Digging Wells
We have spent this last year really returning to what we love and focusing our attention in those areas. At BSSD I have a spiritual experience class and I want the students to spend time in different ways exploring the way God speaks and what He does. Because I am not good in every area, I frequently will bring someone else in for a month to teach the students something that is in their wheelhouse. This last Monday Chris came in and she is taking them through dance. Dance is one of my favorite things to send students through because it is the thing we are often most afraid of and so you don’t learn the power of it.
When I met Chris and dance started to be a thing in our movement, there was something that God did in Chris through the dance. This last week as she started taking students through it, I saw that light up in her again. The Lord told me you are redigging wells. I decided to go look up what happened when Isaac re dug wells and what God was doing in that time with Israel. I felt like it is relevant to today and also to our breakthrough.
26 There was a famine in the land, as bad as the famine during the time of Abraham. And Isaac went down to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar.
2-5 God appeared to him and said, “Don’t go down to Egypt; stay where I tell you. Stay here in this land and I’ll be with you and bless you. I’m giving you and your children all these lands, fulfilling the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. I’ll make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky and give them all these lands. All the nations of the Earth will get a blessing for themselves through your descendants. And why? Because Abraham obeyed my summons and kept my charge—my commands, my guidelines, my teachings.”
The first thing that I noticed was that God cared about the place where Isaac lived. Isaac was in the time before Moses and before they left Egypt and went to the promised land.
Marty and I moved to the coast because of a word that my dad gave 25 years ago that said that revival is coming to the US and it’s starting on the coast. My dad said you need to move there to be a part of what God is going to do. We are still here I think because this is an area that God has a plan for and that we have a grace for. If you look at your Bible, you will see God strategically places people in areas to make things happen. You will see Moses, Joshua, David, Esther, Daniel, Joseph, Jesus, Paul etc. Each of these people were strategically placed in an area and time for a nation changing purpose.
People wonder why I don’t leave California. I don’t leave because I feel like Humboldt County is a place that God has given me so it doesn’t matter what is happening around, it matters that I bloom where I am planted.
God does crazy miracles when we listen. He makes the impossible possible. He made Isaac prosper in the middle of a drought because of the covenant that God made with Abraham and because Isaac stayed where he was supposed to go.
God has made a covenant with me and because of that covenant I can trust wherever He leads and I can expect the grace to do what He asks. I should expect to prosper in the desert.
I am put in Humboldt for a purpose and I plan to prosper.
Righteous men find favor with unrighteous men when righteous men go where God asks. This to me is important because I need to start aligning myself with God. It doesn’t matter who is in charge. I can flourish under anyone. Isaac flourished under Abimelech who was the king of the Philistines.
Isaac leaves Gerar and moves right outside. 17-18 So Isaac left. He camped in the valley of Gerar and settled down there. Isaac dug again the wells which were dug in the days of his father Abraham but had been clogged up by the Philistines after Abraham’s death. And he renamed them, using the original names his father had given them.
I feel like this is the season we are in. When Marty and I first took over in Fortuna, we dug or camped around some wells that have been a part of this church for forever. We went into a season where we forgot what was important and we are resetting those.
In Nehemiah, God had them build the temple and then the walls and the gates. Basically Jesus first, and then the walls and the gates to protect what comes in and out. We usually spend a lot of time making sure things in the spirit realm and people are protecting and that we aren’t leaving gates open to being attacked. Gates and walls are playing defense. Digging wells is playing offense.
Digging wells is different. It has nothing to do with protection but has everything to do with life and community. The well is the place that I go to sustain life. I don’t go through a gate for that, I go to a well.
Wells in the old testament were the community center because you had to go there every day to get water. Wells were little what sustained cities. Wells represent a healthy community.
I feel like God is having us redig the wells that were given to us from the past and also wells we dug for ourselves. Chris dug that well for herself because it represented taking territory, breaking off old things and a place of freedom. I watched her Tuesday start taking dirt out of that well.
Do not be surprised if you start having a desire to do things that you did in the past that were monuments for you. In this way it’s not us going backwards, it’s us reclaiming life.
Some of the wells I see us redigging are the presence and the time to be present.
I see us digging worship up again and that’s not just the worship team but this was a house where it didn’t matter if you sang, you loved worship.
We have a well of disciplining people and discipleship schools.
This church always had a well of family and community. When you came to church you came because you enjoyed who was with you. You raised your kids together. You spent your summers together. It was a tight community.
This church always raised great leaders and some of those leaders would leave and create or lead other movements in other areas.
These are all wells that I feel like are places that I want to take the dirt out of and find water again.
Isaac then starts to dig new wells and it doesn’t go well. Every well they find water someone else takes it. Finally Isaac digs a well and no one says a word.
Isaac didn’t give up. He kept going after new things. I think this is also where we are at. We’ve had so many changes and dug lots of new things that just didn’t work out like we thought. It has felt a lot of times like maybe we have already missed God. I think the answer is to refuse to give up until you find peace.
25 Isaac built an altar there and prayed, calling on God by name. He pitched his tent and his servants started digging another well.
26-27 Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his advisor and Phicol the head of his troops. Isaac asked them, “Why did you come to me? You hate me; you threw me out of your country.”
28-29 They said, “We’ve realized that God is on your side. We’d like to make a deal between us—a covenant that we maintain friendly relations. We haven’t bothered you in the past; we treated you kindly and let you leave us in peace. So—God’s blessing be with you!”
30-31 Isaac laid out a feast and they ate and drank together. Early in the morning they exchanged oaths. Then Isaac said good-bye and they parted as friends.
32-33 Later that same day, Isaac’s servants came to him with news about the well they had been digging, “We’ve struck water!” Isaac named the well Sheba (Oath), and that’s the name of the city, Beersheba (Oath-Well), to this day.
Isaac found favor with Abimelech again. This time Abimelech seeks Him out because He realized that he lost blessing when he asked Isaac to leave. He realized he was better off with Isaac than without him.
I believe that this is where we are headed. The world has hated the church. I believe that we are about to become friends with the world and they are going to want me in their space because they realized that when I am around, I bring blessings. This to me is the ultimate sign of following God and loving well. When those who do not have the same values as you do actually seek to have you around because they are better with you than without you.