How to Prepare for God's Blessings (Before They Arrive)

There is a particular kind of danger that comes when leaders are confident but prayerless.

I’m not referring to the obvious danger of burnout or bad decisions. I’m talking about that deceptive inner confidence that feels like faith but is really just adrenaline wrapped in ministry language. I learned this the embarrassing way one Sunday evening years ago, in a moment that still makes me cringe when I remember it.

At the time, I was the lead pastor of our church’s evening service, which functioned like its own campus. Attendance was growing but not overflowing, yet enough to make me feel like I was riding a wave of divine momentum. People were whispering compliments about how much they loved the service. The worship team had finally found their groove. The atmosphere always felt charged, and, if I’m honest, I was starting to feel myself a little too much.

To seal it all, I had The Dream. The prophetic looking one that you’re sure came straight from the courts of heaven. In my dream, the evening service was so packed that people were lined up around the building and down the street waiting to get in. So naturally, in the way only an overconfident pastor can, I decided that the upcoming Sunday night was our breakthrough night.

Did I pray? Consult God? Or seek His timing and wisdom, you ask? Of course not. I had momentum, I had charisma, and I had a dream. Surely that was enough.

So, on the evening-of, I gathered our volunteer team for our pre-service rally and with the confidence of Elijah calling fire from heaven, laid out the details of my vision and announced, “Guys, prepare your hearts tonight, for we are about to see something that, if they told you in your day, you would not believe!”

The team erupted in cheers. Their faith was high and expectations even higher. Meanwhile, (looking back) I’m pretty sure heaven was likely watching and whispering, “This boy hasn’t asked Us a single thing.”

Service time came. I positioned myself at the door, ready to greet the flood of new people I was certain would pour in. Ten minutes into worship? Only our regulars. Twenty minutes in? Still the same regulars. I assured myself and our volunteersthat perhaps the revival crowd was stuck in traffic. But by the time I walked up to preach, I knew the truth: nobody else was coming. There would be no record attendance. No overflow crowd. No revival lines down the street.

Just me, my sermon, and the faithful people who showed up every week without fanfare.

I preached as best as I could, slunk off stage afterward, and avoided eye contact with our volunteers who were probably wondering if the revival crowd went to the wrong church service. I was convinced the next morning I needed to type up my resignation letter and find a new job since I had clearly revealed myself to be a false prophet.

It was a humbling moment I have never forgotten, one that taught me a lesson I now hold tightly:

Never run ahead of God assuming He’s following. Seek Him before you speak for Him.

And that brings me to a story in Scripture where three kings, far more powerful and prestigious than I ever was, made the same mistake I did, except with far higher stakes.

WE THREE KINGS… AND ZERO PRAYERS OFFERED

In the third chapter of the book of 2 Kings, three kings, Israel, Judah, and Edom form a military coalition to fight the rebellion of the king of Moab. On paper, it looked like a smart move: three nations versus one. But there was one tiny problem, actually a massive one, they set out for war without first consulting God. This wasn’t a small oversight. In Israel’s history, inquiring of the Lord before battle wasn’t just a strategy, it was the whole playbook.

So, these brilliant kings, in all their royal wisdom, choose a marching route through the wilderness of Edom, a harsh, arid region bordering the Dead Sea basin. As expected, after seven days of wandering, they run completely out of water. No water for the soldiers. No water for the animals. No water for the king of Judah who probably regretted joining this WhatsApp group of kings in the first place.

Their situation is exactly what happens when spiritual leaders forget their spiritual Source: the ministry terrain becomes dry, the journey becomes confusing, and the strength we assumed we had evaporates.

But finally, someone remembers that God exists. King Jehoshaphat, king of Judah (the only one among them who still fears the Lord), says, “Is there no prophet of the LORD here through whom we may inquire of the LORD?” (2 Kings 3:11). That one question leads them to Elisha the prophet, who, being a proper prophet, first rebukes the king of Israel for only remembering God when things go bad. (This was the Old Testament equivalent of, “Oh, so now you want prayer?”)

