Where I live, this summer has been exceptionally hot and dry. The temperature has been above normal. We went weeks without any meaningful rain. This past weekend we had a torrential downpour, dumping close to three inches of rain in a short period of time. In addition to the rain, high winds downed power lines and trees, creating quite a mess.

Then yesterday we had two more downpours, totaling almost seven inches of rain. Again, downed power lines and trees, along with widespread flash flooding. And if the forecast is correct, the remnants of Hurricane Debby will bring us lots more rain this weekend.  

Maybe right now you look out your window and while the ground outside is saturated from all the rain, inside, deep down within you, in your soul, you feel anything but saturated. You feel dry. Parched. The world in which we live, one that is spinning faster and faster and dangerously out of control, has a way of sucking the life out of us, sucking us dry. Not only is the “world” a mess, but for most of us, every day is a grind, an exhausting grind, one that wears us down to the bone.

There are also times when we feel dry in our intimacy with Jesus. Psalm 42:1-2 utters words that sometimes seem very distant from what we are experiencing – “As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants for soul for you, O God. My sou thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before the living God?” The image of a heart set aflame and a soul nourished by the living God maybe described you in the past, but today, that seems like a distant memory, a very different experience from what you experience today.

Do you feel dry and parched?

Do you need it to rain?

Let me share a verse that I find so encouraging to me in my moments of dryness. First, let me put it into context. The people (Israel) have wandered far from God and now they are urging one another to return to God; for they have confidence that he who punished their disobedience will also heal them and restore them. Let’s look at Hosea 6:1-2 – “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.”

With that in mind, now here is the verse for us to focus on – “Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth” (v.3).

If you are a Seinfeld fan, then you know the show popularized the phrase “yada yada yada,” which in that context meant something along the lines of, “Enough, already, get to the point.” But, did you know, the word “yada” is a Hebrew word found in Bible, with a very different meaning than Seinfeld’s usage. In the Old Testament it is used in a number of contexts, all of which mean some variation of “to know and to know intimately.” For example, in Genesis 4:1, we read “Adam knew (yada) Eve, and she became pregnant.” In today’s verse (6:3), the phrase “to know (yada) the LORD” references not just a casual “knowing of” God, but rather, knowing God in a very personal and very intimate way.

So, here is what I see in that verse – If you press on and press in to know (yada) God with every fiber of your being, then He will respond to your persistence, your obedience, and come to you like the rains, turning your dryness into saturation. Think back to spring. Those first rains turned the brownness and deadness of winter into the greenness and new life of spring. If you feel dry right now, ask God for his rain, and let this season be your springtime.  

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We live in a world that runs like clockwork. Everyone and everything are predictable. No surprises. Nothing bad ever happens. What is planned for always happens. And unlike what Billy Joel sings, the good do not die young.

Wait? What? You are right now shaking your head, “What world do you live in, Dave?” I live in the same broken world you live in, and sadly, the world does not run like clockwork, not much is predictable, there are surprises galore, plans get derailed every single day, and sometimes the good do die young.

Life is filled with moments of joy, sometimes even great joy. But it is also filled with misfortune, bad luck, troubles, difficulties, suffering, sorry, misery, heartbreak. We celebrate and party in the highs, but we wish the lows never happened. So, since bad stuff does happen, since we do face adversity, how do we not let those moments derail us?

Let me try to answer that question. God’s will is perfect (Romans 12:1-2). That perfect will is his divine plan for your life and for my life. God’s will is also permissive, in that he chooses to allow things to happen that he takes no pleasure in. These things that he allows indirectly help to accomplish his perfect will. We need to look no further than the Garden of Eden. God created humans as moral beings, made in his image. He also created us with our own will, and the ability to make our own decisions. And in the Garden, disobedience was chosen, and sin entered the world. God’s perfect will did not include all the consequences that have stemmed from that original sin, or the sins we commit today, yet he allows those as part of his permissive will.

