Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Josh: We pray and we sing and we say, let it rain. And we look up. Naturally, we look up. But what if it's already raining beneath our feet and someone just needs to dig a well?
[00:00:18] Thomas: Hello and welcome to the well an Elim Fellowship leadership podcast. My name is Thomas and I am excited that you are joining us today as we receive the second part of Pastor Josh Finley's word from day three of the 2020 OASIS conference. In our last episode, Pastor Josh outlined the dangers of dried up wells in our lives.
If you haven't heard this episode, I highly encourage you to pause and go listen to it. Before we continue today, Pastor Josh will finish this message outlining four key practices for turning the wilderness in our lives into wells of living water. I promise that you do not want to miss this.
So join us as we seek to open prophetic wells in our lives, in our churches, and in the world today. Enjoy.
[00:01:05] Josh: I'll never forget, I was with Eric Peoples. We were in Middle of Nowhere Mexico, doing some open air preaching. And we were crazy enough to bring our youth groups with us.
And God was doing such dramatic things, healings right there on the streets, that someone from the crowd said, come to my house and pray for my mother. She's dying.
It was like straight out of the Bible. And so we go, we walk into this little house and I don't have the highest discernment in the world, but I tell you, the spirit of death was over that room.
The woman had a stroke and was paralyzed, and the hospital sent her home to die.
She's laying in bed curled up, her face is drooping from the stroke.
And I just, I'm looking at Eric, I'm like, you're my spiritual dad, you tell me what. And you know what he did? He pulled out his phone, he said, we need to set the atmosphere. Let's get some worship in this place.
And we just hit play and we just began to worship. And I tell you what, that atmosphere began to shift. It was the first time I have ever seen someone completely paralyzed begin to get. She began to smile. Her face came back. Her arm that she couldn't move began to move. She's. She's getting up and moving around. I'm thinking, what is happening in this place, set the atmosphere and what so stirs me. And Sean talked about it last night reading about these revivalists. It's not about, I can't carry a keyboard player with me everywhere I go, but I can host the presence and the people who have learned to host the presence of God like a Smith Wigglesworth, who was a British plumber with a C sixth grade education.
But he was constantly in prayer and constantly just disrupting his routine to reconnect with the Lord. And reconnect with the Lord. And I thank God for the monks that called it altars of availability during the day, Daniel, morning, noon, and when can I just take a 10 minute vacation in the secret place at lunch and just reconnect with him that is re digging the wells.
A friend of mine, a very close friend of mine, just went to England to visit his family. He's a fifth generation pastor.
And Alex went to go see his parents for their 50th anniversary.
Something about longevity that's so attractive.
And you know, when you get together in a family reunion situation, stories start coming out, the crazy stories you never heard. And then a story was shared that he was like, why was I never told this?
Smith Wigglesworth was coming through that part of England and there weren't all kinds. Airbnb was not a thing. You know what I'm saying?
And so his family, his grandfather actually opened up their home to Smith to spend one night.
His grandfather was a great man of God, but for 20 years, he had a crippling degenerative back condition and his hips were all messed up and he couldn't move without pain.
And as you would do when you've got a guest, you give up your bed, you give up your room.
Smith came and stayed one night, didn't lay hands on anyone in the family.
They just honored him, blessed him and sent him on his way.
But the next night that, that grandfather went to bed in that bed that Smith laid in.
He woke up the next morning completely healed of a back condition he had for 20 years that was crippling him. Why? Why? Because Smith was hosting the presence of wherever he went. He wasn't waiting for someone else to create a perfect atmosphere. He said, I'm gonna live re digging a well, and God's gonna send me to wildernesses, and I'm gonna be confident that we can get something happening.
We pray, we sing, and we say, let it rain. And we look up. Naturally we look up. But what if it's already raining beneath our feet and someone just needs to dig a well?
God wants you to host the presence of God right where you are in your zip code, in your ministry, in the tough place. And, and I love this because the, the prophetic inspiration comes with practical application.
The sons of Issachar, they had the, they had the revelation and the inspiration, but also the wisdom and knew what to do.
Here the prophet gives a word, and it's very practical.
Here's the word of the lord in verse 16.
And he said to them, thus says the Lord, ready for something really spiritual?
Make this valley full of ditches.
Have you ever dug a ditch before?
It's about the least spiritual thing you can do.
