Prepare-for-War

sheet of paper and wrote down every area of my life. My . career, my family and loved ones, where I would live, where I would work, if I would have any friends, my physi cal body, my reputation, and the hardest area of all, if I would ever marry. All of this I committed to the Lord. I signed and dated the paper. I fully expected that when I finally made such a sweeping and total commitment that I would be struck by lightening and fall down on my face and speak in tongues - after all, that's how it happened in all the books I had been reading. To my horror, nothing happened! I didn't even feel any different! I had made a ter ribly big commitment to the Lord expecting Him to do something miraculous in return but He didn't choose to do so. I was devastated. Somehow I managed to get through my finals and then went home for the two-week Christmas break. I spent the entire two weeks up in my bedroom in tears and fasting. I was distraught. I had reached the point where I was totally consumed with the desire for a personal relationship with the Lord. I simply could not continue to live without it! My poor parents were so upset. They thought I had gone crazy from the pressures of school. They simply could not understand what I was talking about. Finally, two days before the end of the vacation I packed up and returned to the university campus. I will never forget the next day. I went to the minister of the group and sat crying in his office telling him about making the commit ment and the fact that nothing had happened. The Lord hadn't spoken to me once, and I didn't even feel any different! He started to chuckle. "I'll bet you thought you'd be struck down by a bolt of lightening and start speaking in tongues, didn't you?" "Why yes, isn't that how it always happens?" "No, God is God, and He works however He wants. He works in each person's life differently. The scripture com

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