So when I wrote last (which would be last night, I know, I turning into a regular Doogie Howser) I was pretty much just complaining and griping about how I didn’t like being between the Red Sea and the charging Egyptians. Of course, I am still in the same spot but I did manage to get some key revelations. First, it’s amazing how God places certain people in your life just to lighten things up. For instance, last night my dedicated trash helper person “pretended” to stumble on the sidewalk just to try to crack me up. Imagine that! Stumbling on a completely smooth sidewalk. If I didn’t see it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it myself. But anyway I digress.

So I got home from the Leadership Advantage conference after hearing Pastor Mike Kai from Hope Chapel West O’ahu (www.hcwo.com) deliver an awesome message that spoke directly to me and I decided to spend some time with God (which is never a bad idea). I started reading the book of Judges and the birth of Samson. See, before Samson was born, an angel of the Lord appeared to Samson’s mother to tell her that she would bear a son who would become a rescuer of Israel. Unfortunately her husband wasn’t around and he didn’t get to meet this angel. But when he came back around she tried to tell him what had happened. This was his response, “Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born” (Judges 13:8). This really stuck out to me. This man could have prayed anything. He could have asked for a miraculous sign. He could have asked for a confirmation that his wife wasn’t going nuts. He could have asked for anything. Instead he asked for the man to come back so he could have more instructions. That is amazing. He wanted more instructions. So I began praying for more instructions.

The next day I was off going to work and I remembered a story that Pastor Ralph told us during our staff discipleship. He was telling us of a woman who went to China to become a missionary and became discouraged because she wasn’t seeing God move too much. So she decided that she would spend 15 minutes a day praying in tongues. After about two weeks of praying in tongues everyday for 15 minutes she began to see an explosion of things happening in the Spirit. She began to see many miracles happening when she would pray for people. So feeling inspired I decided that I was going to pray in tongues for 15 minutes. I got in my car and started driving to town and I started praying in tongues. I prayed and I prayed and I kept praying. I felt like I was praying forever. But when I looked down at my car’s clock only two minutes had passed. Man it’s tough just praying solidly for 15 minutes. Anyway, not wanting to give up, I continued to pray. By the time I had prayed for about ten solid minutes I started to hear God.

Let me clarify that last part, I did NOT hear some audible voice in my car actually talking to me. It’s not like God was in the passenger seat with me, it was more I knew that he was speaking to me. He gave me some verses and some interpretations of those verses. It was great. I didn’t want to stop (plus I didn’t have anything to write them down on). So watch this, I’m super clever. Because I didn’t have anything to write what God was telling me down upon, guess what I did? I called the church office and had them direct me to my voice mail and I left myself a message. Super smart huh?

By the time I got to church later that day I was feeling really good. The Bible says that “where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18) and I had been feeling that I didn’t really have a vision for Ignite. I had been praying about this for almost two months. However, I finally felt like I had some kind of vision for Ignite. It’s really great to be in the will of God. So anyway to wrap up my day, I got to meet with Pastor Jeph for a while (it’s been a really long time since we got to just chat) then I met with Linda afterward (that went really well too, we got to discuss the ministry more) and then there was an incredible worship time during the service. Ahhh, God is sooooo good. Finally we went to Zippy’s and had an after church snack (and that crazy Keao, trying to lighten up the atmosphere once again by “pretending” that she didn’t catch on to the jokes that Mike was telling her). Thanks God for an awesome day…