I’m in Tulsa to attend the Seeds Conference. Other that my denomination’s disctrict conference, I don’t attend events like this one. However, it was time to get away and get fed again.
The kickoff was given by Steven Furtick. It was my first chance to hear him live, and … wow. The boy can preach!
He spoke from 2 Kings 3:9–20. I wont take the time to tell the story found in the passage, other than to say that there was a drought in the land. Elisha is called upon to give a word from God, and his response is simple: “Dig a ditch. The water is coming.”
Furtick’s offered a number of thoughts from the passage. Here’s a few I wrote down:
- Sometimes you have to close your eyes before you can see the vision. In other words, take your eyes of what you see in the natural so that God can speak to you.
- God doesn’t offer guidance, he wants to be our guide. Often, he only gives us one thing to do (“dig a ditch”) and doesn’t tell us the rest of the details. Can we trust him with the one thing he wants us to do even if we can’t explain the rest of the details?
- Only God can make it rain, but he expects us to dig the ditch. In other words, do our part by following what he tells us to do.
- In God’s economy, the rain only comes after we’ve dug the ditch. Too often, we have a vision, we know what God wants us to do, but we wait until everything is in place. “I’ll bring on that staff member once we have the money in the budget.” “We’ll launch that ministry once we have all the volunteers in place.” However, if God says, “Do it.” Then, our job is to … do it, not figure out all the details before doing it.
Furtick then jumped to Acts 3. He read the story of Peter & John and the crippled beggar.
- We want the miracle, but we don’t want to work with what we have. Far too often, we say things like, “When I have _____, then I’ll do ______.” God never works that way. He takes a few fishes and feeds thousands. Peter admitted to the beggar, “We don’t have much … but with what we have, get up and walk.”
- Far too often we want to think outside the box, which isn’t a bad thing. However, we must begin with what we have inside the box. Take what you do have and trust God with it. Only then will he do a miracle using what you already have. God wants to enlarge the box you are working in, but we must first be willing to use what we already have.
Anyway, it was a great launch to what promises to be an amazing week. It’s a blast hanging with Heather, Cam, and Erin as well.
I can’t wait to bring some of this back to VCC!
