Keep Steady on the Road

Timothy Snodgrass gave two words to the church that are going to be significant to the success and completion of your journey. They were like the words of counsel given by an ancient sage to a sea captain who is facing a perilous journey. You, the sea captain, have already faced incredible difficulties through turbulent tornadoes, but now the tornadoes are subsiding and distractions may come to take you from your journey.
The first warning is that things are going to slow down. Take this time to rest, especially in prayer, meditate upon and contemplate each move before you make it. The instructions that have been given to slow down are just as important as the instructions that warned you about things speeding up, because you are to keep the ship, your very life, steady on the course that God originally called you upon. Remember, that original call is your purpose. So many times a smooth-talking preacher or friend can get you excited about his or her vision to a point that you lose sight of the vision that God gave to you. In first 13th chapter of I Kings, the young prophet of God was sent to prophesy to the king of Israel, and the Lord instructed him not to take time to sit down and eat a meal with anyone. When the king asked the prophet to come to his house and eat, the prophet told him, “I cannot, even for a moment, eat with you almighty king.” Then an older prophet heard about the young prophet and hunted him down and told him that he also was a prophet of God and that an Angel told him to tell the young man to come to his house and eat. The young prophet forgot the original word that God had given him and went to the older prophet’s house and as they were eating dinner, the older prophet stood up saying, “The Lord says, you have disobeyed.” Sure enough, when the young prophet left the older prophet’s house a lion killed him and the old prophet ran to his dead body, crying and said, “Alas, my brother!” Then he buried him in his own grave. Think about how heavy this story is. Do not leave the call that God has given. This is why I emphasize in every service how important it is for you to hear the voice of God in your heart. Jesus said, “My sheep know My voice and another they will not hear.”
Timothy’s second warning is likened unto the first. Many distractions are going to come to you. Some of the things that you might interpret to be distractions might actually be blessings in disguise, and although this might sound confusing to you at first, God has said that we are coming into a whirlwind. A whirlwind always appears to be confusing at first but when you stay steady on the course you find it to be a strong wind against your back pushing you in the direction you’re supposed to go.
Recently I was on a trip with Timothy and we ate at a nice restaurant. Timothy paid for the meal. The next day he could not find his credit cards. Together he and my family looked everywhere his car had been without finding the cards. In the meantime a lot of confusion that we were both dealing with was being cleared up. Finally, when the last piece of confusion was cleared, Timothy and I understood exactly what we were supposed to do. Suddenly at that time, Timothy was told by the Lord to go to the refrigerator in his hotel room and get some juice to drink. When he opened up the refrigerator, there next to the juice (which he had not purchased) was a stack of all of his missing credit cards. We all were shocked by the phenomenon of them appearing out of nowhere. This brought back to memory a time when Paul Cain was in Kansas City and lost his driver’s license and credit cards. A few months later when he was speaking at our church in San Francisco, one of the young prophets prophesied that Paul Cain was about to receive his identity. After speaking Paul Cain went to his hotel room and there miraculously was his lost wallet with his driver’s license lying on the bed. I believe that now is the time that God is revealing lost identity and wealth through unexpected miracles.
It is God’s goodness that is directing your life and it’s important that you stay on course every day! Keep your compass headed to the point of North, which is the word of God for your life. If you do this every day, your life will be full of every delight that God is sending to you, even as a little child.