OCT 26 2025 | Elijah: From Drought to Downpour S1E9 | When Preparation Meets Power

Sea Change Church · Elijah: From Drought to Downpour · "When Preparation Meets Power" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · October 26, 2025
1 Kings 18:32-37
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

It's in your name we pray. Amen. The Old Testament book of First Kings chapter 18 verses 32 through 37. And with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seas of seed. And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood. And he said, do it a second time.

And they did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water. And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, oh Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.

Answer me. Oh Lord, answer me that this people may know that you oh Lord are God, and that you have turned their hearts back. This is the word of the Lord On For All of you listening online, nice to see you. I've been talking without my mic on. So good to see you. We had some secrets we wanted to keep from you. So just, just plain. You gotta show up to hear that got like five lip readers online. If you have your, uh, Bibles turn to one Kings 1832 through 37.

And we're in this story here with Elijah getting to the end of this part of the story where he's in this showdown, this confrontation with the king, with the prophets of Baal. These are these prophets who King Ahab and his wife Jezebel, have brought into their kingdom to prophesy, to tell them what we want, what they want to hear, and how often do we do that, right? We bring things into our lives that we just, they tell us what we want to hear, they make us feel what we want to feel.

And that was happening. God sent Elijah, if you haven't been here for this series and a lot of you're new, and God sent Elijah to say, enough is enough. And there's a showdown now. And he's called those prophets to Mount Carmel, to say to the prophets of Baal, show up if your God is who you say he is, we'll have a showdown. Let's see your God. Show up and we'll see my God show up and we'll see what happens. And so you have this, this bull that these two bulls that are given, and they're put on the altar and, uh, you, you know, the prophets of Baal or you know, he says, you guys call fire down and let the let the fire come from heaven and just take up the, the, the offering.

And he says, when you're done with that, then if he doesn't come, then I'm gonna do the same and we're gonna find out who God is. And so this is where we are in the story, except there's a, a little bit of a glitch in the narrative. Um, Elijah makes his life a little bit harder. He takes the bull, he prepares it, he gets the wood, he prepares it. We're gonna see that and read that again in just a second. And then he is like, that's not enough. I wanna up the ante.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna pour water all over this. I'm gonna make a trench. I'm gonna fill it with water. And the amount of water that he was pouring over there, he just soaks it. He just completely soaks it. And the question is why? We'll get to that in a second. If you have your, uh, notes, you can, there's key word there for today is preparation. I want you to put next to preparation, also put plan a, put preparation, and you can add one plan a two points today.

Uh, faith doesn't hedge its bets. If you know what that means to hedge your bets, it means you kind of just have a, a backup. You kind of don't, not all in a little bit in you kind of hedge a little bit, right? And then powerful prayer follows proper preparation. We're gonna see in a moment, Elijah doesn't call down God's fire until he had prepared the offering and the sacrifice. That's a great metaphor for us as well.

We're a lot of times we're, we're praying God, we want the fire God, we want the fire. God bring the fire. But we're not preparing, we're not doing the small things in our life that, that make a way for God to show up. Could God show up without us preparing? He has, and he does, and he does that with grace, but at the same time, so often it's the process that he's a part of. So those are the two points. Faith does, doesn't heads its bets.

Powerful prayer follows proper preparation. Go to verse 33 and 34, we're gonna dive into this. Verse 33. And he put the wood in order, circle in order. We're gonna get to that in a moment. Cut the bull in pieces, laid it on the wood, and he said, fill four jars with water. Those might have been 60 gallons each, uh, with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood, on the burnt offerings and the wood. Verse 34. And he said, now do it a second time.

He said, now are we up to eight jars? And they did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time. Now we're up to 12 jars, probably 60 gallons each. And they did it a third time. Elijah has now boxed himself into a corner. Elijah has not just done something that shows his faith in putting up the altar and whether God will show up. Elijah has stepped up and said in front of you all, I'm going to box myself into a corner and do present this offering to God in such a way that there's no second chance for me.

