Sometimes, God speaks softly—his voice like a soft breeze gently tussling your hair on a temperate green-grass, blue-sky afternoon, as you lay there watching the one, lone cloud in the sky shape-shift overhead while it meanders from horizon to horizon.

Sometimes, God wallops you upside the head with a big honkin’ stick when you’re least expecting it.  And while your hair blows in your face just the same, it somehow has a different feeling to it.

Like I felt when I left Beth Moore this weekend, perhaps.

Don’t misunderstand me—I always arrive expectant when I go to hear Beth Moore speak live, knowing she tailors her teaching to whatever the Holy Spirit has put on her heart for that particular city.  And when we learned Friday evening her topic for Columbus, Ohio was PREPARE, well, let’s just say the expectation level skyrocketed as she opened that night urging us as God’s great workmanship (Ephesians 2:10) to be prepared for what He has prepared for us.

Beth reminded us that evening we have been entrusted to this very age for a purpose—for God to do something monumental before us, in us, and through us.  As we live liberated and intentional lives, our preparation will meet His preparation and we will taste the promise of 1 Corinthians 2:9— “No eye has seen or mind imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

As I left Friday night, I was stoked.  Stirred up.  My mind was spinning.  This was what God had been speaking to me in whispers and breezes throughout the last several months.  I needed to prepare for what was on the horizon—this was going to be a season of preparation.  I had heard Him clearly.  And yet I was not at peace, somehow.

I came home that evening to children not yet in bed and a house in disarray and a husband with his sights set on a sci-fi flick he informed me I “probably wouldn’t be interested in.”  I went up to bed alone, once all was put away where it belonged (including the children), and settled in with my new copy of Writer’s Digest.

The more I read, the more overwhelmed I became.  The more I thought in earnest about this journey I have begun, the more overwhelmed I became.  The more I considered the cost, the more I considered the risk, the more I considered the level of discomfort this was going to require of me, the more overwhelmed I became.  I drifted off to sleep with this prayer heavy in my chest and tears in the corners of my eyes: Lord, I don’t think I can do this.

I woke up Saturday morning groggy and unsettled.  One non-fat cafe mocha later, compliments of Beth not-Moore, I entered the Schott more alert yet even less at peace.  I prayed during worship:  Lord, please give me a word, today.  I need a word. This is so uncomfortable.  I can’t do this without you.

But, of course, God already knew that.  And He had come PREPARED.

We had no sooner sat down when God took out his stick.  It began with a gentle tap upside the back of my head, as Beth Moore opened the morning with these words:

Above all else, the enemy wants to take from you your FAITH.  Something in THIS uncomfortable spot is of UTTER IMPORTANCE for the place you are going.  So surrender to this present season and get out of it all He has intended for it.

And from there, we were off and running.  She talked that morning about the three metaphors we find for preparation in 2 Timothy 2:1-13—the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer.  She talked about the call to work with diligence on the task God has put before us, asking ourselves what we want our lives to be all about and then running after it with all our might, trusting that “He is able to guard what He has entrusted to you.”  (Tap.  Tap.  Thwack.)

Beth shared the fourth point of her teaching—He who PREPARED for us calls us to be PREPARED.  She pointed us toward Ezra 1:5, within which Ezra prepared to GO UP by devoting himself to the study, observance, and teaching of the Word.  And as she talked about the necessity that all three aspects be present in our live—seeing, doing, and teaching—God raised His loving arm back and prepared to wallop me right upside the head.

“I’m gonna depart from my notes for just a second,” Beth told the crowd, getting down on her knees at the front of the stage as she’s apt to do when she gets intense, “because I feel the Holy Spirit is telling me there is a group of women here I need to speak to directly.  There are women here today who have a calling on their lives.  A calling to ministry.  To speaking.  To teaching.  To writing books.  A call that feels beyond their own abilities.”

WHACK.

“When God places a passion on a given project, it is the diligence of staying in it to the end that helps you finish the good work and bring it to completion.”

WHACK.

“We have to be able to say, ‘I don’t know how I got this far, but this far, the Lord has helped me.'”

WHACK.

My friend Jill texts me.  “Is that Word for you?  Finish the work!” I didn’t even know she was there.

WHACK.

“The biggest agenda of the enemy is to get us to quit—if not on our faith, then on the works God has prepared for us.”

WHACK.

“Lord, give us the internal fortitude to be prepared for the next season you have prepared us for.  Give us insight as to the next step.  Help us to be intentional about the direction we want to run—to pick our path and to run it well.”

WHACK.

I was not prepared for that.

And yet God had prepared for me to be there that morning—prepared me way back in NOVEMBER when I first learned Beth Moore was coming to Columbus and told my friends we were going.  BEFORE I had written my proposal, BEFORE I had determined in my mind this writing thing was meant to be more than just a hobby, BEFORE I had even heard of SheSpeaks let alone sent in my registration.  BEFORE I even knew I would be in a season of preparation that would overwhelm me He had PREPARED for me to hear this talk which Beth Moore herself had only prepared two weeks ago—the word PREPARE! written on a napkin—God’s “word” for Columbus, Ohio.

God’s word for me.

God’s word for you.

And so my prayer for us all, this cool Monday afternoon in August—as the leaves prepare to change and children prepare to return to school and we prepare to enter a new season—is that we would all know and yield to the gentle touch of His hand as He prepares us for what is next.  For that which He has already prepared for us.  For that which is beyond our wildest dreams.

No eye has seen or mind imagined what God has PREPARED for those who love Him.

For those who are called according to His purpose.

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