What To Do When God is Moving (and when He isn't)

There are seasons when you sense God is doing something in you. Prayers start getting answered in ways you didn't expect. Scripture comes alive again. Conviction sharpens. Worship feels different. You can't always explain it, but something has shifted.

When you find yourself in a season like that, the temptation is to ride the wave and not think too hard about what's underneath it. But I've walked with the Lord long enough to know that moves of God don't sustain themselves on excitement. They sustain themselves on posture.

Here are five things worth remembering when God is moving in your life.

1. The Call to Holiness

David wrote this in the Psalms: "Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart" (Psalm 24:3-4).

To ascend the hill of the Lord, you have to be consecrated.

Years ago, when I was in a season of asking God for more, He gave me this verse: "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you" (Joshua 3:5). Consecration always comes before a fresh move of God. You can't casually host His presence.

That means holiness in your life is not optional. You can't expect a deeper experience of God while holding on to things you know He's asking you to surrender. And it means repentance has to come back as a regular rhythm. You're going to sin. Deal with it. Don't entertain it. Don't tolerate it. 

One more thing. In seasons when God seems to be moving powerfully, there's a temptation to drift emotionally without staying grounded biblically. When the Spirit is moving, you need to become more rooted in Scripture, not less.

A few honest questions:

• Are you living privately what you confess publicly?
• Is there hidden compromise in your life?
• Have you normalized something God wants to cleanse?

2. The Pursuit of God's Presence

The root of holiness is undivided attention to Jesus.

Moses put it this way: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). That's loving God with everything you've got. Everything you have.

You pursue God's presence in two ways. Through spiritual disciplines, where you use your body to train your soul in holiness. And through praise disciplines, where you use your body to train your soul in worship. That includes kneeling, lifting hands, bowing, singing aloud, silence, fasting, Scripture meditation, and even dancing!

Here's the hard question: when was the last time you worshiped with abandon? Not at a concert. Not because the music was good. Just you and the Lord, holding nothing back.

A few honest questions:

• Are you pursuing God outside of Sunday morning?
• Do you know how to worship when no one is watching?
• Is there freedom in how you worship at home, or only in a room with a worship band?

The after-effect of genuine worship is always holiness.

3. The Priority of Prayer

I'm talking about contending prayer. Intercessory prayer. The kind where you say, "God, I'm not going to stop calling out to you until you bring a breakthrough."

For over a decade, I've made it a personal habit to contend for a few specific things in prayer. The peace and prosperity of my city. Souls to be saved. And that God would use me in both. I'm convinced one of the reasons I've seen what I've seen is because I refused to stop praying.

You need to be someone who prays with integrity. Praying with integrity is when your prayers and your desperation actually match.

There are three ways to lean into prayer. Pray with your body, through fasting and verbal prayer. Pray in your spirit, through praying in tongues if that's part of your walk. And pray in agreement with others. Jesus said, "Again truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:19).

A few honest questions:

• Are you depending more on strategy than on prayer?
• Are you contending for breakthrough, or have your prayers become a checklist?
• When was the last time you prayed until something broke?

4. The Centrality of Scripture

This builds on the first point. Biblical literacy matters in your walk.

You cannot grow emotionally close to Jesus while staying biblically shallow. Any genuine move of God in your life requires Scripture as the foundation. Strong reading. Theological grounding. Discipleship. Doctrinal clarity. Without that, an emotional experience runs out of gas the moment things get hard.

A few honest questions:

• Are you reading Scripture for yourself, or only consuming other people's takes on it?
• Are you grounded in the full counsel of God's Word, or have you been cherry-picking the parts you like?
• When you have a spiritual experience, are you anchoring it in what the Bible actually says?

5. The Need to Surrender Afresh to the Spirit

A move of God always involves the Holy Spirit doing things you didn't plan. That means you need to keep surrendering. Not once. Daily.

That looks like flowing in the gifts of the Spirit. It looks like being led by Him rather than driven by your own agenda. It means being willing to let God interrupt your plans without panicking about it.

This is one of the hardest postures for organized people. We like timelines. We like to know what's next. But the Spirit doesn't operate on your calendar.

A few honest questions:

• Are you sensitive to the Spirit in your day-to-day life?
• Are you flexible when God interrupts your plans, or do you push back?
• Are you making room in your life for the gifts of the Spirit to operate?

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These aren't five boxes to tick. They're five postures to hold.

The call to holiness. The pursuit of God's presence. The priority of prayer. The centrality of Scripture. The fresh surrender to the Spirit.

If God is moving in your life right now, these five things will keep you anchored so you don't drift. And if God doesn't seem to be moving the way you want Him to, these five things are exactly the soil where the next season grows.