Every bad thing that happens in your life, or in my life, has been sifted through God’s permissive will. He allows those things to grow us spiritually, to achieve his good plan and purpose, to transform us into the image of Jesus. We find these words in Romans 8:28 – “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

That verse is regularly taken out of context and misused. The context is that in Romans 8, Paul has been describing the Christian life as one of groaning, longing to escape the sufferings of life, waiting in hope for the day we will be resurrected and share in God’s glory (Romans 8:18-25).

Back to v.28. I believe this verse tells us that for Christians (the verse cannot be rightfully applied to non-Christians), in and through all things (work together), even pain and suffering, God is acting. He is at work with the purpose of making things good. But, “good” does not necessarily mean the best possible outcome for us, right now, from our vantage point. Rather, good means he is working in and through everything in order to serve his good, pleasing, and perfect will for all of his creation, with the ultimate good being glorifying us eternally (Revelation 21:1-4).

So, from our perspective, when life does not run like clockwork, when nothing makes sense, when pain and suffering seems to great, all which happen, we can walk by faith, trusting in a perfect and loving God, knowing that perfect understanding will only come in heaven, and that right now, in this very moment, from God’s point of view, everything does all make perfect sense, and He is working it all together for good!

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This is the fifth and final chapter in sharing pieces of my story. I never fail to be amazed, not about my role in these stories, but rather, amazed at the lengths God goes to pursue you and me. His love for us is reckless and relentless. My story is my story. Your story is your story. We all have stories.

In the first four chapters I narrated the ways in which God got my attention, pricked and softened my heart, and began to move me in the direction he had ordained for me. I say began because to this day, I am still very much a work in progress. If you missed any of those four stories, a link to each one is below. 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

If you have followed this journey, then you know that at a watershed moment in our lives, back in 1998, I had two dreams on consecutive nights. The first in which God spoke to me, and the second, in which I had a vision. Chapters 3 and 4 delve into the first dream so I won’t write about it here. The second dream is today’s God story.   

In that second dream I saw a wooden park bench on a brick pathway overlooking a river. I saw the park bench clearly, down to the blueish color of the frame and the wooden lattice making up the seat and back. I would take more than ten years for that dream to make sense.

The last chapter left off with us living in Columbus, Ohio, and me in Vinyard’s ministry school. Soon after graduating in 2001, circumstances took us back to the same town in Pennsylvania from which we had moved from. We helped plant a small Vineyard Church in that town. A few years later I began to sense God calling us to plant a church of our own.

My wife and I let those thoughts ruminate for a season as we prayed and waited. At the time, both our daughters were in high school, and we had no desire to uproot them during those years. Plus, where we lived was home to us. Life was comfortable. Life was good. We continued to pray and listen. God’s chatter only got louder and clearer. Once we felt that it was God, and not bad pizza, talking to us, the big question is – where?

We are beach-loving people and felt maybe eastern North Carolina might be where God was calling us to. In 2007, my wife and I visited that area and felt a “strange excitement,” sensing maybe God had taken us there for a reason. For the next year or so, we continued to pray and listen and wait. Our daughters are now in college. We decided to take another trip to North Carolina.

So, in April 2009, we spent a week “investigating” that same area we felt strangely excited about two years earlier. At the time, my parents had a timeshare near New Bern, North Carolina, so we used that as home base during the trip. Up and down the coastal region we went, town after town, walking the streets, talking to people, tasting the local cuisine, feeling the sand squish between our toes, dipping our feet in the ocean, praying, but we didn’t really sense anything from God. A little discouraged, we thought maybe God wasn’t calling us there after all.

Then … on our last day, we decided to go into downtown New Bern. It is a quaint little city on the confluence of two rivers. It was a beautiful evening, so after dinner we decided to stroll down along the waterfront. Just something to do before going back to the timeshare unit. As we walked through the riverfront park, I stopped dead in my tracks. The “wooden bench on a brick pathway overlooking a river” was right there, right in front of me, in that little park. It was exactly what I had seen in my dream back in 1998. Exactly! No freakin’ way! As I stood there without words (yes, me speechless), my wife says to me, “Well, I guess we are moving to New Bern.” 

