I argued for the next six miles, telling God there was no reason for it, and furthermore, I wasn't even sure whether this impression was from Him or my own loony self. I finally decided I'd better turn around, even if it was my own loony self -- just in case it was God's leading. The funny thing is, it was way more packed than I'd seen from the freeway, there was no parking, and I just ended up driving around for 10 minutes. I never found the parking lot I was looking for, got back on the freeway and drove on with no understanding of what had just happened.

Those of you who've been reading for awhile might remember the time I rode my scooter to a house on top of a hill because of one of these impressions -- with similar unanswered questions. I didn't bother to write about what happened a day or two later when I was driving through a blink-and-it's-gone town, saw a women in a motorized wheelchair and had the impression I should stop and give her a book. I argued with God for 10 miles that time before turning around and zooming back. She wasn't where she'd been, but I caught up to her further down the road. A couple weeks ago I drove Bertha a mile down a severely potholed dirt road to give a book to some woman in a trailer beside an Indian church.

Here's the thing -- I'm trying to be open, I'm trying to listen for that still, small voice. But I never really know if it's God or if it's me. Usually my criteria for figuring out if it's God or just my loony self is that I don't want to do it and I get pretty irritated when I have to. For example, I never get the impression I should stop when driving by Baskin Robbins, but if I did I wouldn't be irritated about it! ;)

It'd be easy to figure out if I had some fabulous outcome, like a recent story I read about Beth Moore. She was told to do something crazy by God and things worked out beautifully. Or a story my dad told me about Max Meyers having to drive 50 miles back to pick up a hitchhiker God had told him to pick up, but he'd driven 50 miles past while arguing. When he got back the hitchhiker said "are you from God?" The hitchhiker had told God that he'd believe in Him if God sent one of His servants to give a lift.

Those kinds of stories are inspiring -- me making a loop on the freeway for no apparent reason is not. Has this kind of thing ever happened to you? Besides the obvious things like knowing God's not going to tell you to rob a bank, how do you distinguish if it's the voice of God?