"PREPARE."

(This is me not working on my make-up work.  Whoops.)

I don't hear God speak directly to me in a very clear, real way very often.

In fact, there have been many times that I've gone many seasons without hearing God's voice clearly, and in my pride and selfishness, I've had to struggle through jealousy of so many of my friends who have had amazing experiences where God has spoken to them in their times of prayer.  Cornerstone folks, it was very similar to the Coke video we watched in the service this weekend...I felt jipped with only 8 oz. of Coke, when all my friends were walking around with 2 liters or more.

Well, last year God helped me open my eyes a bit and realize how wrong I was in my thinking.  He basically smacked me on the back of the head and said, "What, you don't think I'm trying to get your attention all the time?  Look around you!!  I am doing so much all around you, speaking through my followers, through my creation, through pastors, sermons, books, etc., and you think I'm not trying to speak to you?"

In that moment, when I did hear his voice directly, prayer that was actually a conversation and not just a one-way street, all I could really do was hide my face.  As God poured his words into my mind, I felt the need to just stop talking...his words were completely overwhelming...it was the God of the Universe, speaking to ME!  Now, to the point that God was making in that moment, he had been (and still does) speaking to me in so many different ways already, every single day, even in every single moment.  But, in that specific moment there, it was quite different.  It was God's direct words...and all I could do was hide my face and listen, completely overwhelmed.

I had another one of those experiences last night.  In the Gathering service at Hope, we had our time of communion, which tends to take a while with around 1300 people there, even with like 9 stations.  I hopped up right away with my one good leg to take communion before I would have had to wait in line with my crutches, and I had the rest of the time to sit in the pew, taking time to pray.  And as I did, God met me in that prayer.

Honestly, I don't remember everything that I was praying at that moment, and that was less than 24 hours ago.  Much of it was probably me rambling some religious speak, praying the "right" things.  But in part of the prayer, I was praying with a lot of the thoughts from last night's post that I finished up after the Gathering, about turning back to God after knowing that I messed up, and unsure of how to really come back to Him...how to really humble myself, whether he was really meeting me there, or whether I wasn't really coming to him fully...in the language of the last post, whether I was coming with all of my heart, including the inmost parts, instead of just coming with the surface gunk.  And then, he spoke, taking my prayer in a new direction.

"You're going to have to take a step of faith, Tom."

It totally caught me off guard...here I was rambling in thought about something different, and these words were ever-strong in my head.  Before I even knew that I was in a direct conversation with the living God, I reactively asked, "A step of faith?  Well, what do you mean?  What is this about?  Am I going to know where this step will take me?"

"Yes...but not all at once, and not right now.  I will show you one step at a time, and you'll have to take that step, not knowing what the next one is, but knowing I will provide it."

"Ok....well, what's the first step?"

"PREPARE."

It was a this moment that I stopped...it finally sunk in that God was speaking to me, and I didn't have words anymore...I put my face in my hands, completely overwhelmed, just listening to this last word echoing in my head.

"PREPARE."

After simply sitting there with my hands in my face, completely overwhelmed, other thoughts started slowly coming into my head.  In fact, they have been slowly ever since.

So, God does have something planned, something that is going to take a step of faith...well, probably many steps of faith, one at a time.  I don't even know what the eventual next step is, whether it's something specific in ministry, some kind of mission work, something to do with seminary, or whatever. I just know that God has something planned that he wants me to prepare for.  This first step of faith is preparing for something...but I have not a clue what.  Just prepare.

I'm beginning to wrestle with how I am to prepare.  That's the hard thing, see, I don't really know where I'm going with this, just that I need to prepare myself for a step that's coming.  Part of this is confirmation for where I am right now, as a college student in the Religion major and ministry minor.  As a student, I am naturally in a state of preparation, as I'm learning all kinds of information and wrestling through issues that are going to prepare me for whatever I end up doing.  But, I know there's more, otherwise I don't think God would have been so direct with me.

The first thing that comes to mind is to prepare myself through my knowledge of the scriptures.  I need to dive in to the Word and absolutely fall in love with it, letting it sink in to all parts of my life.  I need to really become a follower and disciple of Christ by really digging into the Scriptures with all that I have...not just looking up random bits of scripture here and there (which most of the time is for a paper that I'm writing for class), but really reading it, really learning it, really growing from it.  If I'm to prepare for something that God has for me that's going to require a step of blind faith, I had better know God's Word better than I do now, so I really know what my faith is in as I step out.

This will be a challenge for me.  As I mentioned, it's not a regular habit for me to daily dive in to the scriptures in depth...maybe a verse here or there, but nothing really in depth.  Nothing that I'm really growing from, or that's really preparing me for something.  Not really as a spiritual discipline of regularly devoting myself to learning the Word.  But, this is the first step of faith, which will also be a step of discipline.  I need to get into the Word big time, in order to prepare for something that's coming.

Beyond that...I'm not sure how else I should be preparing yet.  What I do know is that I need to prepare...because that's what God told me.

More to come on this, I'm sure.  I'm still a little boggled by the whole thing, so maybe clearer thoughts will come with time.  More likely, when the time is right, God will reveal each step that I need to take, one at a time.

Here we go!

-Tom