“When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.” Psalms 27:8 NASB

While living in Thailand in 2014, Dan and I experienced 3 large earthquakes: a 5.8, a 6.0 and a 5.9 one right after the other in quick succession. It was during a time of prayer as we were seeking the Lord about moving our base back to Pittsburgh for the first time in decades. We felt we had heard the Lord on this, and were seeking confirmation.

I was on the couch playing my guitar, Dan was walking around the apartment. We were deep in worship, singing “Through It All” by Bethel Music which had captured our hearts and we had been singing it over the past few days. It begins like this:

“Grander earth has quaked before…moved by the sound of His voice,
And the seas that are shaken and stirred, can be calmed and broken for my regard.
Through it all, through it all, my eyes are on You. Through it all, it is well…”

Then, literally right as we were singing the words: “Grander earth has shaken before” for the umpteenth time, the floor of our 4th floor apartment became a moving sea. The couch I was on was suddenly turned into a raft undulating on water. Dan who was standing looked as if he had seen a ghost. It went on and on and on for many minutes. When it finally ended, we ran to the internet and saw the epicenter was only a 35 minute drive away! Wow!

That moment was a turning point in our lives. We were so used to living our lives in Asia: the people, the land, the culture, that it took a true inward shift in our thinking to bring us to faith to believe God to make a way for us in this move. Somehow God used that earthquake to confirm to us that He was indeed speaking to us and that we needed to make a move.

Internal shifts occur when we find the grace to let go of what is known and comfortable, and turn towards a new and unknown way. It is also a change in our thinking. Sometimes we get bogged down in our everyday living and begin to sink into outdated or ungodly mindsets: “We have always done it this way.” or “Nothing can help. Nothing will ever change.”

We need a change in our thinking patterns, an actual internal shift in our focus so that we can be positioned for the next chapters the Lord is writing for us. As we keep our ears close to His heart He does what is necessary for us to move in the right direction. Amen.

~ Debbie Ecker