Let's just be honest. The most labor intensive thing you can do is dig a hole in the ground when it's dry, hard ground. That is hard work. I don't care who you are.
I have dug a few ditches in my day.
In fact, on mission trips again with Eric, at different times where I'm like, this is like a chain gang in a prison. Like, we are like, digging. What is this?
This is.
We're digging ditches. It's hard work.
Here's the prophetic word of the Lord. You want to see revival? Dig a ditch.
Dig a ditch. Watch this. He said, make this valley for full of ditches. When God gives you a word, get ready for some work.
The world says, make it rain. Like rainmakers are the top salesperson, the catalytic leader. Right? For the Buffalo Bills, it's Josh Allen. Come on, somebody. There's athletes that know how to make it rain.
The world is looking for rain makers.
The Kingdom is looking for ditch diggers.
God is looking for people who will say, I am going to faithfully dig a ditch in this place because I've got acres of diamonds. I've got something beneath my feet that I'm not going to treat as familiar or common or wait to go to some other place where other people did the work of digging a ditch. I'm going to do it right here.
God says, as soon as you do what you can do, I'll show up and do what you can't do.
But so many times in my life, I'm like, God, I'm waiting on you. I'm just waiting.
And the truth is, am I really waiting on God or is he waiting on me?
Because I want him to show up and do all the work and call it a miracle.
And this is how God's math worked. Watch. This is Kingdom mathematics. I can't, but he can, so we will.
I can't.
I know what I can't do. I can't. But he can, so we will. Why? Cause he craves partnership with his people.
Who's gonna dig a Ditch?
The word D.L. moody. I love it. D.L. moody said, if God be your partner, make your plans big.
Fill the valley with ditches.
And the miracle you are Waiting on right now of opening a well in your life. It's about obedience, not your feelings.
Where does that come from? Look at the scripture.
You watch this prophetic word. You shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain.
Yet the valley shall be filled with water.
Elisha, give me a positive word.
I am positive you will feel like nothing is happening until the time that God sees your obedience. And then it suddenly comes together.
Noah, the law of accomplishment. Noah finished every detail the Lord told him to do. Noah couldn't have rounded up those animals. What? But the spirit of God started to send them two by two. And even God had to shut. How do you shut the door on the ark? You can't.
You just have to build the ark and God will send the animals and he will shut the door for you.
I love that. Elisha says, you're not gonna see anything, you're not gonna feel anything. But God is gonna be at work.
And you know this. You just gotta take a step.
Breakthrough provision meets you where you step out in faith, not where you stand back in fear.
You gotta move towards some things where you and I, we've gotta get the how out of our life.
I don't know how he's gonna do it, but when. I don't know how. I just have to reconnect with my why. And I have to be reintroduced to a who.
I can't, but he can. So we will. Come on, somebody. This is just how God operates. I love Jewish history because they have in their records they have the name of the guy in the tribe of Judah. Naom. When God said now start marching across the Red Sea.
What psalm says that there was a highway that they knew not of?
Who would know that there was a highway beneath the Red Sea?
What is so crazy random fact. Archeologists actually believe that the dirt underneath the place of the crossing actually was ADA compliant. They actually said that the curve of the sand that they have found that actually would have. Because they're pulling wagons and carts. I mean you got old people.
God not only gave them a highway, he gave them an ADA ramp, an accessible in compliance. Right. To move millions of people.
But Nahsham had to take a step. He was one of the leaders in the tribe of Judah. He was the guy on Jewish record that started walking into the Red Sea before it parted.
Just like the Jordan River. They had to.
How far do you think he had to get?
Their record says that he walked into the Red Sea up to his nostrils.
And when he couldn't go any further, the wind began to Blow and a wall of sea opened up on either side. Can I just tell you we're waiting for God to do the whole thing. He's saying, will you just take a step? Every time you take a step, you are digging a ditch. You are hosting my. You are partnering with me.
Amen.
Come on, tell your neighbor, say, stick to God's plan.
Tell your other neighbor, not your mood.
You're not going to see rain, you're not going to feel. Elisha said, I just want to tell you, you're gonna think nothing is happening while you're digging this ditch.
But when God sees you do what you can do, he will step in and do what you could never do.
What do you do when what you see is not what God has said?
You keep taking little steps of obedience fill this valley.
I found that miracles are attracted to movement.
