Transition Series – Pulling Aside to Find His Path

I moved to Colorado Springs in the early 1990s, thinking I was going there from Dallas, TX, to take a year’s sabbatical and write. It was a difficult time for my family to make the move and seemed unwise, except for what I was feeling in my spirit. In fact, I had begun to feel somewhat successful in my ministry life. I was a part-time pastor at my church in Dallas and I taught part-time at Christ for the Nations. I also travelled part-time, teaching and ministering. I knew that all those things were a part of what God was eventually going  to do with my life. All those things were foundational to what I actually do today. Just as I was getting a little momentum, getting more meetings than I could take, etc., the Lord told me to pull aside for a year and not do any meetings. He asked me to hide, seek Him, and write. I ended up not doing much writing. He really just wanted me to seek Him; spend a lot of time with Him. I had several people that I really trusted that were telling me not to do this.

After about a year, God orchestrated me taking on another man’s church in the Springs. He was burned out and sick. He couldn’t do it anymore. The church was hurting financially and in other ways. At the same time, I was offered a 3,000 seat church with a six-story prayer tower in Florida. The retiring pastor was leaving it well and felt the Lord had told him that I was to take the church. He literally pulled the keys out of his pocket and dangled them in front of me. He said it was mine that very day. I could just take the keys and that was that. I told him I did not feel like I was supposed to do that. He began to weep and asked me to at least pray about it, so I told him I would do that. What was interesting about all this is that I didn’t want to pastor at all! But, all my emotions did say, “Go to Florida.”

My dad called me and begged me not to take the church in Colorado Springs, but to take the church in Florida. He saw the Florida opportunity as God’s favor. My emotions were in turmoil. Ceci and I had to shut out all the voices and seek Him. I asked my spiritual father to pray with us. When all my emotions calmed down, I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to stay in Colorado Springs and pastor the church there.

“‘For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.’” (Jeremiah 29:11; NET)

Give Him 15 minutes in prayer:

• Read Jeremiah 29:11 and think about it for a few minutes. Do you believe it? Does it ever feel like things are going the opposite way of what you expected? Consider it personally. Consider it over your state. Consider it nationally.
• Declare, “I will put my whole trust in the Lord and I will do what he tells me to do, even if it seems to be taking me in a direction that doesn’t make sense. I believe He is preparing a future of blessing for me.”
• Say, “I choose to trust the Lord with the future of America, even though the times seem troubled and like things are getting rapidly worse. God may be setting the pride-filled enemy up for a fall.”
• Remember that God is working out His plan to expand His Kingdom in the earth. This involves many individuals’ lives intersecting. Worship Him for His wisdom, and intercede for His plans and purposes to come to pass quickly.

A prayer you can pray:

Lord, when I think about all the lives You have to direct every day, it boggles my mind. I will never know on this side of heaven how You so perfectly orchestrate things to cause Your Kingdom to come on the earth. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Kingdom of God, come! Will of God, be done!” I am sure they were as clueless as we are today just exactly how critical those words would be to the direction of their own lives and the millions of others to follow. Like a pebble in a pond, they began to create direction, purpose, alignment, salvations, relationships, and many other things. Everything moving us into Your plan and purpose—for ourselves, our families, our nations, Your Kingdom. You get to be Lord of our lives; Lord of all. This is Your story that we are a part of. You get to tell us where to go and where to be, and You don’t owe us any explanation. Help us to be obedient, Father, so we don’t throw a wrench in the works and slow things down. I choose to trust You with my future, and the future of this nation You placed me in. Line things up to confound the enemy. Surprise him and those he borrows. Let Your people be blessed as we humbly follow You. Let the world see Jesus in us. Amen.

Today’s decree:

We can trust the Lord with the future of America, even though the times seem troubled and like things are getting rapidly worse. He is undoing the work of the evil one and preparing a glorious future for us!