I really can't tell you why we did this. I have no excuses. During that same weekend, we asked God in the usual way, prayerfully flipping a coin, if we were to go to a friend's wedding in a large city nearby. God's answer was Yes. Go! We thought of many reasons why we didn't want to go. Lots of traffic was expected in that area due to a special activity (other than the wedding) that was taking place nearby. It would be frustrating. Eva had a sore toe that required she wear old shoes which she had cut open (which are not fashionably correct). Also, we really didn't have appropriate clothes.

After weighing all of the negatives, we didn't go. Why, then, did we ask God about it? Good question. Sunday afternoon, we asked God something (in the usual way) and got gibberish (meaning that in two or more coin flips, the answers were not gelling, not making sense). Gibberish, when it is related to prayerfully flipping a coin, happens for numerous reasons. One reason is that God wants us to wait on Him rather than proceed at that time. But another very important reason is if we are being rebellious and disobedient. That was our case. We were sure of it. We truly felt He had turned His face away from us. And we knew we deserved it. We felt ashamed.

At first, I thought I was innocent, merely allowing Eva to have her way in not going to these events. But then I realized I was deluding myself. I had encouraged her to ignore God. I was Adam, playing Eve, tempting her to stay home and work on the songs. She was Eve, playing Adam, biting into my delicious, rebellious fruit.

For the next four days, we knew God loved us (as He always will) but we had abused our willingness to trust Him radically (via this prayerful coin toss method) and we felt His absence. We did not even feel comfortable tossing a coin prayerfully during this time. We truly missed our God, who does care for us and even wants to be involved in our entire decision making.

We discussed this and began to list the reasons we loved prayerfully flipping coins to get God's answer: We each missed the joy that comes into our hearts when God allows us to eat out or go see a particular movie. We also missed Him saying No, when we really needed Him to say that. We missed the wonderful conversations we had had with Him that occurred in multiple prayerful coin tosses (in which His wonderful logic was displayed) and then, when we followed His direction, we appreciated the results, which bore fruit that could only come from God. We really missed all of that. Every morning, I knew that God allowed me one coin toss to see if we could communicate with God in this way again. Every morning, it was No. This went on for three mornings.

On the third evening, after my prayer time in which tears of contrition and remorse slid down my cheeks, I told Eva that I felt He was going to allow us to use this method again the next day. Indeed, on Thursday morning when I asked the Lord if we could resume using this method full time, it was Yes. We had learned our lesson (hopefully, so it stuck). We began asking questions of our Lord and Savior again, in this method, and, indeed, although He never left us, His face was turned toward us again as we resumed this method fully.

This story illustrates that we are not to take our conversations with God (in this manner) for granted. We are not to ask and not heed what He tells us. He does not give us His direction lightly. We have been praying to meet the right person who might sponsor us in getting our music professionally recorded. What if He had planned that we meet someone at that wedding? Or at that church service? Indeed, God does set up situations in which we meet people, as illustrated in the next story.

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