Learning A New Lesson

Sometimes the Lord orchestrates events to teach me things. These lessons are often not fun while I am going through them, but they are usually valuable beyond belief once I finally get the lesson.

He did this recently in my life. It started on Monday night. It was the last night of the AOL 101 activation group.. and I desired to visit and thank everyone for their participation. I felt strongly that I was supposed to be there. The only problem was that I had an appointment on the other side of San Francisco that was going to make me late to this class. I don't bring my car into San Francisco during the day.. no parking and too much traffic. So I took the bus. I figured I would come back to work and get there about 1/2 hour late for class.. which is about when they'd be finishing the worship and starting the activation.

As it turned out, the appointment went quickly and a bus came seconds after I reached the bus stop. Now, the stop where I get off the bus was an equal distance from the BART station (the subway I take home) and my work. It was only a few minutes after class started. I prayed briefly and asked the Lord whether I should go home and log on to class from home, or go back to work and log on from there. God told me it did not matter, either way would be about the same. There were pros and cons to both.

Now, I thought I knew the pros/cons. If I went to work, I got online only a few minutes after the class started. But then I would have a very late commute home.. trains would be running less frequently and I'd have a longer wait. Also, it is more dangerous at night. (Once at night I was mugged. Another time I was beaten up by a teen gang.) So I prefer not to take the BART late at night if I can avoid it. As far as going home went, the pro was that I'd get home more easily during this time of day, and then I'd be home when the class was over. The con was that I'd be about an hour late to class.

Since God gave me my choice, I opted to go home and log on from there. God spoke to me a lot of details about my return commute home.. He told me a train would arrive seconds after I got on the platform..and it did. Then He told me that I would not encounter any rush hour traffic (which was counter-intuitive for that time of day). But there was not any. He told me I'd be home by 6:45 (and I was).. which was only 45 minutes after the class started. So I knew I was hearing correctly because I got all of these confirmations.

So I got home, and rushed to my computer. I logged in to AOL and was immediately logged back out.. with an error message that said "Your account only allows one login at a time and tseputis (that is my account) is already logged on." But I was not logged on. I tried it again, same result. I tried connecting to my ISP and using the LAN connection to AOL.. same results. I realized that somehow my work account was still logged in, even though I'd left work hours ago. So I called the AOL tech support number listed in the error message. I spent a long time on hold and finally got an AOL tech support person, who was not at all helpful and who seemed to know less technically than I did. It was frustrating and ate a lot of time.. while the clock was clicking away and the class would be over soon. I asked to be transferred to someone else and was put back on hold. Then the new person said that Tech Support could not help me and transferred me to Customer Relations. I spent a very long time on hold and then decided to just hang up and drive to work and try to connect from there.

During all of this, I began to become upset with myself for hearing wrong. Clearly it did make a difference.. going home meant I could not get online, but if I'd gone to work I'd be on line no problem. I was upset that I'd heard wrong.

As I drove to San Francisco, God began to speak to me about traffic conditions. Each thing He said happened seconds afterwards, confirming my hearing. I asked Him why I was hearing so accurately on this but had missed it so big on it not making a difference if I went home or went to work. God did not choose to answer my question. Just before I rounded the bend to the Bay Bridge toll booths, God told me there would be no delay. But I rounded the bend and saw that only 1/3 of the lanes were open and there was a two block backup. I thought to myself.. "See, Teresa, your hearing is not so great after all." I got to where the cars were stopped, and was about to change lanes to get "in line" Just that instant, two more toll gates opened, one in the lane I was already in. So I was able to drive right up to the gate with no delay, and was the first car to hit that toll booth. I had heard right after all..

The Lord told me there would be a parking space right in front of work..that would be a big miracle .. usually you have to walk blocks to find parking in SF, even at that time of night. But there as a spot right in front of the entrance to the building.

So, my hearing seemed to be doing pretty well.. which made me wonder how I could have missed it so big time on the "Either way (work or home) will be about the same."

I literally ran out of the elevator to my office.. logged in and arrived in the chat room 20 minutes before class was scheduled to end. I figured that I'd at least have the opportunity to say goodbye to everyone.

I got in the chat room, and only 3 people where there. I asked what happened.. had class ended early? I was informed that the instructor had an emergency and sent an email 3 hours before class canceling it for this week and postponing it to the following Monday.

I had checked my email (I get my email at verio, not at AOL) and had not received any such email. I had literally gone through so much agony and effort to be there, and there was not even a class! This all exceeded my frustration threshold. My flesh surfaced for a few minutes and I am sure the three folks in the chat room got a lowered opinion of me as I complained about the situation.

It took me a full five minutes to clam down and realize that I had heard God right after all.. both ways were roughly equivalent. It did not matter if I could get online from home or not, because the class was cancelled. God had spoken clearly and I'd heard him correctly. I just did not understand what He said, because He had spoken cryptically. And He did not even bother to give me a hint that this was going on!

Now, that goes against everything I have known and experienced of God up to this point. It has been my experience that God does not speak cryptically to His children. Rather He communicates clearly because He desires to be heard and understood. I have taught this over and over again in seminars. I even recently wrote it in a magazine article. (And in general this is a true statement). But this case, God went out of His way to demonstrate that I was hearing Him clearly, and He spoke to me accurately. But He did it cryptically, intending that I not understand what He had to say.

This caused a bit of a crisis for me.. because it totally violated my understanding of God. I could not understand what He was trying to teach me, yet it had His signature all over it. I prayed about it intently all night.. but He did not explain it to me.

The next morning (Tuesday), I turned to someone I used to go to with spiritual questions, but 24 hours pasts and no answer came.

I asked God why He did not tell me the class was cancelled.. it would have saved me a lot of headache and frustration. He answered, "Because you would not have believed me."

I asked God why He spoke to me cryptically.. like Jesus used to speak to those with rebellious hearts. (I did not think my heart was rebellious.) But He would not answer me.

I agonized over this for over 24 hours.. Why would my God, who always speaks clearly to me suddenly become cryptic? Was He mad at me? Was I in trouble with Him? What was going on? I was at work this morning (Wednesday) and happened to have AIM turned on. A lawyer friend of mine, who is also a prophet, came online. I've never gone to him for advice before, but this time I decided to. I shared my experience with him and asked if he had any ideas of what was going on. He sought insight from God and shared it with me. What he had to say made so much sense to me.. I just have to pass it on to you.