Miracles Happen When You Dig The Ditches
Dec 05, 2025
Hi, I'm Julie Hawkes. Welcome to The Laws of Peace, where you will learn how to understand and apply God's laws in simple ways so that you can take small steps to create big changes and miracles, and become the person you are always meant to be.
The answers are in the Scriptures. Let me show you how to find them. Today's episode is called, Miracles Happen When You Dig the Ditches.
It's all about the law of promises. And basically, the law of promises is super simple. It just states, God always keeps his word, 100%, no exceptions.
If he says he's going to do it, he is going to do it. I'd like to start by telling you a story. Years and years ago, my husband lost his job, and we knew he was going to lose his job.
This was 2008, and crazy times for everybody. And we knew a couple of months in advance that he was going to lose his job, and he did. And I was so panicked about it that I even put it on Facebook.
Everybody pray for our family. My husband lost his job. And we had seven small children at the time, and I had a part-time job that made just a few hundred dollars a month.
And so we were really counting on his income to make our bills, and he lost his job. And I went into this complete panic, and I thought, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? How are we going to pay the bills?
And every day was filled with anxiety about what we were going to do and how we were going to handle it. Eventually, he got a job. And then the next January rolls around, and he lost his job again.
This time, we weren't expecting it. And I was surprised. And I again went into a panic.
I'm like, oh no, what are we going to do? How is he going to find a job? What's wrong?
All of these things. And not remembering that in my husband's patriarchal blessing, it promises him that he will always be able to provide for our family, and it says the same thing in mine.
And so the promises were there, but it felt like every single time he went to go and get a job, he would put hundreds of applications in, and people would either not respond at all, or he would get several interviews, and the job would come down
between him and one other person, and the other person would get the job. And so it was so tense. But eventually, he got a job, and all was well, and we felt like our prayers were answered.
The next January rolls around, and again, the third time, he loses his job. And this time was different for me.
This time, I look back at all of the times that God had answered our prayers, and all of the ways that miracles had happened, and we had gotten a job. And I refused. I just decided right then, I wasn't going to panic.
I wasn't going to freak out. I was just going to hold to the promises of God. He promised that he would have a job.
He promised that things would work out, and I knew they would. And so I didn't. I really didn't stress about it.
But my husband did. And a lot of times, they say, Julie, I just don't think there's going to be enough money. I just don't know what's going to happen.
I'm like, it's going to be fine. And again, the jobs would come, and they'd say it's between you and one other person, and the job would go to the other person.
I'm like, all of the evidence around us said that there would be no possible job because no matter how hard he tried, he could not find a job. And we have enough money to make it until May, and we were going to be fine until the end of May.
And I remember our bishop, our clergy pulled us in one day to me, and he said, Julie, I can't get a straight answer out of Pete. What's going on? Do you need help?
Do we need to help make sure you have some food? Do you need help paying your bills? And I looked him in the eye and I said, no, we are okay until the end of May, and God's going to give us a job.
And he did at the end of May. I swear. Sometimes the Lord comes in at the very last freaking second.
He came in and we got a wonderful job and it was a very stable job. It was a very good job. It had very good benefits, and it ended up solving the issue and the problem that we had.
The point I want to make about this though, is that we all do this when things fall apart and when we look around us and we see the evidence that things are not going to work out, then we panic and we drop into that fear.
Now, fear isn't necessarily a bad thing. Fear is an invitation for us to make a different choice and to choose faith.
And when we look to God's promises, they stabilize us and they help us to hang in there and hang on until the word of the Lord is fulfilled and until our challenges are resolved.
And sometimes that takes a long time, but promises can shift and change everything. There's a beautiful quote by Mark Batterson, and he said this.
He said, There's nothing that God loves more than keeping promises, answering prayers and performing miracles and fulfilling dreams. That is who he is. That is what he does.
And in a recent talk by President Nelson, it was called Spiritual Momentum. You guys are all familiar with that. He said we need to seek and expect miracles.
He said this. He said, Moroni assured us that God has not ceased to be a God of miracles, and then he lists several miracles. And he said, each of these miracles took time.
It may not have been exactly what those individuals originally requested from the Lord. In the same way, President Nelson continues, the Lord will bless you with miracles if you believe in him, doubting nothing.