There's no plan B for me. God has to show up. There's no, um, hedging of my bets. There's no other way it's going to happen. I'm going to put myself in a position where God has to show up. How often do we do that? Or how often do we become people of plan B? You got a backup plan, right? You got a backup plan for God. The plan A is faith and it's what God's called you to. But we got a backup plan and we're so good at backup plans.

I have been a master of the backup plan, the escape out the back door plan, have another way to do it. I'm, I'm constantly, when I'm doing things of faith with God, I'm, I'm constantly thinking, well, how, how could I remedy this if God doesn't show up? I'm not talking about jumping out of a plane with a, you know, without a parachute. I'm not saying that. We'll get to that in just a second. The balance between faith and wisdom. Right?

But if you were to be honest with yourself, how many of you, us, I'm gonna use the, I wanna use us language. How many of us are probably more of the time plan B people than we are plan A people. We have a plan B for all types of things in our lives, but Elijah has boxed himself into a corner and he's abandoned any hope of a plan B. He has destroyed any hope of a plan B. What does it look like for us if we get rid of plan B in the things that God has called us in?

I put in the, in, um, not in your notes, but it says, um, faith has no plan B, because the moment you keep a plan B plan A stops becoming faith, it becomes a formula. Think about that. Faith. I have found out that faith doesn't pencil out. Faith doesn't pencil out in my time. Faith doesn't pencil out in my, in my finance faith doesn't pencil out. And as soon as I start building an altar unto plan B, I have a formula.

Well, if God doesn't do this, then I'll do this and A plus B and C, and then I'll do this and that'll work out. And, and I have all this calculation going on in my mind, plan A with God. And I believe God is a plan, uh, a God of the plan. A i I think that he can work in a plan B. And he does, he brings all things together for good. And some of you have moved into something that looks more like plan B than A, and God's blessed it because he's God and he loves you, right?

But I believe that God is a God of the plan A and he's calling us not to have that. Because when you're in faith, you don't calculate. It's really hard not to do that, right? When you step out into faith, you're thinking, Hey, you know, how do I do this? Remember when I was, uh, when I'd come back from Australia as a missionary, we'd come back and, uh, I had been offered a job at a church as a youth pastor. And I'd been a youth pastor for like 15 years at that point.

I had no more youth pastor left outta me. They had beat it outta me. It was done. I knew I had nothing. And, uh, at the time, we had about $2,000 in our savings account. Some of you have been here a while, have heard this story, but for a lot of you, you're new. So these are new stories, uh, so I just gotta keep repeating them. And we had about 2000 bucks in our account. My daughter was about two years old. My first daughter, Lily was about two years old.

And we were living in a studio apartment, and the closet was Lily's bedroom. So we had emptied out the closet and she was living in the, in the closet. And I'd been offered this job, and they came to me, and I, it was, it was pretty good money. And so they came to me and they, they had a headhunter. I'd never been headhunted before. I'm not, that's not really our world, but it's sometimes it is. So they got a hold of us.

I was meeting with the headhunter and I, and I, I just knew I couldn't do it, but we didn't have anything. And the Lord was, and I just knew the Lord was saying, that's not the job for you. I gotta say it is, it is harder to say no to a job when you have no money in faith than it is to step out and take a job in faith. And so in that moment, I went to 'em, and then they, they actually, I said no. And then two weeks later, like it was, we're probably down to like 1300 at that point.

I don't know how much money we had in the bank. It was, it wasn't a lot, right? We're just newly married. We'd been to Australia. We had spent all of our money trying to be missionaries, didn't work out the way we thought. I thought I was in Plan B back in America. It ended up being God's plan. A sometimes we can make that mistake. And they came back to me a second time and they said, Hey, we're gonna up the ante. You are the guy. We just love you. You're the guy.

