Change the narrative.

January 2020:

The dawn of a new year. The ushering in of a new era. The beginning of a decade.

As the stage is set for us to rewrite our story, may the script of the rest of our lives be defined by the values we hold close and the dreams we have yet to birth.

The fonts could be italics or bold, curvy or rustic.

The colours could be a vibrant hue or a tint of serenity.

The backdrop could be a solid shade of one or a unique amalgam of several.

The framework could be rusty antique or simply urban.

The stand could be a stylish staircase ascending upwards or a straight line remaining steadfast and immovable.

The designs could be ours, but may the message remain His.

May the message embody The One who not only gives us strength, but IS our strength. The One who not only gives us courage, but IS our courage. The One who not only gives us love, but IS our love.

Our First Love.

The One who loves to take the remnants we have to offer and uses those very ingredients that we discounted, to rewrite our story; a story marked by fresh beginnings and new starts, brave new adventures and carefree escapades.

Because when He rewrites our story, it sounds a bit different.

A bit like Grace.
A bit like Mercy.
A bit like Love.

And when we start to find Him in the bits, guess what?

The story changes.

Simply because we have.

And somewhere I wonder, isn’t that the whole point?

I’ll leave that with you.

💛

In the middle.

Seasons of waiting find us caught in the middle. In the middle of promise released and promise realised. In the middle of the valley and the promised land. In the middle of process initiated and purpose fulfilled.

In the middle.

It’s a place that helps us understand that though the joy of an answered prayer is indisputably sacred, we cannot tether the joy of our very being to it. For our joy is found in our relational journey with Christ, above all else. It’s in the conversations we have along the way. It’s in the moments where we feel impatient and His Peace that transcends human understanding overtakes us. It’s in the times when He fills the space in between with resolute affirmations of His Love that win our heart and trust over to Him, every single time.

This post stems right out of my reading this evening that The Holy Spirit joyfully interrupted with His heartening revelation. As I share, I hope He speaks to you too;

“Fix your heart on the promises of God and you will be secure,
feasting on his faithfulness.
Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life,
and He will provide for you what you desire the most.” (Psalm 37, 3-4; The Passion Translation)

Having looked up the synonyms of “delight,” here are some that caught my attention:
Glee, contentment, joy and satisfaction.

The Psalmist here encourages us to find our delight, our joy, our contentment in God Himself, with the full assurance that He will provide all that we need in ways that perhaps as of now, we cannot even fathom. For the God we serve is not our caretaker, He is a Good Good Father, who in turn, delights in giving good good gifts to His Children. He doesn’t just meet our needs, He fills us to the overflow. He isn’t content with giving us bare minimum to simply make it through, He is The God of Breakthrough.

He is The One who goes ahead and makes ways for us that serve as an incontestable evidence of His Hand upon our lives. Like water breaking through a dam is His Power and Might at work on our behalf. The work He starts, He promises to bring to completion. For that is who HE is:

“The Alpha and Omega.”

My own story and journey in Christ has seen Him even saturate the space between the two. It’s this space where I have begun to learn that He will never leave me nor forsake me. It’s this space where I have begun to realise that I’m loved too deeply and too dearly to ever be let down. It’s this space where I am growing in my revelation knowledge of who My Father is and what it means for me, to be His Child.

It’s a space where when I determine to read from Psalm 37, He unexpectedly comes forth with yet another revelation from His Heart to mine, a stunning reminder that grounds me in the reality of my journey with Christ, a journey that is defined by Love and shall prayerfully remain anchored in the power thereof.

So friends, as the sun sets on yet another day, yet another grace gift from God, I hope that regardless of what The Lord has us waiting upon Him for, we will find our joy, our glee, our contentment, our satisfaction and our supreme delight in The Person before the present, The Giver before the gift and The Blessor before the blessing; with a declaration in sync with the heart of Heaven that remains etched out in our hearts,

“We joyfully expect You to come through, but our delight remains in You.”

🌻

Love Himself.

The world may fail me, but Love never will.
For Love came to conquer not just sin and grave, but our very hearts.

Finding us when we didn’t even know we needed to be found.

Accepting us when we looked everywhere for acceptance except The One Person who accepts with no strings attached.

Accessing the deepest recesses of our being to heal, restore and set free when we didn’t even know what true freedom tastes like.

Loving us at our worst when our even our best would never be good enough.

Simply because that’s who HE is. He loves us because HE is Love.

