Listen Carefully for the Voice of the Spirit

Romans 8:14 (KJV) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

For 18 years Trudi and I have traveled to churches, primarily in the USA to teach on the biblical principles of family. In 2014 I was invited to go to South Africa with a pastor friend of mine to preach in a church there. But in a strange twist, which I won’t get into because it’s not relevant, the meeting in South Africa cancelled and through another invitation Trudi and I ended up going to a church in Zimbabwe.

It was such a long flight and we didn’t know the pastor there at all. I was honestly wondering if we had missed God and weren’t even supposed to have gone. When we got there I found out that in the next 4 days I was scheduled to preach 14 times. Are you kidding me?

We taught a marriage seminar, a parenting seminar, we preached to the singles; I even taught the kids and teenagers in the school. It’s like we preached to anything that moved and by the end of the meeting we were exhausted.

But the first group we taught was the church staff. It was a large church so the staff was over 200 leaders. I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me, so I began by introducing myself and telling them about our calling. I preached that our core scripture was Malachi 4:5-6. It speaks of “turning the hearts of the fathers to the children.” It’s talking about a last day’s move of family reconnection for the end times right before the return of Jesus.

As I explained this to the staff, the pastor was sitting on the front row of the room. He was typing on his phone the whole time I was preaching. I figured he was busy and just assumed he was sending messages to people and not paying attention to me at all. When I got done he came to the podium. Very calmly (he didn’t yell out “thus saith the Lord!”) He told his staff that the whole time I was teaching the Lord was giving him a prophetic word. He explained that he had been writing it down and the word was for his church, but it was primarily to me.

He began reading it. The gist of the message was that God had called us (Trudi and me) with the message of family and the next ten years of our ministry would be the most productive of our life. He prophesied that the enemy had opposed and tried to stop us, but if we would stand strong in faith we would accomplish our calling. He ended the lengthy prophecy with this statement: “Teach the teachers.” He said it again; “Teach the teachers.” As I look back at that meeting 6 years ago I see how the Lord led us halfway across the world to a man I didn’t know because God had a powerful word that we would need now. I was reading it again last night. When I got that word in 2014 our church didn’t exist. Nobody saw the coronavirus we continue to deal with or the protests that began 1 month ago. But God knew.

Trudi and I have been unable to travel and fulfill our travel schedule since the virus started. But I have been busy in our church training and mentoring our young leaders. We have been doing online children’s ministry and I have been leading it because of my background of teaching kids and producing the Gospel Bill Show for many years. I have been teaching the teachers.

My point is this: My mind didn’t understand it at the time but I was led by the Spirit 6 years ago to Zimbabwe to get something that I needed for now. I think it is so critical in this hour of the unknown that we listen carefully for the voice of the spirit. Maybe this article finds you in a place of loss today. Maybe you lost your job. Maybe this pandemic or racial unrest has produced tremendous fear of the future.

We are living in such uncertain times, but the one certainty we have is God’s word. We have His spirit to lead us and if we will seek him and listen there will always be a way.

We have had many new people that have begun to support us financially and we want to say a big thank you for that.

We love you.

Ken & Trudi