Two years later, my wife and I moved to New Bern to plan Twin Rivers Vineyard Church. Sadly, we closed our small little church in 2018, and have since moved back to the small college town in Pennsylvania that we have now lived in three times.   

I am sure, right now, like me, you are shaking your head, wondering how it is possible that in 1998, God gave me a picture of a park bench in a city in North Carolina that I had never even heard of.

Oh, and can I add this – Those park benches did not even exist at the time of my dream. The park was being redeveloped and would not have its current design until a year or so later.     

I hope my story has encouraged you to press in closer and closer to God, seeking his plans and his purposes. My well planned out path veered off in a different direction because God had (and still has) bigger and better plans for me than I could have for myself. And he wants the same for you.

Let me end with this hopeful promise – “You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail” (Proverbs 19:21).

Thank you for allowing me to share some of my story with you.

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This is chapter four in how God has and continues to pursue me. It is God who is to be cheered in and through these chapters. While my story is unique to me, you too have a story unique just to you. After Jesus healed a demon possessed man, here were his instructions to the man – “‘Go back home and tell what God has done for you.’ The man went through the town, telling what Jesus had done for him” (Luke 8:39). Be bold in telling your story too!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

In chapter three, I shared how God spoke to me in a dream that got us to move to Columbus, Ohio. Since my family would remain in Pennsylvania for a few months, my lodging was at an extended stay hotel. Every day to and from work I drove by a billboard that for some reason intrigued me. It advertised a “Vineyard” church. I had never heard of the Vineyard Church. At least I didn’t think I had.

A few months earlier (back in Pennsylvania), one Sunday morning at church, that day’s worship leader sat at his keyboard and sang “Refiner’s Fire.” In his words, a song “by a new group in California called Vineyard.” The song really resonated with me. In fact, for some strange reason, tears began to stream down my cheek. Oh my, I thought, hopefully nobody noticed.

Now back to Columbus. I had been visiting churches but found none to my liking. After several weeks of “ignoring” the billboard, God prompted me to call the phone number on the billboard. I had all my excuse ready for God as to why I couldn’t visit that church once I got directions – it is probably all the way across town and I would not know how to get there, being so unfamiliar with Columbus. And besides, what kind of church advertises on a billboard anyway? None I had any interest in. I called to inquire, and boy was I surprised when the person on the phone told me the church was less than a mile from where I was staying.

That Sunday, I nervously decided to “try out” this Vineyard Church. The minute I walked into the building on Cooper Road I knew this was not like any church I had ever been in. Immediately nothing resonated with me. From the clothes people wore to the design and casualness of the facility. Instead of an organ and choir loft, a worship band. But for some strange reason, it felt like home! The associate pastor had a ponytail. The senior pastor didn’t look like the “reverend-type” either. And his preaching style, nothing I had experienced before. Why is he looking at me?

The first song in the worship set was “Arms of Love.” It seemed like the song went on forever and we were singing to God, not about him – “In your arms of love, In your arms of love, Holding me still, Holding me near, In your arms of love” over and over again. Despite my annoyance that the song was dragging on and on, God said to me, “Dave, crawl into my arms and make these words the desire of your heart.” I mumbled “fine,” and the song soon ended. This song holds a very special place in my heart to this day!

And the second song, oh my, this cannot be happening, was the same “Refiner’s Fire” that I had heard a few months earlier. And just like the first time, I once again found myself with tears streaming down my face, still not having any clue as to why. You mean this Vineyard is that Vineyard? I wanted to run out the door as fast as possible!

While then I did not have the vocabulary to know what was happening, and despite my best defenses, that day God grabbed hold of me and did something in me that I had never experienced. He was putting a new song in my heart, both literally and figuratively. This verse speaks to me – “He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the LORD” (Psalm 40:3).  

On my second or third week of attending, there was a video and an announcement about a two-year ministry program at the church, which I found out was part of a movement of churches that were at the time about 25 years old. Hmm? Nine months later, I stepped into a classroom with knees shaking. We sang worship songs before each class, and on that first night, the first song, you guessed it, “Refiner’s Fire.”

