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by Richard Gazowsky

Usually when God tells you to do something, you totally understand why he is nudging you in that direction. But the deeper I have gone into the word of God and into my own personal experience, I have discovered that many times men of God did not have a clue what God was doing but they obeyed Him anyhow. Probably the clearest example is in the life of Abraham, who the Apostle Paul said “went forth and knew not whither he went” (or in other words, left his hometown and followed God without a map).

When it comes to intelligence, there is obviously no one, nor any thing, that can compare to the wisdom and cleverness of God. But of course, a problem can arise when God asks you to do something that requires you to do it in ignorance. I’ll never forget the story of an East German pastor who was incarcerated in a communist prison because of his faith. This was during the height of the Cold War and his prison was in the communist bloc side of Berlin. One night the Lord gave him a dream and told him, “In one week, you will be freed and will find yourself in Western (free) Germany. But you must obey my voice and do exactly what I say.” The next day, he was laying cement blocks on a wall within the view of free Germany. Suddenly, a still small voice came into his mind and said, “Stand up and start praising God at the top of your lungs.” He knew if he contemplated his actions for even more than minute he would lose faith and not obey what God had just told him to do. So with no understanding or pre-calculations, he stood to his feet, dropped his cement trowel and the block in his other hand and started screaming praises to God. At this point, the Holy Spirit came upon him and he began speaking in other tongues as loud as his voice would allow. This continued for five to ten minutes. In that time, the prison foreman came, knocked him over the head and hauled him into the psychiatric ward. Within a week, East Germany decided to release those psychiatric prisoners into free Germany as a matter of spite. Our brother in Christ was free and in less than a week, he was walking in free Germany. This is an incredible story about obedience. His quick release out of prison gives us the satisfaction of understanding. But what if you don’t understand or know the conclusion?

Last year, the Lord spoke to me and said, “I want you to go to Golden Gate Park on Saturday and stand for one hour holding an umbrella.” This did not make any sense to me. But, like anyone else, I thought, “Maybe I’m supposed to witness to somebody.” So I told my family what the Lord had told me to do. To our surprise, it started raining that Saturday, so the umbrella definitely made sense. But that was it. In obedience, I went to the park and stood, waiting for something to happen. The entire hour went by and still nothing happened. After an hour, a young man and his son walked up to me and said, “You are doing the right thing. I’m glad you did it.” I did not understand what this guy meant. I had seen him for the last hour with his son, walking in all different areas of the park and was surprised to suddenly see him standing next to me. But his statement didn’t seem to point in any direction or give me any understanding of why I was there. Soon, the man was gone and there was nothing else for me to do but to leave.

A week later, Victor Emenike, a pastor friend of mine who was raised in Logos, Nigeria, said, “Richard, I feel God wants me to tell you a story. One time, God told me to go and stand on such and such a street corner.” So Victor, in obedience, went and stood there for three hours. Nothing happened until the end of the period of time. It was then that a woman walked up to him and said, “You have done the right thing.” Three weeks later, God told him to do the same thing. He stood on the street corner for three hours when a gentleman came to him and said, “You have done the right thing.” When I asked Victor what he felt all of this meant, he said, “It just simply means to obey God without understanding.”

Oh man! This is crazy! Because that means that God can ask you to do something and you will not have the ability to explain your actions to your friends and relatives. Your actions can only be explained as obedience to Him. Recently, I was asked to take part in a seminar. I knew that I could not do anything unless the Father told me to do it, so I went before the Father and asked Him if I should do the seminar. It was a clear “Yes.” As the seminar date came closer and closer, the sponsors of the seminar began to get very nervous because they only had 8 people registered for the seminar. They called me up and asked me if I wanted to cancel the meeting because there were so few attendants. I told the person on the phone that God has changed my decision making process. I understand that in the business of doing Christian seminars that if you don’t feel the attendance is right, you cancel it and try to get a better attendance. But I’m not working under the premise of success or failure or even looking for an expected response. Instead, the premise that God has me operating under is obedience to the voice of the Lord.

This changes the dynamics of everything. The bottom line is not success, as measured by most business leaders, but instead obedience, which is only measured by how pleasing it is to God. It was not until I understood this as an operating principle that it began to change my view of what success was. But please understand, I am not trying to create some false veil for failure. But I am attempting to present a case before you that many times, to reach truly genuine successes, we must walk through apparent failures so that we can reach the point to where true, genuine, long-lasting success can occur.

In 1994, I received a prophecy from Ruth Heflin. She said, “Count the next 100 days…” This prophecy really stuck in my mind because of this phrase, “Count the next 100 days…” Ten years later, I was praying with my family on top of a mountain in Southern California when the Lord spoke to me the words of her prophecy and said, “Count the next 100 days because you will ask me for anything and I will give it to you.” I was excited about this commitment from the Lord. But then He spoke to me and said, “I want you to go and talk to SkyAngel broadcasting network.” The Lord did not tell me what to expect or what to do. I was literally going without a map. I went with my family and we had a wonderful time at SkyAngel. The end result of that meeting was a suggestion for me to meet with Bud Paxton at Pax television, which was only about an hour and half away. We drove over and met with one of Bud’s lieutenants who then suggested that Bud himself meet with us. So about three weeks later, when Bud was in Los Angeles, he asked to meet with us. I met with him and he suggested that I have a meeting with his friend, Philip Anschutz. When I called him, he sent me to Regal Cinema, United Artists and Edwards Cinema Headquarters in Los Angeles. I sat down to meet with their Vice President and then halfway through the pitch for our movie, Gravity, he asked me, “What do you want?” At that moment, suddenly the whole journey made sense. It was exactly 99 days since I was standing on the mountain and God said, “This is the moment. What do you want from this theater chain?” I told the Vice President that I would like tent-pole position, which is a release on the Fourth of the July weekend in their IMAX theaters. Then a month later, a wide release in 2,500 Class A theaters nationwide. He said, “You’ve got it, we’ll do it. Just keep in touch with your progress.” It was amazing. That had happened so easily and so fast and God had given our film company one of the hardest to achieve victories in the film industry with Class A distribution with no middle man to siphon off the profits.

I personally believe that it is only by following the still, small voice of God that complex business breakthroughs can occur. What God wants to do is so complex and at such an incredible breakthrough level, that usually He can only do it with such secrecy that He can’t even tell you what you are doing. If He does, you will make a conclusion what end results He’s trying to achieve and your conclusion can completely get you off track. This is why I believe Jesus said, “The son can do nothing on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing.” Now, of course, if you are smarter than Jesus, you really didn’t need to read this article. You can just go figure everything out on your own. But if you are like me, you are probably desperately trying to see what the Father is planning for you every day.

Richard Gazowsky pastors a church in San Francisco called The Voice of Pentecost, and is also president of Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks. He has directed the films, “Guardians” and “The Roman Trilogy.”