheepish Harrison Ford smile as he discovers that the chasm is an illusion.  There is a natural stone bridge there, camouflaged by the texture and color of the stone walls.

We all have to pass this test to enter into deeper relationship with Jesus, some more than once.  Maybe you’re facing your test right now.  Maybe you’ve yet to experience one and you’re wondering what does that even look like.  It looks something like this:

Go west

That was the direction that my foster-sister Teri and her husband Brian heard almost a year and a half ago.

Sounds crazy. 

Sounds irresponsible. 

Sounds like God.

Teri and Brian do not know a living soul out there and more than that, they didn’t know which state – let alone which city God wanted them to move to.  Just go west.

You might be thinking, “God doesn’t do stuff like that.”

Check this out:

God told Abram: “Leave your country, your family, and your father’s home for a land that I will show you.

^4-6 So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot with him, along with all the possessions and people they had gotten in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan and arrived safe and sound.

Genesis 12:1-6 (The Message)

It doesn’t say anything about Abram questioning whether or not he really heard God.

He just went.

Now if you’re new to hearing the voice of God, and he’s asking you to do something crazy – ask him to confirm it through his Word (the Bible) and people who do hear the voice of God (people who hear and obey, preferably).

So, what did Teri and Brian do?

They pull an Abram.  They didn’t know where to go in relation to west so they just went.

Not kidding.

They felt like they were drawn more towards the Northwest U.S. so they took a road trip.  They drove and explored until they felt like God had pin-pointed an area in Idaho that they would eventually settle in.  Their spirits confirmed what God had already spoken.  So then, they drove back to Minnesota, now to wait on God for his timing.  They prayed and waited, prayed some more, waited some more, and believed that they really did hear God.

God spoke again, a year and a half later than when they first heard “go west”:

Now is the time.

So Brian applied for a job and will be interviewing next week for it.  Teri’s job is allowing her to work from home once they settle out there.  And all of a sudden that chasm doesn’t seem so impossible to cross.

God said go west.

Teri & Brian said okay.

And that impossible chasm doesn’t seem that impossible anymore.