There is something about my action leads to attraction. I don't even know why, but when we take that step of spirit led obedience, all of heaven gets excited.
God craves to be believed.
He craves to be believed.
And you say, well, I'm in over my head, Pastor Josh. I just, hey, join the club and let me ask you this question. What's the difference if you're in over your head at 20ft or 2,000ft, you can't swim in it. You're over your head, you can't. What is the difference? You might as well just go into the deep end. Sean said, go out on the edge of the limb till you hear it snap.
God called us to move towards a property that, that we had no idea how it was going to happen. Our church has been growing and I'm not even, I'm not the tip of the spear. I'm just on the team. I just oversee our campus pastors and I love the role that I'm in.
But we're out of space.
And so the Regal Cinema in town went out of business.
And it was 55,000 square feet, 14 theaters. And we're like, hey, hey, we could use this.
We had some plans given to us. Another church had all these drawings.
Elevation down in North Carolina said, basically, here, have our drawings and you can use them however you want. Saved us thousands of dollars. And we've got plans for a big 1400 seat auditorium. And but five out of the seven investors who own the property said, thumbs up, let's do it. But two of them said, no, but we couldn't shake it. I just, I'm like, we're gonna have this property.
And Costco was gonna go in, and it didn't happen. Then the senior living center was gonna go in. Didn't. And they're making big news, like, we're gonna renovate this whole property and making their big plans. The whole time we're praying, lord, give us that space.
I don't know how you. So my pastor Wade, he's preaching a message, and he just. This is like, nine months into this, a lot of people have given up hope. And we just. This. You know, when something just grips you, he jokingly said, you know, maybe we need to pray for these owners just to get rocks in their beds or hemorrhoids or something. God needs to get. Hey, that's straight up biblical, right? I'm just saying, four days later, that was on a Sunday morning. In a jokingly half comment, four days later, we get a phone call saying, hey, hey, you want to do business? All the other deals fell through. If. Listen, they will close on this property in 60 days.
And you're like, yes, it's a miracle.
Then it's. If you can come up with $2 million. $2 million. 60 days. That's like, not even time for a campaign. I mean, what.
So we just. We just went to the church, said, listen, if God's in this, it's gonna happen.
I am so tired of allowing our lack to act like it's bigger than God's supply.
God does not have a supply problem. We have a vision problem. If we would partner in faith in something so much bigger than what we could do, I think God gets so excited, say, hey, hey, hey. Make sure that check gets there.
So we just said to the church, listen, we know it's gonna take a miracle. We don't want anyone feeling a crushing burden. We met with the staff and we just said, listen, just do what he says. Don't feel like pressure to make it happen. If God's in this, it's gonna happen.
And I was with Pastor Phil and Joe Jansen at a regional event while all this was going down, and we just began to pray. In less than two weeks, $2.4 million came in cash to close on this property that this Christmas Eve, we're going to be having gatherings at.
Listen, you just got to dig a ditch.
I have no idea. Listen, God will call you to do things that seem so impossible.
But when you're digging a ditch, I want to say to you, don't mistake the difficult for the impossible.
Where is God calling you to take a step? Watch. It says in verse 18, the Prophet goes on to say, and this Is a simple matter in the sight of the Lord.
This is a simple. If you will dig ditches, I will fill this valley. I will make a well out of this whole wilderness.
It's not trivial because it matters to you, but it is simple.
What is that? That's God saying, hey, this is easy for me.
This is easy for me. Taryn Thorpe gave a word on Sunday at Elim Life Church. She said, where there is a wall, there is a way.
How many of you believe that?
If we're gonna re dig wells, trust me, you and I are gonna face so much resistance sometimes you're gonna have to sacrifice your plan to save the dream.
It's not going to look like you thought, but you just keep digging. You're not going to feel the wind, you're not going to see movement, but you just keep digging.
God says this is a simple matter for the Lord.
Can I just be really honest with you? In fact, and I don't want you to miss this. The hardest part for God is not to fill the valley with water.
The hardest part for God is to get you and I digging new ditches.
His biggest struggle is getting us to actually believe that this simple act of obedience will do something in the supernatural.
And the Lord says, this is a simple thing for me.
Let's start digging again.
Let's start believing again. Elim. Our limitation becomes an invitation to trust God again. Our limitation becomes an invitation to seek God again. Come on, somebody. Our limitation becomes an invitation to release prophetic revelation in God's perspective.
