Realignment

God is speaking! He always is. The greatest challenges remain our ability to hear Him; clarity about what He speaks; and our willingness to be obedient and carry through with His mandate. Right now, I am stuck in the clarity zone, trying hard to figure why it is that God has spoken certain words to me at this time. But, let me start at the beginning...

I had just come out of my morning quiet time and was deciding in my mind how best to share with a friend something the Lord has spoken to me and which was a message for both of us in the face of a current situation we had been dealing with. I continued to ponder this as I set out to do my morning exercises. I’d elected to ride my stationary bike, something I otherwise find pretty boring unless I am either watching television or listening to something interesting. I decided on the latter and set out to find a pack of CD’s I had bought recently but hadn’t had time to listen to. The pack was nowhere to be found though (later remembered I left it in my car) but no way was I going to last on that bike without some other attraction (or distraction depending on how you look at it, lol). Anyhow, another pack of CD’s caught my attention. They were from Kingdom Church, New Jersey where my sister worships. I had come back with them as far back as October 2011 when I went for her wedding. One CD in particular caught my attention. It was titled ‘It’s not over yet!’. I figured I’d listened to this message before since it was out of its sleeve, and made to pick another CD in the pack. I had a strong check in my spirit however and quickly realized this was the message the Lord would have me listen to at this time. In the continued struggle to live the Zero life, I chose to be obedient and I’m so glad I did. 

It was a powerful message! Pastor Dharius Daniels spoke about how people tend to approach every New Year by seeking God’s mandate or assignment for the year ahead. He said something to the effect that sometimes God has no new assignment for you; rather He wants you to go back and finish the assignment He gave you last time. I remember thinking how this resonated with my New Year blog ‘Continue in Him’. I had said in that blog that God is not limited to our nice 12-month calendar cycles but works in His own timings and seasons, and that He will bring things to completion based on His own calendar, if we would only learn to keep on keeping on. Pastor Daniels then said something else which struck me very deeply. He said ‘You see, the problem is that too often, we put a period where God puts a comma and we don’t realize that He is not done yet. Or, we put a comma where God has put a period and we keep trying to figure why nothing is changing’. This statement really ministered to me and I kept thinking about it as I got ready and left for work.

I had been reading the book ‘The Circle Maker’ (by Mark Batterson) off and on for a couple of months. It was a gift from a dear friend on my trip to Canada last November. It had sat in my car awhile along with three other books I was reading at the same time. I honestly hadn’t paid it much mind in the past two weeks. As I rode to work that morning however, I felt a strong pull towards it and picked off from where I’d stopped reading. As that chapter ended and I turned the page, there was section titled God’s grammar. In this, the  author started by saying how even though he was a preacher himself, he had forgotten just about every sermon he had ever heard, save for one which was titled ‘God’s grammar’. He said there was one statement in the sermon which to him was simply unforgettable. And that statement was……  wait for it…..   ‘Never put a comma where God has put a period, and never put a period where God has put a comma’. Wow! I literally stopped breathing, sis. Do you have a sense of how blown away I was? In that instance I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God was speaking. If I had wondered before, He took the time to confirm it, even as the Bible promises us that He does. How amazing is that?

Only God, can orchestrate it such that a message I have had for over a year and a book I got a few months ago, should both say exactly the same thing to me in the space of an hour. Two seemingly disjointed sources of His Word, yet they ministered the same thing exactly! No doubt He needed me to hear… to hear very clearly and without ambiguity, what He was speaking. The challenge though is that I really and honestly am still not able to figure out what it is that He is directing my attention to. For the past couple of days therefore, my constant refrain has been ‘Show me Lord. Please show me!’. I have been trying to figure where I might have mixed up my comma’s and period’s so that I might backtrack and get back into God’s assignment for me in that area. Even from a worldly perspective, you and I can appreciate just how different the context of anything written or spoken can become simply by using a comma or a period in the wrong place. Viewed from a Kingdom perspective then, you can appreciate the struggle I have had. In this place of struggle however, it ministered to me that I will not figure it out if I keep looking with my physical eyes, or keep trying to figure it out with my natural senses. So, in quiet submission I have chosen to remain at peace and in the place of seeking His face, trusting that He will show me what I need to see, and redirect my steps accordingly in His own time.

Much as I am at peace now about this, I felt strongly enough that I should share this with you sis. This is because somewhere in my spirit, I also wondered if perhaps this wasn’t so much a word for me as it might be a word I am to speak to someone else. Maybe this word is for you sis; maybe it’s for you and I. Today I want to encourage you to pray along with me that the Lord will give you clear distinctions between the periods and the commas He has spoken or is speaking in your life. Ask Him, as I am doing also, to show you where you have made decisions in error because you thought certain situations had come to an end, whereas His assignment, His purpose for you in that regard is far from over. Ask Him to show you where you need to put a lid on a situation, a relationship, a business venture, etc. whose season is over by His intent, but to which you are still holding on. Ask the Lord to bring realignment of your thoughts and actions back to the place of His design, sis.

This is not a year to be outside of God’s purpose. As we come before the mercy seat and ask Him for clarity, for re-adjustment and re-alignment, I am trusting God with you….. as much for my sake as for yours sis, that as always He will grant us revelation and fill us with the power we need to retrace our steps right back to Him. The Lord will help you sis! He will help me!

Be blessed…. For you surely are!