A Word From God

Totally having a crazy out-of-body type experience, so as usual, I’ve got to record the story…

In the Spring of this year, pastor and author Mark Batterson, talked about his upcoming book the Circle Maker that would come out in December 2011. It’s the story of how he has asked BIG things from God and prayed over property that he felt God had asked him to pray over. It coincided with a building on 78th street that we felt like God was putting on our hearts for our church. With a nod to the Circle Maker idea, we loaded up our church and went to the property to pray. It ignited our dreams and landed on the front page of the local newspaper, the Columbian. Our church was believing for $2.5 million dollars to buy a building in a not-so-great part of town and change the community.

And for many months, we’ve waited quietly for the miracle that we believe is coming. We haven’t forgotten, but in the meantime, we’ve looked at literally every option just in case God had a different plan. Nothing seemed to settle well in our spirits and so with a little impatience and frustration, we have just kept praying.

Fast forward to November 2011. Since we’ve been married (14 years now!), I have regularly asked Mark, my husband, the same question, “What do you think God is telling us?” And once again, I prodded his heart to see what was going on in there.

Mark’s answers vary quite a bit. He’s got no ability to sugar-coat anything, so sometimes he flat out says, “I have no idea. Totally unclear on God’s direction right now.” Ironically, I appreciate that answer because the last thing I need is a pastor who comes up with the “right” thing to say that comes from the wrong source. Just say it like it is and we’ll go from there.

Last month, however, he perked up at the question and gave me a very clear answer. He said, “I was listening to a message today that I preached a year ago and the story hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the story about how Moses went to God when the Israelites were begging for meat as they wandered around the desert. God said, “Give them what they ask for.” Long story short, even though Moses deemed this impossible, quail rained down from the sky in droves and overly fed them all!”

Needless to say, I thought this was the oddest answer he had literally ever given me.

That same week we had scheduled Jerry to come and pray with our staff. Jerry is the man who had felt impressed to come to our current rental property five years ago and pray that God would use this corner for His glory. We moved in shortly thereafter. He emailed us last month and told us he had a Word from God for us after He had read about 19 Cents of Faith (the story of our dream for the 78th street building), so we gladly welcomed him into our staff meeting.

Jerry began to speak and from most of our staff’s perspective, it was a simple Word, but Mark began to weep. The Word Jerry spoke, with a humble heart, was the story of the Iraelites begging for meat and God saying, “Give them meat, because I am God and what you see is not even the tip of the iceberg compared to what I can do for you.” It then began to rain quail.

Fast forward to today. Yesterday the mail came and the book that inspired me so many months ago had arrived. This morning I began to read the Circle Maker and fondly remembered the BIG, audacious goal that God had birthed in our hearts. And then I turned to Chapter 5…Cloudy with a Chance of Quail. Yep, the same story of Moses praying for meat was laid out before me. The third time in three weeks in regards to the same prayer.

Do I think that it’s a coincidence that God has used the same characters with the same Bible story for literally a year now? No, I don’t think this is a coincidence. I think this is confirmation. I think this is God saying, “Listen to me. I can do the impossible and I will. Watch me.”

The story isn’t finished, yet. But I sure can’t wait to flip the page and see what God does next…