No Lightening Or Booming Voices    
In Acts chapter 16, we can see another example of how much difference one small leading can make. It tells about a time when Paul and Silas were planning to travel to Asia to preach the Gospel. But they never got there because “a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man from Macedonia stood pleading with him and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us!” (Acts 16:9 Amp.).     

In this instance, the seed was a simple dream, or nighttime vision. From a natural perspective, it wasn’t really a very big deal. But by going to Macedonia, Paul took that seed and planted it.     

I once read an article in US News and World Report that described Paul’s missionary trip to Macedonia as one of the turning points in history. The article said that because Paul crossed the Aegean Sea instead of going to Asia, the Gospel spread into modern-day Europe and eventually to America. As a result, Paul had greater influence on the world than Marco Polo, Alexander the Great, Columbus, or Lewis and Clark.     

Think about that! I’m sure when Paul acted on his dream, he had no clue the impact it would make. God didn’t tell him that part of the story. He didn’t flash lightning from the sky and announce with a great, booming voice, “Paul, you’re about to do something HUGE!” No, He just gave him a little vision. He just spoke to him in a whisper.     

That’s generally how such things happen.     

Remember in 1 Kings 19 when Jezebel put a bounty on Elijah’s head and threatened to kill him before nightfall? He ran off to Mt. Horeb, his meeting place with God, to hear a word from Him about what to do next.

And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. (vv. 11, 12 Amp.)     

Notice, God didn’t speak to Elijah through the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. He spoke to him in a still small voice. Most of the time, He speaks to us in the same way. But we often miss it because while we’re focusing on the big things, God is in the small things. He’s in the simple inward witness we receive in our hearts!     

I have a dear friend in Sweden who discovered this in a church service at 25 years of age, when she sensed a tiny touch from the Lord. “It was like a whisper and as soft as cashmere,” she said. As she responded to that whisper, she was enveloped in a cloud and began to sense that she was being equipped for a heavenly assignment—to be a missionary to China.     

Up to that point, she’d always lived a kind of ordinary Christian life. But she accepted the Lord’s call, and from that moment on, God took her by the hand and led her step-by-step to communist China where she served as an undercover missionary and English teacher for seven years.     

“That soft touch from God, that presence, led me, directed me, and protected me the entire time I was there,” she said. “It made me invisible to communist foes and perilous powers. It protected me from rats in our building.” (She never saw one rat, even though she’d heard they were as big as cats!)     

Many of her students became pastors and started underground churches. All because one little 25-year-old Christian girl sensed a nudge from God and said, “Yes.”     

How often we undervalue small acts of obedience. Yet those small acts can bring the good news of salvation to the world!

The Man on the Bench   
I heard a story about an Australian believer who was visiting the city of Adelaide one day, and he met two Christian women and asked them how they got saved. They said they were walking down George Street in Sydney and met a white-haired man sitting on a park bench. “He asked us if we were to die tonight were we sure we’d go to heaven,” they said. “Then he handed us a booklet. We read it and got born again.”     

A while later, this same Australian believer visited Perth on a business conference and had a similar conversation with a wealthy Christian businessman. He asked the man how he came to faith and he answered, “I was in Sydney walking down George Street and this really irritating old man handed me a booklet and asked, ‘If you died tonight, do you know for sure if you’d go to heaven?’ His question bothered me all the way back to Perth. I eventually read the booklet and came to Jesus.”     

On yet another trip, this believer went to England and met three Christians at a convention. He asked them how they’d come to know Jesus and, once again, he heard the same story.     

In the Caribbean, he met three missionaries who told him the same thing.     

In America, he met the chaplain of the U.S. Navy. “How did you come to Christ?” he asked. The chaplain said, “I got off at the wrong place at a bus stop on George Street in Sydney, Australia...” (You can guess what he said next.)     

At a conference in India where 10,000 missionaries were gathered, the man in charge of the conference shared the same testimony about how he got saved. “I was a diplomat in Sydney, Australia. I ran into this old man on George Street...”   

Eventually, the believer went to Sydney and while he was there, he asked a pastor if he knew about this white-haired man on George Street that hands out booklets. “Of course,” he said, “everyone here knows him. His name is Mr. Gaynor. Would you like to meet him?”     

They went to the old man’s flat for a visit. They asked him how he himself got saved and he said, “Well, there was this very annoying Christian fellow who kept asking me, ‘If you died tonight, do you know you’d go to heaven?’ He gave me a booklet and I came to Jesus. When I did, I made a promise to the Lord that I’d share the Gospel with 10 people every day.”     

For 40 years, Mr. Gaynor had kept that promise. During that time, he’d personally shared the Gospel with over 146,000 people. Imagine it! One small seed planted 10 times every day for 40 years. Only heaven knows the impact that dear soul had in the earth.

Selfless Seeds of Prayer  
Personally, when I think of the power of small seeds, I often recall the vision the Lord gave my husband, Mac, in the early 1990s about how to win a city for God. We implemented what the Lord showed him in the vision in the nation of Belarus, in the city of Grodno. It was an astounding success. Great numbers of people got saved.     

One night while we were there praying for one of the evening services, the Lord said to me, “I’m going to show you why you came to this place.” As we walked out of the prayer meeting, a little lady saw us and started shouting, “Glory to God!” We asked her why she was so excited, and she said that several years earlier, the Lord had put it on her heart to begin praying for someone to come to her city to preach the Gospel. As she’d prayed, she’d seen our faces in a vision.     

That was why we were in Grodna! One woman’s selfless seeds of prayer had led us there.     

Dear praying friend, never underestimate the true value of your life! The tiniest whisper from heaven, when acted upon, can produce amazing results for the Kingdom of God.     

So listen attentively and respond to the prayer cues that come to your spirit. Keep planting your spiritual seeds. Keep building God’s great big Kingdom by obeying the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.