Eventually he seeks God on their behalf, and once the Spirit rests on him, proclaims God’s response. The instruction that comes out is so unexpected, so un-military, and so wildly out of place in a crisis that the kings must have wondered whether the prophet was actually working for the enemy. Elisha looks at these exhausted, dehydrated soldiers and says,

“Thus says the LORD: Make this valley full of trenches.”  (v.16)

You can almost imagine the collective blink in the camp. Trenches? As in, dig? In this heat? In this wasteland? At this hour? It was one of those moments where God’s answer sounded like the opposite of the problem. They needed water immediately, and God’s solution begins with manual labor. Yet, woven into this strange command is one of Scripture’s most beautiful spiritual patterns:

God was not only planning to quench their thirst; He was positioning them to be victorious in battle.

Here is the full instruction from God for context: “Thus says the Lord, ‘Make this valley (the Arabah) full of trenches.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘You will not see wind or rain, yet that valley will be filled with water, so you and your cattle and your other animals may drink. This is but a simple thing in the sight of the Lord…’ It happened in the morning, when the sacrifice was offered, that suddenly water came [miraculously] from the area of Edom, and the country was filled with water.” (2 Kings 3:16–20 AMP)

Yes, the miracle came, but before it did, God wanted them to take some action steps by faith. As in: Prepare yourself to receive what I am about to send. Expand your capacity and make room for what’s coming. Prepare for overflow. But here was the challenge: when God gave this instruction, there was no water in sight. There was not a single cloud in the sky, no hint of moisture in the air, nothing that suggested water was anywhere near them. Yet God tells them to grab shovels and start digging. That is because faith digs even when the ground is dry.

THE MIRACLE THAT BEGAN WITH MANUAL LABOR

From their military perspective, trench-digging made no logical sense, but in God’s economy, it made perfect spiritual sense because God often requires faith-preparation before God-manifestation. In fact, just to make sure they grasped the scale of what was about to happen, Elisha adds one of the most understated lines in the Old Testament:

“This is a simple thing in the eyes of the LORD.”

What looked impossible to the kings was apparently “simple” to God. I love it! Because only a sovereign God could speak about filling a desert valley with water as casually as if He were discussing the weather. Yet it’s consistent with God’s biblical modus operandi, by removing every visible pathway so that the only explanation left is His own power.

Incidentally, the principle of stepping out in faith before the blessing comes shows up throughout Scripture:

• Elisha and the widow’s oil (2 Kings 4): she had to collect jars before the oil started flowing.

• The priests at the Jordan (Joshua 3): the river only parted after they stepped into the floodwaters.

• The blind man (John 9): he only received sight after obeying Jesus’ odd instruction to go wash mud mixed with saliva off his face.

In each of these stories, God, who could have done everything instantly, yet he chose to involve human obedience. Clearly, this isn’t because He needs our contribution, but because He uses the preparation to form faith in us. So, the lesson is (hopefully) clear: 

If we expect to receive anything from the Lord, we must prepare in advance by faith by making room for what we have not yet seen.

What I love about this instruction is that God never asked the soldiers to do the impossible. He did not tell them to dig for wells to look for water, or to summon rain, or create clouds (if you’re Nigerian, you know that’s a thing). He simply asked them to do what was within their ability, to make trenches. Was it hard? Yes. Inconvenient? Absolutely. Counterintuitive? Completely. Yet not impossible. You see, it’s in that gap between what they could do and what only God could do that faith becomes visible.

It is the same space where many of us find ourselves today: God calling us to take the next faithful step while He handles the outcome that is far beyond our reach.

OBEDIENCE ALWAYS PRECEDES OVERFLOW

This became more than a biblical story for me some months ago when I found myself staring at our ministry and family budgets with a growing sense of concern. It became clear that our vision to serve Nigerian pastors, their wives, and their children (PKs) in a deeper, broader, more sustainable way required us to expand our Nigerian team. We needed new staff, new leaders, and new capacity.

At the same time, our monthly support was no longer adequate for the responsibilities before us. To sustain both family and ministry, we needed to grow significantly, about sixty-five percent above where we were. In ministry fundraising terms, that is not a minor adjustment; that is the kind of leap that typically requires 18-24 months of focused, full-time support raising in the U.S. Yet, here I was, firmly planted in Jos with children in school and a ministry calendar that made relocating not-feasible.

So, I did what I’ve always done when I reach a Red Sea with no boat and no bridge: I fasted and prayed, laying all the details before God. And it was in that space between my calculator and the quiet wrestling with the Lord that He began to impress a series of instructions on my heart.

• On a personal level, the Lord impressed on my heart to more intentionally and carefully track my monthly expenses and to open a long-term investment account for my children.