We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna pay you this amount of money. And it was good youth pastor, it was good. Every, it was a Presbyterian church, so they pay good at Presbyterian church. That's all I've heard. I'm not, I'm saying they pay the Presbyterians pay. And I had to say no. And I was waiting on another church, north Coast Calvary Chapel. And the Lord said, that's the church I'm sending you to. And I was like, ah.

And I was with their pastor and they had other things going on, and I wanted to be the college pastor. And, uh, they ended up hiring somebody else as the college pastor. I'm like, ah, I knew it. I knew it. And I finally got a phone call and it was like five weeks later, and they said, Hey, we'd like to hire you for this job. It ended up being there 10 years. And it was one of the best experiences, most shaping experiences of my life.

That was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. And the five weeks of being in the hurt, the spiritual hurt locker was absolutely brutal. But in the midst of that, God brought me at that point in my life, I said, no plan B, just no plan. That was one moment in my life. And I've had a lot of times where I have been plan B Boy, right? Elijah here boxes himself in, in a way. And, and I, I wanna show you something that's interesting in the Hebrew culture at the time.

You can see there, go back to verse 33. He put it in an order. Go to verse 34. He said, do it a second time. He did the second time. Then do it a third time. In the Hebrew culture, when you do something once, it means the initiation of an action. It's a one is, is initiation, right? Uh, on the first day God created, you can go through all these, I want do a deep dive into that. But one is a, is a, is a number of initiation to the Hebrews and to the Israelites.

Two was confirmation. Jesus says, um, verily, verily or truly, truly, I say to you, that isn't just, he's a stuttering. He's actually confirming. I want you to know this is confirmed. Not only am I initiating this, so he initiated a lot of things in the New Testament, new teachings. This is not a, you know, this is a new teaching. Not only would he initiate it with the verily I say to you, he'd say, truly, truly, or verily, verily, I'd say to you, it was the second time.

It was a confirmation. Third time, three means completion, absolute completion. God is putting his stamp on the deal. The, the line, it is signed in blood, as you would see by the third day when Jesus has risen on the third day, there's all these threes in scripture. And so that's what it means. So he's, when he's doing it a third time, he is sealing his. He's saying, I'm not gonna have a plan B, let me ask you right now, do we have plan Bs in our mind?

I know I, I got a couple plan B's. I'm working. I dunno about you, but I want faith. And not a formula, but I'm just addicted to the formula, right? 'cause the formula works out the way I want it to work out. But three is the number of completion. One might've been enough, two would've been a proven a point. But three says, this is done. There is nothing left of me. Everything now rests on him. God has to show up. Putting yourself in a position where God has to show up.

I gave a few examples of this. We say we trust God to provide, but we only give generously when the math makes sense. That's plan B. We pray for God's will in relationships, but we keep texting the old, uh, flame. We keep swiping just in case his timing doesn't work out. We have contingency plans for calling. Some of you are in ministry, not a lot of people here that are in ministry, or you've been called into ministry, money's not as good.

The timing's not right. You've been putting pause on it, pause on it. God's saying, I'm calling you out of the secular world. I'm calling you into the, the, the nonprofit Christian world of calling. He's called you into, but you're waiting because it just doesn't make sense. And so we've let our calling wait. And that doesn't just have to be people going into full-time ministry. Maybe God's called you to into a ministry, or he's called you to Africa to go to visit or whatever it is.

But contingency plans for our calling also, you'll know when you're in, when you're in plan B is when the com you have comfort zones rather than commitment. So what he's doing here, there's no comfort zone left for Elijah. There's no like, Hey, I got a lighter. Hey, by the way, poor little, you know, fuel on the flame. Just make sure that one of those is filled with gasoline, right? We're good at that, right? We talked about not messing with the, the, um, the sacrifice once we give it.

But we have comfort zones rather than commitment. And how easy is it to slide into a comfort zone? You know, we know our comfort zones, right? It doesn't matter what they are, I don't need to go through 'em all. But when we're going plan a, I have found that my amount of comfort zones that are available to me are smaller than they are when I'm not in plan A. And God removes comfort zones. That rationalization tells me is okay.

