Stop, Do, and Slow Down

Ever since I was a child, really as far back as I can remember, at the age of 2 years old, I have had experiences where the Holy Spirit has been working to teach me to listen to God.  Not just to listen, but to also obey.  Experience after experience has led me step by step to understand how to hear and then to make a choice to listen and obey or not.  This is my journey of Faith!  Some of these experiences have called in angels to save me in ways I didn't think possible.  I would like to tell you of a few of these times.  

When I was a teenager, our young men's and young women group went for a trip up the canyon.  Our leaders told us to explore and have fun and to meet them back at the car at a certain time.  We were very surprised to be let loose on our own and with excitement ran to explore freely.  I went with a group of young women who were my friends and we began hiking.  when we got to the top of a mountain, one of the girls said "lets ski down these rocks on our butts" and a lot of the other girls agreed it would be fun.  A feeling came to not follow them, but I dismissed it and shook my head thinking it was just me.  One by one, they all sat down and started to pretend to ski on their butt down the rocks on the hill.  I sat down and just before I pushed off heard a strong thought in my head "don't follow them, stay there" I watched as they were laughing and having fun and pushed off from the top and began to ski on my butt.  We went down a little ways and one of the girls told everyone we had better stop as we were coming up to the edge soon.  All of them stopped and were able to stand up.  When I tried to stop the rocks seemed like they were rolling me along so quickly I couldn't get my footing to stop, and I somehow picked up speed.  I turned around on my stomach and began looking for anything I could grab hold of as I saw the edge of the cliff approaching.  my nails scraped the rocks as I searched for any pocket of earth to hold onto long enough to slow me down or stop me but nothing was working.  I looked up at my young women friends and their faces were now white with fear as they all began screaming for me to stop and put my feet down.  I tried but to no avail my feet just slid on the rocks and caused me to flop around in a desperate manner.  I looked again at the edge of the cliff and knew within seconds I would be falling to my death as it had to be a good 100 ft drop.  I prayed "Father I am so sorry I didn't listen, please save me" and just then I heard "put your left foot more to the left" so I moved my left food to the left and a pebble the size of the end of my thumb seemed to catch my left foot and stop me just as I reached the edge of the cliff.  I was stunned and I knew that it wasn't the pebble that caught me.  There was no way physics would have allowed for that.  My young women friends stood in shock and amazement that they had not just witnessed my death as they tried to figure out a way to get me off the cliff.  They determined it would not be safe for one of them to go down and pull me up by themselves, so instead they formed a chain arm in arm and hand in hand until one of them could reach me and pull me up.  Once I was up, they began to address my wounds.  Bloody hands from scraping the mountain and the rocks, bloody knees, ripped pants in the butt area and some sore legs and feet were all that I walked away or rather was carried away with that day.  This was only one of my spiritual life lessons God began to teach me to trust him.  

Often, we think that the thoughts in our heads and hearts are only ours.  But we are given a conscience.  This conscience isn't just something that's there; it's a guide.  This is what the scriptures refer to as the light of Christ.  We are born with it.  If we listen to and obey the light of Christ, it brings more light into our souls.  If we choose to ignore it (as I did in the example of skiing on the mountain) then we often inflict pain on our bodies, trauma on our hearts, and we start the lesson over, as time and time again we begin to learn how to trust God and have faith in how we hear him.  