Do the spiritual work to seek the miracles. Prayerfully ask God to help you exercise that kind of faith. I promise that you can experience for yourself that Jesus Christ give with power to the faint and to them that hath no might.
He increases strength. Few things will accelerate your spiritual momentum more than realizing the Lord is helping you to move a mountain in your life.
There are probably 10 promises just in that one paragraph that the Lord will provide miracles, that he will give you strength, that you can experience power, that when you doubt nothing, you can have the mountains moved in your life.
All of these are promises of the Lord. And if we go back to the law, the law states that God always keeps His word 100%, no exceptions. And so when we hold to these promises, they get us through.
They help us hang on and they help us to create miracles in our life with our faith.
So let's look at this from the scriptures because the scriptures are just so fun and all of the answers can be found in the scriptures. Mark Batterson in his book, The Circle Maker talks a lot about promises and miracles.
And he said that there are over 3000 promises in the Bible. And the Lord expects us to claim those promises. So a really interesting story is found in 2 Kings, Chapter 3.
And there were these three kings and they decided that the Moabites, they wanted to fight the Moabites. The Moabites were the bad guys. And so they took off together to battle the Moabites, but they start hauling themselves across the desert.
And they really have no water. And they need water for their soldiers and they need water for their animals. And they're not even sure if they can win the battle.
And so they're like, what are we going to do? And somebody says in Jehoshaphat, and we're going to come back to Jehoshaphat in a minute. In verse 11, Jehoshaphat said, well, is there not a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord by him?
And then they go and find Elijah. And Elijah connects to the Lord. And this is what he tells them.
He says, Thus saith the Lord, make this valley full of ditches. For thus saith the Lord, ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet the valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink both ye and your cattle and your beasts.
And this is a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will deliver the mo bites into your hands. Okay, so there's two main promises here.
And this is really, really, really interesting because it's a super ridiculous experience because they're in the desert. Can you imagine digging ditches in the desert? Have you ever seen ditches in the desert?
So first of all, he says, dig the ditches and you're not going to see any signs of rain. There's going to be no evidence of the miracle. You're not going to have a storm.
You're not going to see clouds. There's not going to be any rain. There's just going to be water.
And sometimes that's how God works in our life. The evidence isn't there. It's just not there, but the promise is and we can hold to the promise.
And then the second thing he says, Oh, by the way, you're going to win the battle. The rain part. That's easy.
You're absolutely going to win the battle. So what do the Israelites do? They start digging ditches and they do and they build ditches.
And then in the next morning, they rose up and there was all of these ditches filled with water.
Well, the bad guys see the ditches, all of this water across the sand and it looks and of course, they're like, there's no water in the sand and they see a mirage. And this is what they think they see in verse 22 and 23.
It says, and they rose up early in the morning and the sun shown upon the water and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood. And they said, this is blood. The kings are surely slain.
They have smitten one another. Now, therefore Moab to the spoil. And so the Moabites, they traipse into the Israelite camp thinking that everyone is dead and they're going to win.
Only the Israelites surround them and kill them and win the battle. It's a really interesting story, but it's based on God's promises. God promised that they would win the battle.
God promised that they would have water. And their part was they were to dig the ditches. We need to do our part to receive the miracles.
Even President Nelson said, you need to do the spiritual work to seek and expect miracles. And so the question becomes, well, what is my part?
Well, let's go look at another story in the Scriptures. This is such a favorite Scripture of mine. That and story that sometimes when I flip up in my Scriptures, it just automatically falls open to this page because I love this story so much.
So this is in Second Chronicles Chapter 20, and this is the story of Jehoshaphat and his impossible problem. He has people up on the watchtower watching for spies to come into the country. He's looking out for them, keeping an eye out open for them.
And one day his little people come and they come scurrying to him in there like quick. What are we going to do? The bad guys are coming and their army is so huge.
There is no way that we can beat them. And you'll want to go back and reread this story because it's so good and it's so compelling.
But basically what Jehoshaphat does is he calls a day of prayer and he calls everybody and he prays and he says, look, Lord, you're super powerful. You can do anything. And this is an impossible problem.