We got to start the work we're in so far over our heads right now.
In the last 24 months, you know, you pray for growth. People say, oh, Jesus, take the wheel. What do you do when Jesus punches on the gas and you're just trying to keep up?
In the past 24 months, we've added five campuses to what we're doing on Easter. We had over 9,000 people coming crowding in all these space. We had 598 people not raise a hand but fill out a card saying, I want to begin my relationship with Jesus today.
Listen, that sounds amazing, but mo people, mo problems, like, it's just.
But guess what those problems are actually answers. Prayer. Answered prayer.
Before we start comparing with each other and getting jealous of their listen, if it's a problem for you, it's real. That's a wilderness for you. And nobody can dig that ditch for you.
But God sees every action we move towards him. Amen.
And let's keep something clear. Sometimes we think as Leaders, we're edgy. We have faith. We love change.
He is the wild one in this relationship. He is the one. He is the one that is moving and shaking and doing things and watching over his word to perform it. Amen. We gotta start the work. And sometimes starting the work involves sowing a seed.
Why do you say that? Look. Look at the scripture, verse 20. It says, now it hap. Now it happened. It's about to go down. The miracle's going to happen in the morning. Watch this. At what time? When the grain offering was offered and suddenly water came by way of Edom and the land was filled with water. I just have to ask this question.
Who authorized the burning of a grain offering in the middle of a disaster?
Who said, hey, I know we have no water. I know we're all about to die, but make sure the grain offering happens before the Lord.
I know we're about to go into battle. I know we've got all these other needs, but make sure that we honor. How many of you know, in seasons where God is turning a wilderness into a well, he often asks you to sow a seed?
Come on. Keep breathing. I'm not taking an offering.
Elim, really. Come on, now.
Is this not the truth?
There are tithes, there are offerings, and then there are painful offerings.
They sow in tears, but they reap in joy.
When this miracle opened up, God spoke to Ann and I to give sacrificially into this project a painful offering.
Wouldn't you know, because we're reopening wells at the same time my neighbor decides to lose their mind and try to sue me over a property line dispute when I'm like, what is wrong with you?
They want me to redirect my whole driveway because somehow it butts up against their property. And spend tens of thousands of dollars just to redirect an S curve in my driveway.
Listen, that wasn't motivated by a person. That was a spirit trying to distract us.
The same week we commit to give this painful offering. My Anna works with children with autism. Their center announces that they're closing down.
Come on. This is where we live.
Wells will always be surrounded by warfare.
But God says, I don't want your eyes on them. Give me a grain offering. Give me what you have. You can't give what you don't have. Give what you have and watch heaven get excited.
Genesis 26. Shawn was talking last night about the re digging of Abraham's wells with Isaac. That was also the time where he sowed in a famine. And in one Year reaped a hundredfold.
That's supernatural.
That is not normal. In fact, Isaac said, I'm leaving town.
My father's had a famine. Now another famine's coming. I'm getting out of here. I'm going to Egypt. It's got to be bad if you're going to Egypt.
I'm leaving. And God says, no, no. Where are you going?
You stay in this zip code. You stay right where you are. This is like the disciples. When the crowds came and Jesus is multiplying the fish and loaves, they said, hey, send them away. This is the not the right place for a miracle. Jesus.
It's a desolate place.
Jesus said, this is the perfect place.
How about we do a miracle right here?
How about we do a miracle right now?
What do you have?
Come on. This is all God works with. Amen.
So, Josh, what's your strategy for inflation while you're trying? Stay generous.
What's your strategy for those on a fixed income? Change your mindset. There's no such thing as a fixed income when you have a limitless supply from heaven.
We've got to think on another level.
Start the work.
Here's the last one. We want to seek God's perspective. We want to set the atmosphere. We've got to start the work. And then we're just. We are going to see the victory. Verse 21. And here's how the story wraps.
And when all the Moabites heard the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to bear arms and older, they gathered and they stood on the border.
So Moab, the enemy, they rise up early in the morning. And the sun was shining over the water in the valley.
And the Moabites saw the water and thought it was blood because of the rising of the sun.
God does this miracle overnight and fills the valley. And the enemy looks down and says, they may have killed each other. Let's go down there and see what's happened. They have no idea what's waiting for them.
The armies are so fired up that God's done a miracle that they literally route the Moabites totally defeat them and drive them back home.
