When I Don’t Know What To Do, I Pray
One of the strangest and most unfamiliar things that had ever happened to me had just taken place. That left me in a state of shock. When I don’t know what to do, I pray.
That was exactly what I did after this strange situation appeared in my life, impossible for me to ignore. Welcome to the next daily installment of this true story, which you can find posted here each afternoon.
Chapter 13: So, I Went Home And Prayed About Trains
For months, when anyone has asked me what I wanted praying for, I have said “Greater obedience to God.” I want to know clearly when God is speaking to me. I want to know clearly what God wants from me. I want to instantly obey what it is God is calling me to do.
As I mentioned, one person telling me “I’m just hearing 4. 4am…” and another person telling me, “Do trains mean anything to you?” was a statement in code to me, gentle, intimate code, from God saying “Go home and pray about trains.”
So what do I do when I receive such a message that I know is unmistakably from God? I, of course, go home and pray about trains.
Within a few days, details that I would never have imagined became evident to me. God told me some really clear stuff as a result of these prayers. Those details included the following:
-He told me to get on a train from Northern California to Chicago on 11/19/2023 (this was a clarification from the earlier 10/18 message that I received).
-He told me specifically how to spend 11/18/23
-He told me I am to have worship services on the train at sunrise and sunset each day.
-He told me to make 200 copies of a flyer.
-He told me what to put on that flyer.
-He told me where on the train to hold the services.
-He told me to get 12 copies of a hymnal, a specific hymnal, a process that He would walk me through step by step.
-He told me what Bible chapters to read when I gather together with people on the train: Romans 8, Hebrews 10, 11, 12.
Chapter 14: There Was Much More To That List Of Instructions That Week
There was so much more than that too. I was growing closer to God every day, understanding His ways better and better. The closer I got, the more it all made sense. And, again, I really do mean “sense.” God makes so much sense. He is so logical. He is so real. You just need to get yourself out of the idea that your personal ethics, the personal value system that you live your life by is the way that everything in the universe should operate.
That’s not God. Your personal system of ethics is not God.
That's every sort of perversion that you have applied to God. Even the values you call “good” may have nothing to do with God. In fact, those may be your biggest obstacles to knowing God. The things you have built your life around being “good,” may matter not at all to God, which means you are stuck on something that has nothing to do with God, meanwhile you are convincing yourself that you are so just and self-righteous for upholding some principle of yours. In the Bible and in prayer, God reveals himself and you develop a relationship with Him.
During that process, you will be mightily blessed if you can leave every part of yourself behind. You need to be ready to let your old self die. (Romans 6:6) If you will be willing to part with all of yourself, you will be making room for God to entirely rebuild you.
Chapter 15: Crossed Signals
As I mentioned earlier, that night at church, I retreated to the bathroom. In the bathroom, I asked God if trains mean something to me. He said yes. I asked Him if I am to take a train home to be with family. The day 10/18 appeared in my mind and burned in my mind for days after around trains. I knew that I was supposed to be on that train on 10/18.
Looking upon it later, it seems more clear — I think from either San Luis Obispo or from Southern California somewhere I am supposed to travel from. I am not sure. But somewhere south on 11/18. Maybe I have to also go south on that day. Maybe I can also travel from the north of the state. It is not entirely clear. Maybe I need to be in the southern part of the state that day, though, and to be open to that.
And then at the same time, I see 10/18 and I know He is trying to communicate to me November 18. I do not know why I understand it to mean that. I just know that it means that. Sometimes I read things and see things and do not entirely understand them. Sometimes the signal gets crossed. God sometimes communicates to me in ways that seem to account for the crossed signal. To know the difference between Left and Right, for example can take me a while. I can get those two wrong a dozen times a day, and I do as I communicate with God as I drive. I ask if I should move to the left lane, when it is really the right lane I am referring to. God knows what I mean, God tells me yes, and later if I say “I mean the right lane God,” He lets me know, that He understood that exactly.
It is possible 10/18 also means something, and that it is related to 11/18, but for now, I know that I am supposed to be on that train headed home on November 19 and that I might need to be comfortable with being in Southern California that day or that day before as well. As I kept pushing and prodding in prayer, more and more became clear, some of it almost crystal clear. It just took time.
-Allan Stevo
This is a selection from my forthcoming book, “The Amtrak Vignettes.” A neat story began with the writing of “The Amtrak Vignettes” in October 2023. Every day until that story comes to an end, I intend to share a part of it here. It is a part of my faith journey as a Christian, a faith journey that has been deepened since the Ides of March 2020. Some of it gets pretty wild and nothing that a “reasonable” person would find himself in the midst of. Few will be scared off by it. Instead, many will grow deeper in their faith. I know that, because I know my readers well, and I know that few come here expecting me to give a milquetoast version of anything. Come here to be challenged. Stay here to have your life changed. That, I believe, is what will come of this work. You can support that work by signing up below.