One of the greatest truths that Jan and I discovered and live by to this day is to inquire first of the Lord to find out His answer before we act prematurely and do something we would live to regret.

Thirty years ago, the Lord planted this truth deep in our hearts. We were living in Berlin, Germany, as Area Coordinators for the Foursquare Church, assisting the nations in Eastern Europe. During that time, a change was coming, so we had to decide where our next place of deployment in Europe would be. 

We had several options on the table, but the Lord had not yet spoken to us.  We had already packed up our apartment in Berlin and placed our belongings in storage, waiting to make the next move, but still had not heard the Lord tell us where we would live. 

We call it our Gibeonite experience. Waiting to hear the Lord not only protected us from assumptions and misdirection but also opened the door to the blessings we now experience, 30 years later.

The Gibeonites were a tribe in the region that the Israelites would confront as they moved forward to take the Promised Land. They knew they were next in line for Israel’s assault, so they resorted to deception to trick Joshua into thinking they had come from a distant land. 

The Gibeonites, dressed in old clothes, carried worn-out wineskins and stale bread as they went to meet Joshua and the leaders of Israel. “When they arrived at the camp of Israel at Gilgal, they told Joshua and the men of Israel, ‘We have come from a distant land to ask you to make a peace treaty with us’” (Joshua 9:6).

“So, the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the Lord. Then Joshua made a peace treaty with them and guaranteed their safety, and the leaders of the community ratified their agreement with a binding oath” (vs. 14-15). When the deception was finally revealed, the binding oath of protection Israel had agreed to was already in place, and the Israelites were bound by their oath to protect the deceivers. 

Israel’s problem, and our problem as well, is that we “did not consult the Lord.” The Israelites examined only the physical evidence presented to them, but did not wait for the Lord’s word before making an oath of protection with the Gibeonites. 

Waiting for the word of God is not based on our convenience, our timing, or on what other people think we should do. It is solely in God’s hands and in His timing. If we don’t wait for the Lord to speak to us, we can put ourselves in a place where a deceiving spirit will take the lead.  

To this day, Jan and I are humbled and grateful that we waited for the Lord to speak before we made a hurried, naïve decision. That single choice opened the door to the blessings we could not have imagined possible had we only examined the physical evidence of our lives, rather than waiting for the Lord to speak.