Episode Transcript
SPEAKER 1
Hi, folks. It's all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days, but I'd like to challenge this idea with my own story of God's voice in the night. We're talking about miracles in the 21st century. I'm Mike Browning. Glad to be able to join you today. Now, when I was a child growing up, from my very first dawning of awareness of the world around me, I knew that God had called me. And I was living at that time in Tasmania. My family was there and my dad was an Anglican minister. And I knew that God had called me. I never lost that sense and haven't done through all my entire life. But what is interesting is that God never told me what it was he had in mind that he wanted me to do. So here am I growing up from childhood and right through, and one of the things I especially prayed about was, exactly what do you want me to do? And that was the thing that was burdening me the most. When I was up till about 11 years of age, I felt very close to God. But at about 11, I got too much influence by worldly friends and so on, and I lost that connection. And from the age 11 till the age of 21, I lost that connection and looked for it. I was a seeker as a result of that, when I was 18, the opportunity came for me to go and work up in Papua New Guinea. And I thought, well, Papua New guinea missionaries, that must be the place for me to go. So off I went. I was working for the Papua New Guinea Australian government, which was caring for Papua New guinea at the time. This is before they had independence. And I went up there in 1966, good while ago now. And when I was there for the first couple of years, just lived an ordinary life, still seeking and still wanting to know what it was and praying that God would help me to know what it was he wanted me to do. But the interesting thing was that I was still what I would call an unconverted person. And despite the fact that I wanted to follow God, I just didn't understand exactly what it was to mean, like God being in your life and being born again. So anyhow, time went by. My third year in PNG and my little donga, little house where I lived in Caving on New island was just a couple of doors up from the Seventh Day Adventist missionaries. And that was very interesting. And so we got to talk quite a lot about spiritual things. And I began to realize that God was calling me to come back to him again. And so while this was going on, I'm reading the Bible, we're talking about the Bible with the missionary folks there. And for those who may know these people, this was Lorna and Roy Harrison. And Lorna was a great missionary and she used to care for a lot of the young expats like myself who were there in caving and used to invite us over and we'd have a Bible study after tea. And that was really great. And I was very keen to know exactly what the Bible said. And I have to say I certainly made her work hard. But we, step by step reached the point where I knew that God needed me to make a commitment of my life to him again. And this is where something amazing happened. So I decided that I would give my life to Jesus now and follow him fully. And so I remember saying to Lorna Harrison at the time, so, Lorna, what do you do? I want to give my life to God back to God properly now and follow Him. What do you do? And she said to me, and this was of good guidance, she said, you just tell God that that's what you want to do. You just quietly go to him in prayer and say you want to give your life to Him. And I said, well, I can do that. And so that's what I did. And I began to pray every morning and every evening. Get down on my knees beside my bed there in my little donga. And I began to pray and I said, lord, I want to give my life to you. And I kept on doing this every morning and every evening. And this went on for quite some time. I can't recall exactly how long it was now, but it must have been at least a couple of weeks. And after I had been doing this for that period of time, one evening as I was there praying quietly and saying, lord, I want to give my life to you. That's when God spoke to me. This was the first time I'd ever heard God's voice. And in the few experiences I've had in my life where God has spoken, it was just a very simple one liner and just a couple of words. And this is what he said to me. He said, you're accepted. That's all he said. And that's all I needed to hear. You can imagine, can't you? And I was so excited about that. And you know, I'd been reading the Bible and this verse by Jesus really comes to my heart. This is Matthew, chapter 11, verse 28, where Jesus says, come to me, all you who are labor and are heavy laden. And I will give you rest. That's Matthew 11:28. Don't forget it, folks. Come unto me. Jesus often said that, and that's a safe place for us to be. So that was a turning point in my life. Not only did I have the acceptance I become a son of God again, but I had at that point, as soon as I made that commitment without God telling me, I knew exactly what he wanted me to do with my life. And that was to be a pastor. It wasn't what I had in mind, but that's exactly what he wanted me to do. And of course, that's the way it's turned out. So I'm just praising God that He does hear our voice. And when we come to him and make our commitment, folks, he accepts us and gives us the guidance that we need. God bless.
