Have you ever heard from the Lord and not liked what He asked you to do? This is the story of the time the Lord had me make a hard decision, doing something I did not want to do, but ultimately worked out to be the best thing for me. This is my exodus story.

“Make a Decision”

Spring 2021. My life plans, along side the plans of many others, were derailed by the pandemic. I had been struggling with the social isolation produced by the restrictions enacted as part of the response to the pandemic.

Although I was isolated, I had plenty of time to read my Bible, listen to sermons and talk to God. I would go for walks in the late afternoon as the sun was going down and I would have a conversation (mostly complaining) to God.

It was taking a toll on me and I was running out of energy. And even more restrictions had been announced. I was overwhelmed and the time to make a decision was forming. I could stay, or I could go.

I could stay in my current situation and be miserable and deal with the restrictions and medical regulations being enacted. Or I could go and move multiple states away, back in with my parents. This would require leaving a job that I spent years and years working for. At my stage of life, none of this sounded great. I wanted to stay but with each passing day I was losing the energy and the resolve to do so.

Summer 2021.

I was on a walk talking with the Lord one day, complaining to Him about my circumstances and told Him:

I know you can end this pandemic with a miracle!

He then responded and told me:

You’re not getting a miracle. Make a decision.

And that was the last I heard from Him on the topic. I continued to ask and talk and complain to Him the following days, but I only got silence. He had given me a command and that was it.

I had a decision to make.

I was new in my faith and I knew that there was nothing left for me locally. I was being transformed. I was different, and the place that drew me in had lost its appeal. So I needed a new location and a new direction. I knew that the right decision included taking steps that crazy from the world’s view but seemed right from the Lord’s view.

So I put my two weeks in, packed up my stuff and moved in with my parents.

The Plagues

During the spring I had been sent all manner of problems in my life. Strange problems and occurrences seemed to just pile up. And that is on top of the on-going pandemic.

At first it was the cicadas. They had come out of the ground and into the woods and the buzzing sound would be going for hours each day. The reprieve came at night when they stopped chirping.

Then I was injured. I joined an adult softball league back in 2019 and played successfully and without injury and the same was true of my league in 2021. I made sure to get loose and warm up before each game to avoid injury. I was at bat during the second game of a double header. I made contact and took off and immediately I felt this pain in my right calf. I thought the bat had come around and smacked me in the back of the leg, but I couldn’t stand on it. I quickly discovered that I had pulled some muscle and I needed to go to the emergency room, where they put me on crutches for the first time in my life. (While there, I was able to see in person some of the reactions to medical treatments and get feedback from nurses on the front lines that what we were being told was not true based on their experience. But that is a story for another day.)

One Saturday morning I woke up and walked into my living room and there had to be at least 100 dead flies by my sliding glass door. How does that happen? All of my windows were closed, and I definitely didn’t see that many flies in my apartment the night before. But it did make me think of the plagues.

Then it was time for my AC to break. Have you ever just had enough? My AC broke and then I broke. It was time to go.

There were other problems that arose but which I didn’t document. They seemed to happen at every step. But once I made my decision to leave, all of my old problems stopped and new ones no longer arose. Coincidence? Or was the Lord pushing me in a direction?