Soon thereafter, the egg farm gig did not work out (they fired me) and here I am in ministry school, one that was located only in Columbus, Ohio. The dream that I shared in the last chapter – “Dave, you are not going to Columbus because of the job but the job is a way to get you to Columbus” – suddenly began to make sense!

How we eventually got to New Bern, North Carolina, to plant a Vineyard Church is a story all unto itself. It involves that second 1998 dream8, the one involving a simple park bench. A park bench did not even exist at the time of my dream. That story will be the last chapter in this short series narrating pieces of my story. 

You just can’t make this stuff up!

God was pursuing me even when I wasn’t too interested in His pursuit. He is still pursuing me, and He is still pursuing you! Are you responding?

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Today is chapter three in sharing pieces of my story. In the first two chapters I narrated the story of committing my life to Jesus and how decade later, an act of God and an earthquake (not a literal one) got me to moving closer to a life in ministry, even though at that time I did not know that.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Upon graduation from college in 1980, I had two short stints at two different companies and then for the next twenty years I worked at some sort of ag-related business, mostly involving chickens. My career was advancing nicely and by the mid-1990s I was managing not only the accounting department but also various aspects of the companies as well. In late 1997, I was asked by one of the country’s largest egg producers to join their team as CFO. This company was located near Columbus, Ohio. II had previously worked for two companies who built all this egg farm’s poultry houses. One of those two companies had helped start the egg farm back in the 1980s, so, I know this company well.

This egg farm has run afoul with numerous governmental and environmental agencies and was not well liked in the area or among the egg industry. The president of the company wanted me to be his CFO and help “clean things up.”

My wife and daughters and I lived in southcentral Pennsylvania. I had moved four times growing up and in those moves I never really felt settled. About the time I was beginning to feel settled we packed up and moved again. One of those four moves had landed us in Columbus, Ohio. Eventually my parents ended up in southcentral Pennsylvania.

The egg farm job sounded very enticing and would be a tremendous opportunity for us. However, it was four hundred miles away and would require us to move. My childhood memories of moving from city to city were not the most pleasant and I promised myself that I would never move my family. I was not too interested in leaving an environment in which my family was comfortable, stable, and content, into one that would be full of uncertainty. If truth be known, I did not want re-open my painful memories, and it was convenient to use my family’s “best interests” as an excuse.

I really struggled with the decision in front of us. My wife and I prayed fervently. Honestly, I prayed in selfish ways while she prayed for God’s guidance. Those selfish self-centered thoughts changed over a period of two nights. The first night, God interrupted a good night’s sleep and spoke to me in a dream, in which he said, “Dave, you are not going to Columbus because of the job but the job is a way to get you to Columbus.” We were not completely sure what that meant, but it got my wife’s attention. My thoughts, very different – not so God-focused.

The second night’s dream got “worse.” In it, I saw a wooden park bench on a brick pathway overlooking a river. I saw the park bench clearly, down to the blue color of the frame and the wooden lattice making up the seats and back. What the heck does that mean?

In continuing to pray and talk about what this would mean for our family, my wife felt this was God telling us something. To a lesser degree, I sensed that as well. However, just as in the first two previous chapters, my self-centered self-serving soul wasn’t too interested in giving up that much control to God.

I did eventually accept the job and in May 1998 I moved to Columbus, Ohio. My wife and daughters stayed back in Pennsylvania so our daughters could finish the school year, and then they would come sometime after that. There was also the little thing of selling our house.

Not long after moving to Columbus, God’s words in that first dream suddenly made sense. The image from my second dream, it would take about another ten years for that to make sense to us. More on both of those in upcoming chapters. 

I want you to see two things from today. First, God’s pursuit of each one of us is ongoing and endless. He made us. He knows us. He loves us. He pursues. He works in miraculous ways to soften our hearts. He knocks and knocks and knocks, waiting for us to open the door. I love these words from Psalm 139:5 – “You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.”

Second, as you can easily garner from this and previous chapters, my wife and her very strong faith have been integral in every step of my faith journey.

In the next chapter I will share another piece of my story. In that one, God uses two worship songs to begin to solidify his call to me for ministry.

