You Are Not Lost – Hearing God’s Voice in a Time of Spiritual Drift
- Trace Pirtle
- Jul 21
- 2 min read
What if the message that changes your life doesn’t shout—it scrolls across your soul like a whisper from God?
"My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." John 10:27 (NKJV)
I marvel at our brothers and sisters in Christ who can tell you the exact moment they accepted Him. They could be 100 years old and recall it as if it were yesterday. They can tell you what they were wearing, what they had for breakfast, and how many flies landed during that sacred hour. Not me.
Sure, I “got saved” in my high school friend’s living room during the Jesus Freak movement in 1972. But the memory is patchy—more water balloons and rock music than worship. I went to a Young Life event in Sacramento because a girl I liked was going. I figured that was my ticket to glory.
Fast forward decades: I’d pumped gas in my dad and uncle’s service station, pulled nuclear alert in an ICBM Launch Control Center (LCC) under the prairie of South Dakota, and earned four degrees in counseling. Through it all, I believed in God—but Jesus? He was a footnote. A vague shadow. A Super Ego with a Galilean face.
Then came Laredo, Texas. My wife wanted to go to church. I didn’t. Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist—we tried them all. None resonated. But something else did: coffee shop conversations with a university colleague who had traveled from Baptist to Buddhist to Meher Baba—all meaningful head stuff. But something was stirring in my spirit.
God was listening. Not with judgment—but with Carl Rogers-level empathy.
Not long after, I was seated in church, bored stiff, and it happened: a ticker tape message scrolled across my mind—“Write about Me and for Me, Your Lord.” It looped. Over and over. I didn’t know if I was having a vision or a mild psychotic break!! I was still oriented to time, place, and person, but I was different.
I whispered, “Lord, is that You? I feel lost.”
After church that day, I took a nap and had a dream—deep, holy, and strange imagery filled the 30 minutes I was asleep.
As I was awakening, that time when sleep is fading and consciousness is kicking back in, I heard a whisper: “You are not lost. You are temporarily unaware of your position.”
That whisper woke me up to a new reality — a new commissioning. My life changed. That’s when I began to wonder: was I actually hearing God’s voice, even if I didn’t recognize it at the time? A ticker tape message, a faint whisper, both unmistakably—I was hearing God’s voice in the quiet.
Continue the Journey:
If this post spoke to your heart, you might also enjoy:
---* Dr. Trace Pirtle is a retired counselor education professor, Christ-centered writer, and founder of Faith in Action Ministry. He now walks the narrow path with believers who are done with lukewarm religion and long to follow Jesus beyond the church walls. Writing from the Texas Hill Country, he encourages fellow pilgrims to move beyond Sunday traditions into daily fire. Welcome home, pilgrim.
Comments