I say that holiness never needs to rationalize itself. I realize when there's God said to do this, anything after that, when I know right? I'm talking, when I know anything after that is just, is, is, is just, I'll use the term baloney, right? It's a a a place where we go, where we're rationalizing the commitment and we oftentimes just move into a comfort zone. I think as, as, as men, it's so important that we understand that we have these, these pressure valves that we just move into when the marriage gets a little too difficult or the business gets a little too difficult.

And I wanna say to men, especially that we need to move outside of that and say, there's certain comfort zones that I'm not willing to go into that zone anymore. That zone is off limits anymore. And I wanna move into commitment and not leave myself a plan B. Because comfort zones are so oftentimes just plan B, Elijah removes plan B. But how do you, how do you know, here's, here's some science that you're living in plan B.

I'll just give you four quick ones and you'll know it, you're managing your life and you're not moving in your life. You're just managing head above water. You're just, you're just managing oftentimes. Now there are seasons where there's pushback from the enemy, right? And so those seasons will feel that, but you'll know it, you'll know when you're not taking ground, when there's ground to be taken, you're managing, you're not moving.

Your decisions are driven by damage control, not by vision. Your prayers have shifted from faith to frustration. You're constantly playing in this, in this place of frustration as opposed to a place of, of, of looking and surveying what God has to do. Or perhaps you keep comparing to what could have been one of the things we do with, with plan B. When you're in plan B living, you just, you keep you, you live in a lot of regret.

The scripture says that Godly sorrow leaves no room for regret. Which means you can, you can be sad about something, but you don't need to regret it. And to live in regret that Satan wants to live, you know, to, to live in regret. What would've been ha what would've, uh, happened if I had done it this way or that way? Those days are over. You're in this moment and God's plan B is available now. Excuse me, lemme say that again 'cause I said that backwards, God's plan A is available now because God wants you to move into that at any moment, any moment of repentance, we can move back into that.

Now the question is, is this, what's the difference between wisdom and faith? Right? Lemme tell you what wisdom is. Wisdom is saving a little bit outta your paycheck for a rainy day. That's wisdom, right? That's not plan B. That's just wisdom. Wisdom is making sure that you have preparation and you're, and you're prepared for things or the things that God has called you into. You're making a stockpile like Joseph did for Egypt.

That is wisdom. But faith is the exact opposite. Faith is when we're giving ourselves backdoor escapes so that we don't have to do the thing that God had actually called us into. I'm telling you this though, God's not telling you to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. I was, I was, um, look, watching a video recently and there, I guess a bunch of years back, there was a guy from Red Bull, you know, red Bull, the, the energy drink.

I drank one of those like about 20 years ago. Never again, right? I thought my heart was gonna explode. Unbelievable. Well, I went on a missions trip to Thailand with a bunch of kids. We took 23 middle schoolers to, they were junior hires then We didn't have middle school, um, to Thailand, right? Talk about faith. 23 junior hires to Thailand. Have you been to Thailand? Don't take 23 junior hires, right? I did that. A police come to my door one time 'cause one of the kids was peeing out the window.

'cause he didn't wanna walk to the bathroom from a high, from a high rise. Yeah, thanks a lot. And there's seven elevens everywhere. If you go to Thailand, there's seven elevens everywhere. Like it's Slurpees. And I remember there was these, there's thing, this is like, uh, 99 Red Bull wasn't a thing yet. And there was this, this station, right where the, the kids would get these little syrups and they had the Red Bull on it, but it wasn't called Red Bull.

It was just the, it was the logo, right? And they would go to get Slurpees. And pretty soon all my kids were just getting this syrup with these two Red Bulls and pouring 'em into their drinks. And, and then they were so good at being missionary evangelists after that. It was amazing. So I saw this Red Bull guy, and he's, remember, I dunno if you've seen it, he drinks a Red Bull and he jumps out of a plane without a parachute, right?