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Today is chapter two in sharing pieces of my story. In the first chapter, I described how I moved from thinking that I was a true follower of Jesus to beginning to actually become one. Let me again remind you that my purpose is not to shed light on me, but rather, to point us to God. The one who created us in his image and continues to pursue us.

I committed my life to Jesus in the summer of 1986. For the next nine years, I grew in my head knowledge of what walking with Jesus meant, but it truly hadn’t made the short trip down to my heart. If you read my first chapter, you also know that I said because of my speech impediment it would take an act of God and an earthquake to move me anywhere near public speaking.

As I continued to grow in my knowledge and understanding of faith and of God, I also was continuing to be content in being my own captain and walking out my well planned out path. Overall, life was good. My wife and I, along with our two daughters, were plugged into a local church. We are active in the life of the church and growing in our faith. However, for me, it was still more knowledge than experiential.

Then… in 1995, my wife and some friends encouraged me to attend that year’s Promise Keepers event at RFK Stadium in DC. A group of men from our church were planning to attend the conference, so, sounded like fun to me. Oh my, little did I know what I was about to get myself it to. That opening Friday night of the conference, 52,000 men stood, singing Amazing Grace, and the stadium was shaking from our collective voices. Oh crap. An act of God got to me this conference, and now, an “earthquake.”

I experienced something that night that still gives me goosebumps. God was softening and tenderizing my heart, and even though I didn’t have the words then, he was helping me begin to move my faith from simply knowing about Jesus to actually knowing Jesus, from knowledge to experiential.

On the bus trip home, I shared with a few men, one being our church’s pastor, that I didn’t know why, but I sensed God asking me to step out and be a lay leader. In our church, that was the person who welcomed people to a worship service, made announcements, and read that day’s scripture passages. At the time, I was the church board president and knew that ten or so people were on that rotating schedule, thus I would have more than two months to weasel my way out of speaking in church.

Whether what happened next actually happened as told to me, or I was “set up,” I do not know. That next morning after getting home from the conference, I walked into church and was greeted by our pastor. He looked as tired as me. What he said next changed the trajectory of our life completely. And it screwed with my well laid out plan. “Dave, Chuck is scheduled to be lay leader today, but he broke his glasses and cannot read without them, so would you fill in for him?”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down this train. Today? Me? Not so sure. I agreed to try this lay leader gig, but my plan didn’t include anything like this. Ignoring my self-centered self-serving will, I somewhat reluctantly said yes. I told my wife the plan, hoping she would help me manufacture some excuse, only to have her grab my hand and say, “you got this.” Comforting indeed, but not quite the answer I wanted.

So, as I prepared to do this “what was I thinking” thing. I was wheeling and dealing with God. “Okay God, I am stepping out in faith, doing my part, so your part is giving me perfect speech today. That’s the deal. Got it?”

I somehow bumbled my way through and as the service was ending, I looked out into the audience, only to see my wife and many others with tears streaming down their faces. “Oh no, did I do that bad?”  

As I questioned God as to why he didn’t keep his end of our bargain, I heard what I now know was his still small voice, say to me, “I kept my end of the bargain, I was with you up there on that stage, and this is just the beginning.” I wasn’t quite sure I bought “I was with you,” but, whatever. And if I had known then what “this is just the beginning” would come to mean, I would have checked out of Hotel California right then and there. What was happening, even though I did not understand it at the time – God was drawing nearer to me because I was first drawing nearer to him (James 4:8).

In my story that is still being written, it is God who is the protagonist, and me, simply an actor in the story, one who is learning from, and following, the play’s lead character. You have a similar story! A story unique to you! God wants to draw ever so close to you. Are you drawing yourself close to him? Don’t wait for an earthquake. Do it now!

The next chapter will see God continuing to reveal more and more of his plan, much of which comes in unexpected and surprising ways.

If you are encouraged by this or any of my writings, you can subscribe to be notified by email when I post something new. To subscribe, click here. Once you put in your email address you will then get an email confirming that you wish to subscribe. Thank you.