Following the Lord’s Indirect Leading

By Marc, Nigeria

It’s amazing how the Lord can punch through to some people and really give them specific leading and guidance through prophecy for the situations they’re facing. However, I can’t say I’ve ever received that sort of specific guidance through prophecy. Nevertheless, it is awesome how the Lord is somehow able to get through to me, usually without me even realizing it and then helps me to recognize later that, “Oh, so that really was the Lord!”

Here’s a small testimony of how I experienced just that.

A couple months ago, my brother and I were taking care of some business in a certain part of the city. It had been a while since we were in that area and we had quite a number of people to follow-up on and visit there. Though a few people had said they’d be around when I called them earlier, when it actually came time to meet them, one by one it turned out that each was unavoidably absent due to work or other commitments that had come up.

Going into the day, it looked like it would be a busy one with a lot of exciting opportunities to strengthen people’s faith, but it seemed like quite the opposite was unfolding instead. Since we had an appointment in the same area in a couple of hours, it didn’t really make sense for us to move to a different location only to have to come back for the appointment, so we wracked our brains for who we could visit in that area.  We called several people, but all of them were unavailable.

I then thought of a good friend, Tina, who is a manager of a company. While one of the branches she manages is close to the area where we were, she had previously told me that she hardly ever goes there, and if she does, it’s usually only early in the morning. It wasn’t so early in the morning anymore, but after nothing else worked out, I figured I might as well give her a call just in case she did happen to be around.

Well, she was in the office and eagerly asked us to come by as there was something she wanted to talk to us about. As it turned out, she was having a work crisis and just as she was beginning to feel like it was too much for her to handle, we had called. Our call was a sign to her that the Lord still loves her and cares for her.

Of course, we shared the testimony with her of how we came to call her despite our original plans, and then we went on to spend some time praying together and encouraging her, sharing ideas of how she could handle the issues she’s facing, etc. It was a big encouragement to her, but I think it was almost more of an encouragement for me to see that despite not getting clear directions from the Lord, He was still able to punch through and lead us to where we needed to go at exactly the right time when we needed to be there.

Then, just a week or so ago, my brother and I were in a completely different area of the city taking care of some paperwork in a government office. On that day, our business appointment went much faster than expected, so we found ourselves in the car park of the government building wondering what the Lord wanted us to do from there.

Then, for some reason unbeknownst to me at the time, I thought of Tina. I was about to call her when my brother called someone else, and that man said he was in his office and would like to meet us. Figuring that was that, I slid my phone into my pocket and we were about to back out of the parking lot, when my brother drew my attention to a woman standing a few cars down from us and mentioned that she looked familiar.

I looked over and saw that the woman there did, in fact, look quite similar to Tina, but I didn’t think it was really her. However, I mentioned that I had been planning to call her earlier. I was prepared to leave it at that, but I had that nagging feeling in my heart that maybe I should go ahead and call her, even though we had to go somewhere else. After all, it’s not every day that you think of someone, and then someone appears who looks very similar to him or her. I picked up my phone and called her number and the woman standing a few cars down picked up her phone.

“Hi, Tina … this may sound a bit strange, but are you in such-and-such a government building parking lot?”

“Yes, I am. How did you know?”

“Well, we’re just a little bit behind you.”

Ha! Well, as it turned out, she was there with her boss and some other colleagues for a presentation, and were supposed to have left, but couldn’t because there was another car parked behind them and the driver was absent.

We were able to talk to some of the rest of her team and then with her personally. As she had gotten through her previous work crisis, another one had come up, but just as she was beginning to feel very discouraged about it, the Lord led us right to her and we were able to pray with her and encourage her again that ultimately the Lord is in control and works everything together for our good, and that He often gets His greatest victories out of seeming defeats.

It amazes me to see how the Lord keeps on working out these situations where we can meet Tina just at the time she needs it the most. It shows just how much He cares for her and knows exactly what she’s passing through and it encourages me how He’s able to lead me just where He needs me to go through the circumstances of life.

I must say that I do kind of wonder why the Lord didn’t just tell us at the beginning of the day, “Today you’re going to meet Tina at the government building, so…” I guess He knows that if I got an unmistakably clear message like that from Him, I would probably get proud and start thinking, “Wow! Look how the Lord can use me!” So, He tends to work in less obvious ways that make it harder for me to take credit for it due to “my wonderfully crystal-clear link to the Almighty.”

Either way, as long as His will is performed, who am I to complain?

If you have any testimonies of how the Lord has led you, either directly or indirectly, to reach someone in need, please take the time to share them in the comment section below.