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God Redirects and Brings About Good

Mark Virkler's picture

God directed Abraham to go up to a mountaintop and sacrifice his son on an altar. When the time came for the sacrifice, God redirected Abraham and said, no, don’t sacrifice Isaac (Gen. 22:1-19). 


These kinds of situations can be viewed as “positioning moves” and or tests of obedience (Gen. 22:1). Abraham trusted that if he did sacrifice Isaac, God would resurrect Isaac (Heb. 11:19). Wow! Talk about passing a test after which God said, "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice" (Gen. 22:18).

Below is a story from Pastor Peg of God redirecting her and God bringing good fruit through it all.

A few months ago, I was going as a guest to the Rotary Club here on Fernandina Beach with one thing on my mind — I was set on healing a basketball player named Patrick Young. He had been injured in a car crash and put in a wheelchair in his 20s. Patrick goes around the country evangelizing with the message that God will heal him one day. That morning, I woke up with a vision of walking into the Rotary Club and ministering healing to Patrick and calling him to rise out of his wheelchair in the Name of Jesus Christ.

I was shocked when I got there because the president said, “Patrick is sick and he's NOT going to be here today.”

I turned around and walked back to my car feeling rather dejected and asking God, “Where did I miss this?” 

And as I was about to put the car in gear and leave, a loud voice called out to me said “Go back upstairs!"

I had no reason to do that. I only know one person in the Rotary Club, and she was not there. But I obeyed the voice in my car.

As God would have it, since Patrick didn't come, Rotarians played a game that morning, where six people at each table would introduce themselves and at some point tell the others something about themselves that people would be surprised to know. Some people talked about how they ran a marathon, some talked about their travels, one woman talked about knowing a movie star. I was the last one at the table to share and the only non-Rotarian.

So I got quiet, and asked, Jesus, what do You want me to share with this table? I have a has LOT of adventures in my life! But Jesus said very clearly, “Tell him about raising your mother-in-law, Ann, from the dead!” OK…. I kind of balked because I was in a secular meeting, but then I thought, “What have I got to lose? Nothing."

I proceeded to give my account, and you could hear a pin drop at my table. I thought I might see some looks of doubt. NOPE! Their mouths dropped open, they looked at me in total BELIEF. And I won the ‘prize’ for that table for the most surprising story. There were 9 or 10 tables in the room and each table put forth someone with their story. And the audience would clap according to who had the best story.

When the MC got to table 8, she said, is there really any competition here? And the room went wild! So, I was called up in front of the whole club to give my testimony extemporaneously, of raising Ann from the dead. (You can read this and more miracles in my book, “I Saw the Light — But HE Saw Me First” https://tinyurl.com/2s3nhjmz)

The short version of my testimony that day: my husband got a call in 2004 to fly from Georgia to Connecticut because his mother, Ann, had been Code Blue for over an hour. The Dr. informed him that Ann was now on a heart-lung machine. That she was brain dead, and they wanted to harvest her organs. He asked my husband to come sign the papers. Wow! This all happened only six months after Ann had lost her daughter to cancer at the young age of 45, who left behind a spouse, and two children, a son 12 and a daughter 9. 

After I dropped my husband at the airport on the ride home my heart was broken in a million pieces. 

I cried out, "Lord my sweet nine-year-old Hayley can't lose the only female role model in her life six months after her mother died! Please Lord, what can I do to help her?'

The Lord said, "Pull into this gravel parking lot, Peg. Get out of the car. Now, clap, your hands and hold them up to heaven and claim 'in the name of Jesus Christ. I command Ann comes back from the dead!’” 

I got back in my car to drive home doubting nothing! I knew as sure as the sky is blue that I would get a call from my husband around suppertime telling me that Ann was alive.  I saw a vision of her sitting up in the bed talking to the nurse.

At 6:30 that night I got the call from New Haven, Connecticut. It started with my favorite words, “You're not gonna believe this!” 

I said, “Your mother is sitting in the bed talking to the nurse!" He started crying and exclaimed, how did you know? And I told him what happened.

Long story short, Ann went on to live 10 more years because I had asked the Lord to let her live until Hayley got into college. She became a devout Christian, we became best friends, and Hayley is now married with three beautiful children, and her husband is a deacon in the church.

I said, “You all came here today to hear about a young man looking for a miracle. Instead you heard a first-hand testimony of a grandma who was raised from the dead! For real. All glory to Jesus Christ."

Well, you could hear a pin drop in the Rotary Club and suddenly, everyone stood up and started clapping. 

Since then I've gone back to Rotary and they asked me to give the invocation. People will come up to me that I don't remember, but they sure know my name, and want to touch me — like, is she real? 

All I can say is had I not listened to Jesus when I went back to get in my car and go home, there would not be 50 or 60 people who got to hear that amazing miracle. A testimony to the power and love of Jesus Christ. 

And like the man telling Paul to go over to Macedonia, my vision about Patrick Young got me where I was supposed to be to bless a number of souls in a way I had never imagined.

I'm so glad I've trained myself, with the help of Mark Virkler's materials, to get quiet and hear God's voice at a moment's notice. And not only to hear His voice, but to obey what Jesus speaks to me.

Mark Virkler's comments

Summary: I don’t get overly concerned about such occurrences in my journaling. I take what He tells me and then accept that and let it go. For sure it is possible to sometimes miss Him. That is fine. That is part of life. No sweat! Let it go and move on. So when your journaling doesn’t turn out the way you initially understood that it would, you may want to ask, “Lord, what was Your purpose in this whole experience?” And see what He says.


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Click here for Kindle version.

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