And then a guy follows him and he, I guess he grabs him. Faith is not asking you to do that. Faith is when you do something, you know, God has told you to do, there's a difference. When you just have a sense, like that's the faith element. You're just like, I know, I know God's saying this. I just, I just know it. And, and it gnaws at you and it's there, and it's, it's pushing you forward and it's encouraging and coincidences are happening and things are, you just know it's time to go that isn't jumping out without a parachute.

You see, when, you know, when you just know in your heart and you say, God, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna trust you on this. I'm gonna go, because you called me to go. That's the parachute you see, that's how you're called to jump out. And I've seen so many people throughout my life as a believer in and leading people in Christ, they just get impatient and they just jump. It's like, I'm just impatient. God's called me to to this, or he is called me.

I know he is meant to do this, or whether it's in a relationship. And it's like, you know, uh, I know he's called me to be married and I'm just gonna get married immediately to the first person I met. Like he's just, they're just jumping outta planes. I'm like, dude, dude, like, let's spend a little time seeking God on this. And sometimes I guess that works and God blesses it. But he's calling you to do something that he knows.

So go to verse 36. You're gonna see this in verse 36. Verse 36, really powerful. It says in verse 36, at the time of the offering of ablation, Elijah, the prophet came near and said, oh Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel, that I'm your servant, and that I have done all these things. What at your word? He didn't make it up. He didn't think, you know what I, I, I I, I'm going to do this.

I'm gonna get a little water. Watch, watch this prophet. Remember there were some other prophets there, uh, that were, that were, um, um, godly prophets. He did. It wasn't like, Hey, I'm gonna show you what, watch what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna pour water on this watch. This is gonna be sick. This is gonna be lit. Watch what happens. Literally lit. And he says, it's gonna be amazing. No, he didn't come up with that on his own.

He did it at the word of God. God had spoken to him. Now, granted, you might be thinking, well, if I was Elijah and God spoke to me, you know, faced or whatever gave me a voice, it'd be much easier. Let me just tell you, it's much easier for you now with a Bible and the Holy Spirit who lives within you, which Elijah would trade places with you like that. He would give up the voice for the presence. It is much easier for us now to follow and obey because so often we know, but we don't go.

And so that's the thing. What is God calling you to? And has plan B taken that off of track and slowed you down? Jesus said in John five 19 to give a New Testament, um, connection to this. Jesus says, so, uh, in five 19, John five 19. So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, oh, there it is. I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing for whatever the father does that the son does.

Likewise, Chris, just our worship TMC, changed worship. Just put out that song where you go, I will go. What you do, I will do where you, what you say. I will say, you can't do that unless you have Jesus in your sights. If you're looking at everything else going on and you aren't laser focused on Jesus, it's gonna be hard knowing what he has to say. So he does that next thing. So we come in for a landing here, it's the second point.

Powerful petition follows proper preparation. Um, go to verse 33, excuse me, not verse 33 for, uh, further down and verse 34, if you would. Sorry, verse 36. There you go. I changed my notes today. And at the time of the offering of ablation, Elijah, the prophet came near and said, oh Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel, that I'm your servant. And I have done all these things at your Word.

Uh, the first thing that I have found is, um, when I said, powerful petition follows preparation. This prayer, the place where this prayer comes is after he is prepared. I said that at the beginning, but so often we, we just want to pray and we want fire, but we don't live lives of preparation. I believe every day the majority of your life is not gonna be lived in the high highs and the dream moments in the things that you want.

I have found those moments are very rare. The majority of your life is gonna be lived in the mundane preparation, the getting up in the morning and just, um, going to the word of God prayer. It is in that preparation. And so it was that preparation that empowers the prayer put. And, and the other thing too that we see is there's a couple key components. One, his prayer was proceeded by an offering. He didn't just pray for.

I don't wanna use, maybe it's, I'm just, I'm just gonna say it this way 'cause it's easier. He didn't just pray for free. It cost him something. His prayer was proceeded by an offering. I want fire without an offering. Sometimes God tells me what I want. I don't really want to give much to it. I don't wanna be obedient. I don't want to give up my plan Bs. But I, oh God, deliver me, save me. Do this thing, do this great work.