And we have no idea what to do, but our eyes are upon me. And then the Lord answers and he promises and this is the promise, which is really interesting, because I want you to imagine this. This is a battle they cannot win.
There's more of the bad guys than there is of the good guys. There's no way that strategically they can win this battle. And that's what happens in our own lives, right?
We have these impossible problems that no matter how you try to strategize it or logic it or figure it out, there's no way out. However, God loves solving impossible problems and he loves keeping his promises.
So in 2nd Chronicles 20 in verse 15 and 17, it says this, it says, and he said, Hark ye all Judah and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Thus saith the Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. I want you to apply that verse to your life right now. What are you so afraid of?
The Lord is inviting you not to be afraid. Why? Because he's going to fight the battle for you.
And then in verse 17, he says, ye shall not need to fight this battle. Set yourselves. That means stand strong and firm and steady in the promises.
Stand ye still and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem, fear not nor be dismayed, for tomorrow go ye out against them, for the Lord will be with you. What's the promise? The Lord's going to be with you.
What's the promise? The Lord's going to fight your battle. What's the problem?
The promise, you don't have to be afraid. Do you see how the Lord wants to work in your life? Well, the story is really a great story.
And to make it short and simple, basically what happens is they decide they're going to follow the prophet. They decide they're going to pray. They decide they're going to sing praises.
And what they do is the Lord tells them to show up to the battle. So they show up to the battle with the ward choir. So I want you to picture this.
The little Jehoshaphat army is coming against this giant, massive, huge army. And they bring out the ward choir and everybody starts singing. They start singing praises to the Lord as the bad guys are coming.
Well, the bad guys are coming. And I don't know if they're confused by the singing or what happens. But all of a sudden, they start fighting each other and they kill each other, every one of them dead on the ground.
And all the meanwhile, the choir is just singing along. Well, it gets really interesting because there's an added blessing, because God doesn't just keep his promises, but he gives us more.
There is so much that we can learn about how God gives us more in so many scriptures. But in this scripture, I guess it was tradition that when the bodies are all dead, you go up to the bodies and you gather all the spoil from those dead bodies.
And for some odd reason, all of these bad guys had come with all of their jewels, all of their gold, all of their treasures attached to their bodies. And so let me read this verse because it's so interesting.
It says, and Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, and they found among themselves an abundance, both riches with dead bodies and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves more than they could carry away.
And they were three days in gathering the spoil. It was so much. Do you see how the Lord blessed these people?
Do you see how he kept his promise in an impossible situation? And then of course, at the end of the chapter, it says, so the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for God gave him rest round about. The problem was solved.
I love these stories. I love the principle that the Lord is teaching us here. I love what the prophets said.
Seek and expect miracles. We can hold to the promises of God because God keeps his promises always, every time, every time, every time. Sometimes those promises are not answered in the way that we expect.
Sometimes those promises take time. Oh my goodness. I've been working on some promises for years, so many years, but they come.
They come. And so we need to hold on to that. And so my invitation to you today is to remember the promises that the Lord has blessed you with.
And there's so many places you can find the promises. You can find promises in scriptures. You can find.
And in our next episode, I'm going to teach you how to find and obtain promises. You can find promises in scriptures. You can find them in blessings.
You can find them in personal revelation. You can find them. You can find them in in in blessings.
There's so many different places and ways we can find the promises and hold to the promises. And so I invite you today to find the promises.
Remember the promises that the Lord has already kept for you, as that will strengthen your faith to hold on and hang on until you're delivered the next time.
And then as you hold to those promises and remember them, act as if what step do you need to take? What ditch do you need to take so that you're prepared to receive the miracle? Thank you so much for being here.
If you have loved this podcast, will you share it with a friend? And I have something new that I'm so excited about, and that is the Scripture Cards. And the Scripture Cards are a set of cards that will help you to study your Scriptures.
It includes a word, a Scripture, a verse, and it includes a question so that you can ponder it a little bit deeper, an invitation, an affirmation, and then there's a group of companion verses on the card that can help you to do a deeper dive study
into the Scriptures. So if you're interested in those, you can find more about those in the show notes. Again, thank you so much for being here.