Fast forward to an adult with a young child at home, working the graveyard shift at a hotel, I was just finishing up my night audit reports when I had the thought "go lock the door".  I looked at the clock and realized that it was 10:50 pm.  The hotel policy was that we could lock the door at 11 pm.  I shrugged and said "yep it's almost time to lock the door" and then went back to what I was working on for my night audit reports.  The feeling of urgency came again with the thought this time "GO lock the door now".  Just then the phone rang, at the same time a customer had just exited the elevator and I could see they were headed for the front desk where I was standing.  I said back to my thought "I will as soon as I help this customer"  She wanted some coffee packets so I gave her some and the phone rang one more time and I picked it up just as the person on the opposite end of the phone hung up.  The thought came again only this time sounded like it was a last warning "Go lock the door NOW!" I looked at the clock again and realized it was 11 pm now and went to get the keys to go and lock the door.  Just then the customer that had gotten the coffee packets approached the front desk again, and I shrugged off the warning and went to help her instead.  The thought of telling her to wait for just a minute crossed my mind but I dismissed it also.  I finished helping her and she left and went up the elevator.  Just as I grabbed the keys to lock the front door, I saw a man in black with a black ski mask come in the front door and it felt like my heart dropped to the floor with a huge thud.  I knew it was to late.  I glanced up at the clock and it was 11:05 pm.  He sauntered up to the front desk and demmanded I give him all the money.  I stood there a bit stunned with surprise that someone would rob a hotel.  I had worked at Credit Unions where we were trained on how to handle things if we were robbed.  The hotel training was more like "if you get robbed, just give them what they want and let them leave."  There was no panic button to push, no exploding colors to put in with the money, or even trackers to put in the bag.  Nothing.  It was a hotel.  Hotels don't have a lot of cash, people pay with cards.  All of these thoughts were running through my brain and I said "excuse me, what!?" and he raised his voice like I hadn't heard him "Give me all your money" and held what looked like his finger pointed like a gun inside his pocket of his sweatshirt/hoodie.  I started to laugh.  "Are you serious?" I said, then he got angry at my response and pulled out his very real gun and pointed at my head.  I held my hands up to show I was taking him serious now, and then began to pull out all the money that was in the cash register.  There was only $300 in there and I knew it because no one could pay in cash except for treats and at the beginning of my shift I had counted it.  I filled the bag with the $300 and then handed it to the man dressed in black.  He yelled "WHERE IS THE REST?" I shook my head in response and let him know that was it.  He didn't believe me.  "Where is the vault or the safe?" I looked to my right and nodded my head "Its in there, but I don't have access to get into it.  My manager does, would you like me to call him?"  He shook his gun at me as he sarcasticly said "No I don't want you to call him.  Are you sure there isn't any other money?" I looked at the guy with half rolled eyes and said "look, this is a hotel, we don't deal in cash, only cards." and as I finished my sentence I glanced over at my left to the place where we kept the back cash of $300 in a locked drawer for the next shift.  I didn't mention that we had it.  Just decided to pretend we didn't have any other cash.  The guy looked dumbfounded and angry.  Then as he waved his gun in my direction he demmanded "Go lay down in the back" then I looked at him with a nervous feeling and was debating on if I should fight him or do as he says.  The smallest of whispers in my head told me to do as he said for now.  I turned to walk towards the back hoping that he wasn't planning on rape or something worse.  I went to the back and he gestured for me to lay down.  I did as he asked and when I did he left.  I waited for a minute until I was sure he was gone and then got up and called the police.  

Can you imagine the patience God has with us!?  He allows us to experience these types of things sometimes as a consequence for not heeding his directions.  Had I listened in both experiences I would have saved myself from a lot of heartache and PTSD that lasted years and still affects me to some degree.  However, God also used this type of experience to teach me that it would be best to do it the first time, no matter what.  When he says stop, Stop!  When he says lock the door, Lock The Door!  Or face the consequences.  

Fast forward another 4-5 years, and I was driving down the freeway wishing I was home already.  My speed had increased to 5 over the speed limit which I felt was acceptable, especially since I wanted to go 10 miles per hour over the speed limit.  As I was driving, I had the thought "slow down," and while I didn't want to, I did as I was asked.  A few feet later, the thought came, "slow down more," and I slowed down more, thinking that I would never make it home.  Just as I slowed down more a red car came racing around me and then pulled in front and kept driving fast.  Just then, it felt like everything from here on out was in slow motion.  I watched as the red car was just driving down the freeway, and from the right a truck was headed towards the intersection we were approaching.  Our light was green, so I knew the trucks light was red, especially as all the other cars were stopping.  However, the truck didn't stop.  He ran through the red light and slammed so hard into the red car that it sent the red car flying in circles and then wrapped itself around a pole to the side of the intersection.  My heart sank again as I searched for a place to pull over and check if the drivers were okay.  After the police and ambulance arrived, they extracted the driver from the red car and rushed them to the hospital. I then gave my statement and left to go home.  In shock, I prayed the whole way home for the drivers of that truck and the red car.  I also gave deep gratitude to God for telling me to slow down.  

 Just as a child learns to fall well and then how not to fall at all, we can also learn to listen to those thoughts that may not make logical sense or inconvenience us, but tell us to Stop, Do, and Slow Down.  It makes sense that a loving God would warn us, invite us, and guide us to safety.  As we choose to listen to that light of Christ within us, following the thoughts that come or the warnings becomes easier and easier the first time we hear it or think it.  And THAT is how we learn to hear.  Start now, start today, and even if listening to those thoughts doesn't produce an outcome that saves your life, it will become easier to listen, and when it does indeed come to a life-or-death situation, you will hear clearly!