Archaeologists in 1868, they found the Moabite stone, which literally documented this battle.
It's now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. The Moabite stone, and it talks about the king of Edom and the king of Judah and the king of Israel coming against the king of Moab. And they recorded the history, although the king of Moab changed the story that he didn't get a butt whooping that day, but it documented what happened.
He picked a fight with the wrong family.
Come on. It reminds me of the story of the mugger in Chicago. He's walking down the street, decided to. He profiled the wrong person. He jumps this guy walking down the street in a hoodie not knowing that he's a professional MMA fighter.
That interaction did not go well for the mugger. So as they're fighting, he pulls out a gun to shoot the guy because he thinks this is my best chance and ends up shooting himself in the leg.
Can I just encourage you and say, you know what, devil? You picked a fight with the wrong family. You picked a fight with the wrong movement. We may be aging. We may struggle with some things, but guess what? Still believe God. We're still digging wells. We're still hungry. We actually believe that it's raining beneath our feet.
Who's gonna dig a well? Who's gonna prophesy again? Is there not a prophet among us?
Is there not a minstrel among us?
Is there someone who will dig a ditch of obedience?
Come on. Would you stand to your feet?
I don't know what the wilderness looks like that you're in and the way life works.
You could have amazing things going on in so many areas. But one patch of wilderness, it's like, you got a great lawn.
I got a German shepherd. Why is my lawn yellow? Because the dog pees there all the time.
I don't know what area of your life right now is a struggle. It could be your physical health.
You could be hearing this, and your spirit is leaping, saying, God, I've got a yes in my spirit.
My spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak.
A lot of leaders are dealing with extreme fatigue and exhaustion in the fog of war of what we've been coming through as a nation. It's taken a toll on leaders.
And you want to dig and you want to see God, but you're tired. You're exhausted.
I want to pray for those that need healing in their body. I want to pray for those that need healing in their emotions.
Some of you have walked through betrayal.
The enemy has come at you with lawsuits. The enemy has come at you with all kinds of division.
You've been defrauded.
It's not just the spirit of God motivating people to dig ditches. Sometimes the enemy comes and will speak to the selfish ambition and the weakness and insecurities of someone like Achan.
And Achan may dig a little ditch under his tent and take some things consecrated from the Lord and that one act of defiance can defraud and destroy so many around them.
And maybe you just need God to just heal your heart because you've had an aching really close to you that just messed some things up.
Maybe you partnered with somebody that loved God and did amazing things, but it ended up being like Jehoshaphat in a wrong alliance.
You found yourself in a fight that was not your fight.
And you need healing. You need healing in your soul. Would you just close your eyes across this room, we're gonna take a moment, Some of you. I wanna pray for expansion, Open doors, new expansion.
God has called you to plant new churches, launch new campuses, send new missionaries, dream again, dig again, fast again, give again.
There needs to be a favor on the expansion process, but with our hearts before the Lord as we close. I just want to submit to you. Sometimes surrender is the greatest shovel.
Sometimes. What did we sing this morning? I just kept hearing it in my spirit. They said, lord, it's all. It's all yours. It's all yours. I give it all to you. All of it. My family, my health, my future, finances, relationships, trauma. I give it all to you.
Come on. Come on, Elim. The greatest shovel is a heart of surrender, saying, God, I don't have the strength right now, but I'm willing. I've got a yes in my spirit.
Would you give me the faith to grab that shovel? Come on, let's just lift this song up as a prayer right now.
You don't need someone right now to lay hands on you. You don't need to respond to an altar right from your seat. Would you just lift your hands as surrender and say, God, touch me, heal me, renew my thinking. I need some prophetic clarity. And I'm gonna surrender to you. I am picking up the shovel of surrender.
Come on, right now, right now.
Let's make this our prayer.
Let's give it all to him.
[00:29:10] Thomas: Thank you for listening to today's episode of the well, an Elim Fellowship leadership Podcast. I pray that you are blessed and encouraged by this time. If you'd like to hear more content just like this, be sure to give this podcast a like and a follow. Wherever you get your podcast and share this podcast with your friends. We have more exciting content from Oasis and beyond dropping very soon and you don't want to miss it. We are excited about what God is doing here at Elim and we would love for you and your friends to come along on this ride.
So until next time, my name is Thomas and from all of us here at Elim.
God bless.
