My daughter turned 17 today. Well,
if we were to be exact, she will be turning 17 in another thirty minutes. I’m
so grateful to God for the precious gift of this one girl child that I have. She
is such an amazing blessing. She’s not however the subject of my post today,
even though she inspired it. I just couldn’t imagine that my first post in so
long would fall on her birthday and I wouldn’t take a few minutes to hail the
One Who saw fit to bless me with her in the first place. All the glory is your
alone, Lord!
So I had called her this morning,
sang a birthday song and then prayed for her from my heart as the Lord led. She
smiled her usual quiet smile and said her thanks. Then she said, ‘So I am born
on this day 17years ago’. I corrected her and said, not ‘I am born’ but ‘I was
born’, to which she smiled and said something to the effect that she knew exactly
what she was saying. And you know what, it didn’t take but a minute for the
Lord to begin to unpack that simple sentence for me.
Sis, do you remember that when
Moses asked the Lord in Exodus 3 v 14 what he should say if Pharaoh asked who
sent him, God said to Moses ‘Tell them
that I AM has sent me to you’. The Lord reminded me that He is the ‘I AM’. He
reminded me that He is the God Who calls forth the end from the beginning; that
He is the God Who knew us every before we were fashioned in our mothers’ wombs;
the God Who has orchestrated the times and seasons of our lives before the
foundations of the earth; the God Who has numbered our days, Who knows us so
intimately as to be familiar with every single hair on our heads.
And as the Lord ministered these
to me, He told me that my daughter was right because her ‘I AM’ was purposed to
be brought forth into manifestation on the 17th of May 2000, and
this had been established from the foundations of the earth. He reminded me
that she didn’t come into existence because I labored and pushed her out of my
womb on that day. No sis, she came into being in human form on that day because
it was the set time that God had appointed for her spirit man, her I AM, to
manifest in a mortal body in accordance with His purpose and for His glory.
As the Lord spoke this to me, He
also reminded me about something I had read in Mark Batterson’s book ‘In a pit with a lion on a snowy day’. I honestly
can’t remember the exact context in which he was speaking, and neither do I have
the book close by right now for reference purposes; but I do recall that he was
saying something about creation and people’s reactions, and it suddenly hit me
that ‘Creation’ and ‘Reaction’ have exactly the same letters
in them, though in different order. What has this got to do with anything? Hear
me out sis, just hear me out.
Sis, if you and I truly believe in this God that we serve…. If
we truly believe…. Then we need to settle in our spirits that there are certain
things in our lives that carry creation’s mandate, things for which you and I have
no hand in or control over. Do you remember that the Word in Colossians 1 v 17 tells
us that He is before all things, and in Him and through Him do all things
consist? That all things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him
was not even one thing made that has come into being (John 1 v 3)? Sis,
if we truly believe the Word, we should settle in our spirits that our lives
and times are in His hands, and as such we should check our reactions to the
situations and circumstances which we find ourselves in the course of our
sojourn on this earth.
The Lord never promised us an
easy ride, sis. He didn’t! He was very upfront t about the fact that ‘in the world you will have tribulation’ wasn’t
He? But do you remember what followed? It was ‘But be at peace, for I have overcome the world’. Sis, the message
to you and I is that in our good times, our quiet times, as well as in the times
of our seasons and storms; we should set our focus on Creation’s mandate and
allow our reactions be those of submission to a God Who has promised to uphold
us with His mighty right hand of righteousness. I was listening to someone
minister yesterday who said that if we would consider carefully, none of us can
remember at all or in sufficient details, the things that were troubling us on
this specific day and time last year and much less the year before. I believe
what God was reminding me this morning was to again cast my cares and fears on
Him, because He has cared enough for me to have sorted it all out from the
foundations of the earth.
Sis, God is saying to you today
that He does not need you to try to help Him by your worrying. It’s hard, I know.
Oh boy, do I know! But this is why He takes the time to come back to us with
reminders and words of encouragement time and again, sis. He knows we are but
human, and He knows we can’t do this on our own so He is mindful to speak peace
to our spirits over and again. The challenge with God’s peace is that while it
is available, we must take it! I love that scripture that says that God’s voice
is louder than the sound of many waters (Psalm 93 v 4). It just reminds me that
when the many storms of life are raging, I only need to reconnect with the
voice of the I AM that is within me, and His small still voice will speak
louder than the sounds of the waves buffeting the shores of my life. It is that
small still voice that speaks a ‘Peace,
be still’ to my spirit and allows me to stay above even when all seems to
be falling apart at the seams.
Sis, God is saying that the good
things that happen to you are not strange to Him, and the challenges you have and
will face are and will not be strange to Him either. He is asking you to gauge
your reactions to the things that come at you for good or bad and ask if you
are truly walking in faith. I know I have shared with you before something I heard
from Pastor Stephen Furtick who said that ‘Faith
and Fear have their root in the same thing …in Focus!’. Sis, can you and I come
back to focusing on Creation’s word concerning us and take our focus off the
fear that causes us to react as though we are not already helped?
A couple of days ago, I was speaking
on Facetime with my husband who was away in Houston. I couldn’t see Him clearly
and I said as much to him. He had responded to say that the lighting was bad in
his room. I remember I had laughed and I said to him that I was going to blog
about what ministered to me in that instance. You see sis, he could see me with
absolutely clarity because I was enshrouded by light, being in a very bright
well lit room. I on the other hand couldn’t see him clearly because the light
in the room was above his head. I asked him to lie down, looking up to the
light, such that the camera was illuminated by the light flooding from the
ceiling. He changed position, and I could see him as clear as day.
Here is what the Lord said I should
leave you with, sis. His light is available to illuminate the dark places of
your life, to give clarity where you cannot see clearly, to bring you into
prominence where situations are preventing your gifts from manifesting visibly.
But He needs us to look up, sis. He needs us to change position. He needs us to
move into the place of submission to the light of He Who is Creation Himself,
so that He can make our pathways of life shine brighter and brighter. He wants
us to react less and trust more, sis. That is His word today. He asks that I again
leave you with this, ‘My peace is
available to you. Take it’
Sis, it is in the place of
creation that purpose manifests, that our gifts make room for us to the fullest
extent. And in this season, God is looking for us to manifest our ‘I AM’ to the
max. There are things God spoke from the foundation of the earth sis, but He
needs you and I to be in the position to pull down the spiritual word, the
Creation mandate, into a physical manifestation.
I don’t know about you, but I honestly
look forward to a daily spiritual growth and maturation that has me reacting
less to the ebbs and flows of life, and trusting more in my Creator to work all
things out for His glory. The Lord will help you sis, as assuredly as He will
help me.
Be blessed sis…. For you surely
are!
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