Marching Into The Peace Corps, pt 3: Testing The Voices
by Before you run off and upheave your entire life, you should be sure this is something God wants from you. In the news we hear people killing their families because “God told them to”. This is why you test the voices to make sure they are His.
Voices are a funny thing because as you get more grounded in the Christian faith, the devil has to use new techniques to sidetrack you. They’re new to you, but they’re 6,000 years old to him, and he’s had a lot of practice. God knew this would be a problem, and He communicated this to John: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but try the spirits to see if they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1John 4:1, NKJV) In short, test the spirits!
I had been told out of the blue to join the Peace Corps, so I tested the spirit. First I looked at the program in depth and began to understand exactly how deeply the concept of service, charity, dignity, love, and compassion were ingrained as its core values. That sounds a lot like something God would ask me to get involved with, but it still wasn’t enough.
Again, it is easy for the voices to trick us into doing stupid things, thinking it’s for all the correct and noble reasons, so I took it one step further and asked God to confirm the voice was His twice through scripture. I learned a long time ago that before you uproot your entire life, approach the throne room of God and ask. There is nothing unfaithful or distrusting on your part to do so since you’re testing the spirit. I opened up the Bible a day later and kept encountering passages about teaching, and knowing I want to serve by teaching English, I counted that as the first confirmation.
The second confirmation came two days later at 4:30 AM; I could hear an animal scratching around in the attic and it woke me up. After I got out of bed and tried to scare it out of the house, I was unfortunately too wide awake to fall asleep immediately. I turned on a Bible commentary on the gospel of Mark, chapter two. Approximately five minutes into the commentary, the story about the paralyzed man being dropped through the roof by his friends came up. Jesus remarked about how their faith was great. “How did Jesus know their faith was great? Because they engaged in action, not just talk.” My ears perked straight up as the expositor went into what I consider my favorite book – James. I knew I had my second confirmation.
I’m very blessed to know a Christian woman of a similar spirit named Gaby. She’s a wonderful lady and the fact I can discuss things with her that otherwise would get me run out of town on a rail tells me I’m not the only one who sees strange patterns. She has been concerned I might be making a mistake, but in the end she also acted in a Christian manner: she gave her concerns to God to deal with. Under her direction, I asked God one more time to confirm the voice was His.
Later that night, I was bemoaning the requirements of the Peace Corps. “God, how am I going to make myself look good enough to the Peace Corps? I can’t come up with five years of experience when I’ve only got one and….” The thought trailed off and I heard His voice once again giving me advice: “Go to the school down the street and volunteer to work with the kids.” I considered that to be my third confirmation.
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