Life to the Full
JUSTIN CAMP
4 min read ⭑
When Jenn and I were in Mexico a few years ago, we met a man named Israel. Israel had grown up an orphan on the streets of Tijuana, one of the roughest places in the world to live, let alone be a child on your own. Poverty rates are chronically high, and the location of the city makes it a key battleground for Mexico’s drug cartels. In fact, excluding active war zones, Tijuana has been ranked number one by The Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice as the world’s most violent city.
It was against this backdrop that Israel told me a story.
When Israel was ten, a pastor named Sergio, who ran an orphanage, sought to help, but Israel spurned him. When Sergio tried to tell Israel about God, he didn’t want to hear it. When Sergio offered him a safe place to live — a place where he would cared for, where he would have a bed and food and people to love him — Israel refused. He didn’t trust Sergio; he didn’t trust anyone. The only thing Israel would accept from Sergio was the gift of a Sony Walkman.
After receiving that gift, though, Israel unexpectedly got another.
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Crossing a narrow alley one day, he spied something. A shiny cassette tape peeked out from under some refuse. Israel picked up the tape and dusted it off. It was in good condition but carried no label. Curious, he slipped it into his Walkman. Nothing but static. He flipped it over. More static. Then, just as Israel was about to take it out and throw it away, the static subsided — and he heard a man’s voice.
The voice was deep and clear, and it startled him when the man on the tape said Israel’s name — and then said he was precious to God. Hearing those things, the dusty streets faded in Israel’s mind. It was like the man’s voice was all that existed in the world, and he couldn’t stop listening to it. Some of the words made sense; some didn’t. But things would never be the same because, from that moment on, Israel has known in his heart that God was real and what Sergio had told him was true.
Israel returned to Sergio and made the orphanage his home. Sergio became his mentor— his father, really. He learned much about God from Sergio, and eventually, Israel surrendered his life to God. Then, many years later, Sergio helped Israel open his own orphanage. And now Israel does what Sergio did: he rescues children from the streets of Northern Baja, giving them homes and telling them about God.
Whether God was speaking through an audiobook version of the Bible (those were common in the late 1970s and early 1980s) or whether the voice on that tape was something else, I don’t know. All I know is what Israel knows: God spoke love and identity into his beloved son in that grim alley. And because he was listening, Israel found out that God had big and wondrous plans for him — plans he would never have discerned and discovered on his own.
Life moves in cycles. To ebb and flow is the way of all of God’s Creation. Galaxies, planets. Water, oxygen, carbon. Me, you. And right now, I’m in a season where busyness is flowing, and my ability to hear God’s voice has ebbed. My interest in hearing him has ebbed, too, if I’m honest. And that troubles me.
Why? Well, just like Israel, I’ll never become more of the man I’m created to be or live fully the rich and full life I’m meant to live without hearing my Father’s voice … a lot.
Humans create with tools. Hammers and anvils. Lathes and drills. Pens and paper. Processors and pixels. But God creates with his voice. “When God speaks, things happen,” wrote Eugene Peterson. Indeed. God brought all creation into existence with his voice — including us. “And God said, ‘Let there be light’” (Genesis 1:1-3, ESV). “And God said … And God said … And God said … Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Genesis 1:6-27, ESV).
God creates each of us initially (Psalm 139:13), but he also creates us continually. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV). There’s something that happens instantaneously when we turn our lives over to God, as Israel did, but the creation process is lifelong as we learn to trust and surrender and follow him ever more closely. And that process moves forward every time God whispers truth and life and invitation into our hearts. And if we’re willing to listen and trust him, we become ever more of ourselves — the selves God created and hopes we will become — just like Israel has.
“Hearing God? A daring idea, some would say — presumptuous and even dangerous. But what if we are made for it?” —Dallas Willard
I believe that you are made for it. Do you? Are you willing to try and see for yourself? If so, try Willard’s “Two Listening Exercises.” They might change your life — for free.
Justin Camp is the editor-in-chief of Rapt Interviews. He also created the WiRE for Men devotional and wrote the WiRE Series for Men. His writing has also been featured and seen on Charisma, Moody Radio, Focus on the Family, GOD TV, The Christian Post, Crosswalk, Belief.net, LifeWay Men and other media outlets.