God do this great work, but no offering. God doesn't consume empty altars said last week. He doesn't, he doesn't bring his fire upon broken altars. And we need to repair our altars. We talked about last week, what are the altars? We took stones last week to represent that, right? So you guys were like stoked on that. Had a bunch of people reach out to me that was powerful. But he's also looking for an offering. So with the things that you're praying for, are you proceeding it with an offering?

If you're praying for, you know, um, something for your marriage, right? Or you're praying for a ministry, what are you giving of yourself? Maybe it's, if you're married, maybe it's like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to counseling. I'm gonna do some, I'm gonna do something on my own. I'm gonna heal myself, not just ask God to fix my marriage. That is something that would be an offering of your time. That's just one small example where we're giving, we're doing something.

And, uh, so I put God's fire doesn't consume empty altars. And then the fi the, the final kind of key point here is in, in, uh, verse 33. And he put the wood in order, circle order, cut the bull in pieces, laid it on the wood, and so, and said, fill four jars with water poured on the burn offering on the wood. That word off order is so key. You're gonna notice a huge difference between what the prophets of Baal did earlier in this passage and what he's doing.

The prophets of Baal are just living in chaos, right? They, they, they, they, I don't know how they prepared it, but they did put the bull on the altar. And then they start, remember, they were dancing around the altar, they're cutting themselves, they're screaming. It's just like for hours on end. They're just wearing themselves out, running around. Ah, it's said in the scripture. And they danced around the altar. And at one point, I didn't do this part, but Elijah's like taunting them.

This is kind of funny in the scripture, Elijah's like taunting me. He's like, where's your God? Maybe he's sleeping. He's just there, like, just throwing shade at them the whole time. He's like, maybe he's in the bathroom. He literally says that in the scripture. He's like, maybe he's in the bathroom relieving himself. Like, where's your God? Like he's just taunting them from the sideline and they're just running around going nuts with chaos.

Everything that he does is in order. You see that he, he, he has an order about what he's doing. He has a, a preparatory order in the things that he are doing. And then when he calls, he's not dancing around. He's not being crazy. He just calls God to bless the work that he had done that God had called him to. And so one of the, one of the things I wanna encourage you as believers and for the, the A types are gonna love this, right?

And all the rest of us are gonna be like, oh, that's so hard, is have a plan. Like, what's your plan for the word of God? What's your plan for keeping your forgiveness in check? What's your plan for your finance with God? What is your, what is the thing that you are keeping in order? One thing I noticed about Jesus is every time Jesus was healing people, he was never in chaos. And, and I'm always a little hesitant of church environments where there's chaos.

Like you just look and the chaos is happening everywhere. I'm always a little hesitant. I'm not saying God can't work in that. I, I've read about the great awakening in the 17, 1800. I've read about all those. There's times where you'd look at it and go, whoa. But if the, the, the modality of the ministry or the church or the movement you're a part of is constant chaos or your life is constantly in chaos, one of the best ways is to pull it back and to slow down.

When, when I, when I, when things are going crazy for me, the first thing I do is off throttle. I'm like, whoa, slow that down, bro. Slow down the media. Slow down. Just go sit and get with God. And so I want to encourage you to prepare. And once you prepare, once you provide an offering to God, just say, God, I wanna offer this. It could be a fast. It doesn't have to relate specifically to what you're doing. Say, God, I want this thing.

And the way I'm gonna prepare is I'm gonna give an offering of myself. I'm gonna fast this thing. I'm gonna fast whatever it is, as a preparatory offering. Now, God, I'm gonna wait for you to fall. He doesn't dance around. He's not screaming. He just waits. He calls fire and God's fire comes. I put, don't just pray for fire. You need to prepare for fire. Don't just pray for fire. You need to prepare for fire. I, uh, was with Bishop Collins at the Gen Z group last week, and he did this amazing thing on, on God's timing and waiting about how the enemy has made us a culture that won't wait.

