A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

How do you know when God is trying to tell you something?

That’s a question a lot of Christians ask, and probably a lot of non-Christians, too. The truth is, although it sounds like a cop-out to some people, you just know. Take my brother, for instance, who knew that a knock on the head was a message from God.

My brother and sister-in-law (Bill and Dee Dee) live in Virginia where they are alpaca farmers. (If they did this same activity in the west it would be called “ranching.” In the east, raising anything on the land, including animals, is called “farming.”) Anyway, they have a place called Rivanna River Farm, around 20 acres of very pretty land with hills and trees and the Rivanna River running through it. And they raise alpacas.

Anyway, here’s the part about the knock on the head…One of the female alpacas was about a week overdue for delivering a baby (cria, in the alpaca world), and being a week overdue is not unusual. When the babies are born, Bill and Dee Dee want to both be there if possible, to help the mom and the baby, and to make sure everyone is safe and sound. Naturally, they were watching this expectant mom for signs of going into labor, but it seemed like she was going to wait.

So Dee Dee went into town to run some errands, and before she returned Bill decided he would go play golf. (Now you know he’s my brother.) He dressed for the links and headed out the door. As he was getting in to his “farmers SUV,” the door swung shut on its own and hit him in the head. Like me, he doesn’t have much protection there, but also like me, he has a fairly thick skull.

His first thought was not “ouch,” though, it was, “God’s trying to tell me something.”

He wasn’t sure what God was trying to tell him, so he wondered if he’d forgotten his wallet, his phone, or if he’d left the dogs out. No, all of that was OK. So he drove slowly out of the property, stopping and getting out by the barn to check on the expectant mom, just in case she had been the reason for the knock. She seemed fine, off by herself in the pasture, but giving no other signs of being ready to deliver.

Bill was about to leave when he turned around to give her one last look, and as he did she stood up awkwardly and her water broke.

Mother and cria are both doing fine.

Dee Dee was fairly close to home herself, and Bill says that everything would probably have been OK even if he had gone to the course, but he was happy for the knock on the head.

Now it could be that God has knocked you on the head in one way or another, and you’ve figured it was just a knock on the head. But if you have the sense that God, perhaps through one of his angels, is in it, listen up. It may have been that the angel who whacked my brother had been trying to get his attention all morning, and who knows what comes after hitting you with a car door?

Tags: alpacas, angels, cria, Rivanna River, Rivanna River Farm

This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 11:04 am and is filed under Spiritual Disciplines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.