Bend Your Ear

Our "40 days in the west" was centered around heading to Bend, OR. Of all the places on the west coast, God had been calling us to Bend for nearly a year. Well, we made it! As I (Josh) write this, we have been in Bend almost a week. It has been an amazing time connecting with people and building new relationships.

Bend is very important for the state of Oregon and, of course, the Kingdom. It is almost in the exact center of the state and is arguably Oregon's fastest growing city. 

Sunday was a powerful day for us. God began speaking to me at 6 in the morning and it continued all the way through the prayer meeting and Sunday service. Mary had an amazing time by herself with the Lord and we had several words spoken over our family. Judah even had a dream of us running a race in a church!

One of the things a lady shared with us was that she felt like God wanted to deposit something in us. The Holy Spirit moved mightily in the service and after three pages in my journal, I felt God had spoken about the things that had been on our hearts for a long time. I'm not going to go into all the details right now, but we'll be unwrapping some of it in the future for you all.

One of the main purposes for our trip to Bend, we soon found out after arriving, was to walk through some tough things with one family. God first connected us to this family at AzusaNow in 2016. It was before I was a pastor and they prophesied that God had a new job for me!  The Lord had let me know in 2014 that I'd be done with my current job in 2016 and that it would be full-time ministry.  I remember them saying it would be good for our family. Four months later I was hired as the Outreach Pastor at our church!

Fast-forward 2.5 years later, and we "randomly" run into them walking to Bethel Church in Redding, CA. We spend the whole day together and now, a year later, we're parked in front of their house. God is so good! He is the great connector!

I know without a doubt, God has something special for this family, and every person reading this. He does immeasurably more that we ask or imagine. Sometimes He's pruning and preparing us for what is ahead. Sometimes He's teaching us things we wouldn't learn any other way. But, everything He does is for our good. He's always awakening us to new truths, higher resolve and relentless perseverance.

Press into God. He ALWAYS comes through. It's a beautiful thing that I don't always understand. 

Think about the depths of this truth from Romans 11:36 (NIV): 

For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.