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by Richard Gazowsky

Most of us look at the word “suddenly” as used in the Bible as an adverb and we pass by this word thinking it is just describing an event and adding a little color to it. But, oh! Nothing could be further from the truth! When a “suddenly” happens in the Bible, I have recently beheld this word as a noun, and a powerful one at that. Of course, this discovery will ruin anyone’s comfort zone “peace”, but if you can handle it, believe me- you are up for one of life’s greatest adventures.

When I was young and immature, I did things suddenly out of an anxious spirit, and I had been taught by my elders to always carefully plan. When I entered into the corporate world, I soon realized that the greater my responsibility became, the more long- term planning was required to get the desired results. The first year we began our film festival, we had a 3-month lead time. A month after the first festival was over, we all realized that we needed to start the event planning and implementation much earlier, so we incorporated a 6-month lead time. Then, in the third and subsequent years, it became apparent that we needed to start planning the next year’s event a month before the current year’s event was over. So this, in effect, gave us a 13-month lead time. Oh, how wise I thought we had become. Of course, all of this lead time made any spontaneous change that God might want in our schedule a very difficult and uncomfortable thing to accomplish. Then this year 2008, God tells us, “Don’t plan anything.” We start getting calls from filmmakers, “Are you guys having the event?” Our answer is, “Yes”, but we can’t do anything about it until the Lord initiates something. (To understand this concept, please refer to my previous blog, “Alpha and Omega” on our wysiwyghome.com website. It describes our making it a prerequisite that everything we do must first be initiated by God, the Alpha). So this year we asked the Lord, “Do we start the planning?” and He clearly said, “No, wait. I will do something suddenly.” Wow! This is exciting, because whatever God is about to do is going to be mind-blowing, At the same time, it seems a little silly or even uncaring to be doing nothing when you know the event requires a lot of organizational effort. Or then, does it? What is God planning?

Most of you leaders I’m writing this to are very familiar with the importance of lead time. It’s just a necessary detail that must be in place for complex adventures to happen smoothly. (Well, at least according to conventional wisdom.) Recently I have been running in conflict with the will of God and I’ve realized that He would like to do that which is incomprehensible, and cannot be accomplished by normal human endeavors.

This seems to be what the whole mystery of “suddenly” is about. So, for a moment, let’s look at what the prophet Isaiah said nearly 3,000 years ago about this word, ‘”suddenly”. “I have declared the former things from the beginning and they went forth out of my mouth and I showed them; I did them “suddenly” and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou art obstinate and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow is brass.” Wow, wow, wow! Think about this for a moment. God chooses to do something in a “suddenly” way because we are locked like iron into something else and God knows this, so He drops these super-fast, incredible actions upon us in ways that are just totally incomprehensible.

The more I walk with God and see His divine actions, the more I am experiencing the necessary use of His “suddenly.” I was recently brought into a beautiful relationship with a group of businessmen who were told to put together an event from scratch in less than four weeks. The most amazing part of the experience was the ad campaign. The event was to be held in Bangkok, Thailand, and they were capable of handling over 20,000 people. It was called the “Carnival of Joy” and it would be two days of celebrating the joy of Jesus. There was to be no preacher/evangelist, just pastors sharing short testimonies of His word and 19 worship teams from churches all over Thailand. The complete event was mostly fun. Slides, jugglers, clowns, fireworks- but every hour, the shofars would blow and the Christians were told to bless someone nearby them and if the opportunity was there, to lead them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, a week before the event I was asked, along with my daughter’s worship team, to fly to the event and to bring our team to pray and prophesy over people. This was really a “suddenly”. But I can tell you the event was completely stress free and full of the Glory of God. The Buddhist government of Thailand was so impressed that they offered to pay for up to 50% of the expenses next year. It was really something to see a government official receiving a prophetic word from an American teenager. God opens doors in such profound ways, and the doors that He opens always hold wonderful surprises. Of course, the “wonderful” is according to your response, because almost every time the wonderful will turn out to be different from what you were expecting. As time passes, you will discover how wonderful it really is because the Lord “maketh rich and addeth no sorrows with it”.

Now consider this, my business friend. You put all of your planning aside and instead, you depend solely on God and His “suddenlies”. This, in effect, is putting your neck out on the line. It is putting you in a position of “hurry up and wait”! The waiting is actually you dangling your whole life out on a limb. It took a long time for me to realize this was the position that God wanted me to live in, not to just visit occasionally when I’m in a desperate situation, but to actually live there! Now those of you that are not familiar with this spiritual dynamic might say, “Oh, you’re talking about poverty, wherein you are dependent upon God for everything.” No, no, no! Not at all! I’m talking about flying first class and eating at the finest restaurants while putting yourself and your corporation on the thin, dramatic line of trusting God to show up and do what His prophetic plan is for your life. Otherwise you may be crashing and burning in a public humiliation. In the second chapter of his book Habbakuk says, “Write the vision so people can run.” But then he goes on to say, “When it tarries, wait for it.” Obviously, the running puts you out on the limb. The tarry, or waiting for, exposes you for public criticism. I would like to propose that in this position, sitting out on the limb and exposing yourself to everyone, is actually found the element of greatest attraction. When God performs the “suddenly” upon you, you become the best spiritual entertainment and revelation that people can possibly see. Wow! Isn’t that a cool place to be? Why not? You’ve got just one life to live. So why not live that life out on the limb of risk and experience the immeasurable joy of a “suddenly”.

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.”