We won't wait for anything. We won't wait for the video to end. It's got, we don't like it within one second. We're scrolling it. We won't wait for relationships. We just, we just won't wait. We want what we want, when we want it, we want it now. And he talked, he did this whole thing on, on when, you know, those that wait upon the Lord out of Isaiah will rise up like on eagles wings. And he gave all the blessings of being able to wait for something.

It was really powerful. And my, my college Gen Z people were just sitting there going like, when they're taking notes and they're like, locked on. I mean, Nigerian African pastor's cool. He's just bringing fire, right? They're just locked on to everything he's saying and bringing that word. And at the end of it, he gave this amazing analogy, and I didn't know about it. A lot of people do know this story, but because I tried to tell it to a few people, they're like, yeah, I know that.

So maybe you've all heard it before, but it was new to me. He talked about bamboo, right? And he said, bamboo in order, if you've seen bamboo, it's just invasive, right? It's just everywhere. It's if, if it's in a forest, it's, it's nuts. And he said, bamboo takes four years to grow a root system before it sprouts. But after that root system is set, it can grow up to 90 feet in 30 days. Like, whew. And he gave the analogy of that, that as being waiting, that waiting for what God's doing is that root system in our life.

It is that preparatory time in our life where God is there and he's with us in the midst of it. So this week, here's your, your, uh, assignment for this week. First thing is to identify plan B and put an end to plan B, especially if it's comfort zones. Find out what your plan B's are and move away from plan B. And the second thing is to look at your life and find out where there's chaos. Because I find God doesn't really dwell in chaos.

And find a way in which you can prepare for those moments of your life. What does it look like to prepare? What's your plan for reading the word of God? What's your plan to stay away from, you know, whether it be internet, pornography? What is your, uh, plan to stay away from these things? One of the things I was gonna encourage us to do, I wanna get these little stickers for us. We just put 'em on our phone that this, this is dedicated to God.

I'm gonna use, I'm gonna take this and nothing, I don't send a text that isn't dedicated to God. I don't put a comment on a website that isn't dedicated to God. I don't do anything on this phone that isn't dedicated to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What would it look like? And I thought, wow. I mean, maybe we can do a little tool where you just get a little sticker just right there, just a little, little, just right there in the corner, a little dot that just tells you this thing is dedicated.

I think I'm gonna do that. So it's gonna happen. But this week we want to prepare, right? We want to, we wanna do that. Let's ask the worship team. If you'd stand up, please. We're gonna pray and then, uh, encourage you as the worship team comes up. Tonight is the window. Tonight is a healing service. If you need healing, come tonight, seven o'clock next door. We're gonna do extended worship myself. Some of the elders and leaders will be there.

Bishop Collins will be there. We're gonna pray for healing. We're gonna, we believe in God's miracles. We're gonna pray for physical healing for you. We're gonna pray for emotional healing, for relationships. Seven o'clock tonight, they're gonna lead us and let's do some business with God. And then I'll come and bless you guys before we go Sing out. And how great is God seeing with me? How great is God? And oh, see, how great, how great is all God, let's declare that again.

How great is Goding with how is, how is The Name above all, all praise? We're gonna bring the prayer team forward. If you need prayer today, we want to pray for you. We wanna see God move in your life. There's something special about coming forward and being prayed for being anointed with oil. We'll be here today to pray for you and to bless you. So if you extend your hands, I want to bless you right now, Lord God, we just want to bless you today.

God, we bless your people, God, for all of us that have, it's so hard, God to Just Drywall that back door up. There's a, we have these escape routes. God, just 'cause we're fearful, we're afraid you won't show up. There's all these things, God, in our lives, there be reasons we have to let that door be there. And it says, exit over it. You're just just saying, I wanna drywall that up. I wanna break it up. I want to close it up.

Lord God, some of us are so terrified of what it look like to have no other options.