• On a ministry level, He impressed on me to restructure our organizational chart for long-term strength and to hire three new key positions, roles that He Himself gave me clarity on.

Now, the first set of instructions for both personal and ministry felt manageable because I had already begun thinking in that direction. But the moment I obeyed those first instructions; the financial gap became glaringly clear. The second set of instructions required more faith. Opening the kind of long-term investment account I envisioned required funds we didn’t have. Hiring new staff required even more funds, certainly more than what was currently sitting in our ministry account.

This was my “Trench-digging” moment.

I knew what God was asking. I knew it meant taking certain public steps of faith that everyone on our team could see. If you’ve ever stepped out in faith in a way that looks irrational to anyone who knows the details of your situation, you understand how humbling that is. It’s one thing to have faith privately. It’s another thing entirely to make decisions that expose your faith publicly on your balance sheet.

Still, I went for it.

I gathered some personal funds that had been set aside for other needs and opened the children’s long-term investment account. I drafted the job descriptions, and we announced interviews and started the hiring process, even as our ministry accountant gave me that gentle-but-serious look that says, “Sir, the budget is not budget-ing.”

I wish I could say I walked through this with bold confidence and unshakable faith, but the truth is, I was nervous the whole time. My hope was mixed with anxiety, my obedience was wrapped in questions, and my faith stretched to its limit. Questions ran through my mind like a broken record:

What am I doing?  Did God really speak, or was this my imagination?  How in the world will I raise this level of support in such a short time?  What happens if I bring new staff on and three months later I have to let them go?  What if all of this blows up in my face?

Yet, despite all the questions, I persisted.

Roughly three weeks after I started preparing by faith, I received an email notification late one night. Out of the blue, one of our former ministry partners who had moved on to support other ministries suddenly sent an incredibly generous donation, simply saying, “God put you on my mind.” About a week later, several of our regular partners gave significantly above their usual amount, and a few new donors joined us. Over the next few weeks, that pattern continued.

Slowly but surely, in a rather short period, our ministry account and our personal family account not only reached the exact amount we needed, but for that particular month, exceeded the amount I had prayed about. I felt like an ancient Israelite soldier in 2 Kings 3 waking up to find that, without a single cloud in the sky, the valley floor had suddenly filled with water from the direction of Edom. God had done the very thing He promised, in a way that only God could have orchestrated. I remember waking up the first day of the next month whispering half in prayer, half to my still sleeping wife, “Father in heaven… how in the world did You pull this off?”

I have a moment of confession though. While God met my need for that month, what I had prayed for was not a burst of provision but for monthly stability, the kind of steady support that would carry us for the long haul. So even after the breakthrough, my heart wrestled with new questions. Will this continue? Will this level of support show up again next month? Was this a one-off miracle? Will the trenches stay filled or dry up once the calendar rolls over? Truth is, it put me in a place of renewed dependence, where month by month, I needed to trust God to sustain what He led me to build. I had to come to a place of realization that walking with God means trusting not only in what He sends today but also in His character to sustain tomorrow.

THE MIRACLE THAT CONFUSED THE ENEMY

The beauty of the 2 Kings story is that the water did not merely quench their thirst; it became part of God’s larger victory strategy. Scripture says that when the Moabites prepared to attack the next morning, the rising sun reflected off the water-filled trenches and made them appear red as though the valley was covered in blood. Believing the allied kings had slaughtered one another, the Moabites rushed in carelessly, unarmed and overconfident, only to meet an alert, hydrated, and fully prepared Israelite coalition that defeated them decisively. The very miracle God provided to sustain them also positioned them for victory.

This gives me plenty of comfort because it shows that when God provides, He sustains. His blessings are never random, never shallow, never one-dimensional. He provides for our present need, prepares us for our future assignment, and protects us from battles we do not even know are coming.

SO… WHERE IS GOD ASKING YOU TO DIG?

So, let me ask you this: What BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goals) has God placed in your heart, for your life, your family, your ministry, your organization, your community, or even nation?

What if God is already poised to move, already set to release provision, already planning to open doors, but is simply waiting for you to pick up your shovel and start digging trenches across the valley? What if you’re not actually waiting on God… but God is waiting on you?

Where and how would you need to start digging your “trenches” today?

Listen, you just might wake up tomorrow morning and discover like the ancient soldiers did, that “suddenly water came [miraculously] from the area of Edom, and the country was filled with water.”

And when God fills a trench, He does it to overflowing!

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