Love that transcends understanding and is outrageous in His desire to meet us at our point of need and fill us to the overflow; a slight glimmer of which is enough to win our hearts over to The One who calls us by name, and calls us, “Beloved.”

Beloved – when it is dark, messy and chaotic.
Beloved – when we are weak, tired and weary.
Beloved – when we are broken, vulnerable or unnerved.

Beloved at our worst. Beloved at our best.

Because He doesn’t care about our “do.” He cares about our “who.”

And when that “who” dawns upon us, it changes everything.

And that change is what we live to experience every single day till we can look giants in the face and boldly declare,

“I am too loved by Love Himself to ever fail me.”

❤️

A new thing🌻

A new thing. A breath of fresh air. A clean slate.

That’s what the onset of this beautiful year has tasted like. Finding evidences of stepping into this freshness and newness of life in what I like to call, “little specks,” leaves me invigorated on a daily basis as He sends affirmations of His Love in subtle yet significant ways.

So it’s a new coffee mug. Nothing out of the ordinary, yet a precious sign that maybe, just maybe in ways that are seen and those that are not, we are morphing into something new.

Something that takes the beauty of what has been and mixes it with the expectation of what will be.

Something that is a unique amalgam of the wisdom gleaned from the lessons of old enmeshed with the courage to go forth in the revelation of that which shall be.

Something that is a rich tapestry of Grace that simply put,

“Makes all things NEW!”

So wherever we are on our journey friends, I pray that the newness of life would chase us down so relentlessly that we will have no choice but to notice it and appreciate it till the truth of it catches up with us and our declaration becomes one with the sound of Heaven,

“And God-Enthroned spoke to me and said, ‘Consider this! I am making everything to be new and fresh. Write down at once all that I have told you, because each word is trustworthy and dependable.’” (Revelation 21:5, The Passion Translation)

Blessings ❤️

Raised up.


Last night, I was singing, “I raise a Hallelujah!” In the midst of my worship experience, I stopped in my tracks. This often happens when I feel The Lord on something, and though these moments are eternally sacred, they also are the things that I, more often than not, feel a tug on my soul to share, should the time and occasion arise.

So here it is. I stopped right at, “I raise.” A moment in time that brought forth a revelation. A light bulb went off and The Lord had laid something beautiful on my heart. A confession from my heart to His.

“When I raise, You create. And what You create, will in turn, raise.”

The God who works wonders often puts us into situations where we learn to lift our spiritual posture from one of despondency to unending hope. We learn to lift our eyes to The One from where our help comes. We learn to lift our expectations of what God can and will do. We learn to lift our voices in praise till it becomes the very highway that God uses to create.

What does this tell me?

It tells me that when we speak in accord with what He has already decreed over our lives, He goes to work, and Scripture tells me more. It tells me He never stops working. He never stops working till alignments, orchestrations and provisions have been made that not only usher in an invasion of Heaven on Earth, but even a manifestation and establishment thereof.

“On Earth as it is in Heaven.”

When we raise the spiritual posture of our hearts, I believe He creates. He creates all that is necessary for those prayers that seem impossible, to come to pass. And not just come to pass, but to manifest so radically that they now serve as the very pathway to experiencing not just the fruit of an answered prayer, but a partnership with The Lord so powerful that it blows all our paradigms of what it means to walk with Him.

Walk with Him as a much loved child of God.
Walk with Him as a mighty warrior.
Walk with Him as a friend of God.
Walk with Him as the household of God.
Walk with Him as a treasured possession of God.
Walk with Him as a part of Him that He wove into being with utmost love, care and affection; with the intention to bless us, prosper us, meet us, encounter us, shape us and raise us.

Raise us into being transformed into the most authentic version of ourselves.

Raise us into the full stature of who we are in Christ.

Raise us into knowing the hope of the calling we have received.

Raise us into being seated in heavenly places in Christ.

Raise us into being the chosen people that He calls us.

Raise us into being the light of the world.

Raise us into such a profound relationship with Him that the sheer truth of our journey with Him, starts to dawn upon us.

It isn’t just the situations or relationships that He wants to raise up. He can do that in a heartbeat.

For what His Heart really beats for is you and me.

Suffice to say, He is in the business of raising us up into a generation that has been moulded by His Hand and purified by His Fire. Refined in His Love and wielded for His Glory.

For what He creates, will in turn, raise. He isn’t only creating signs, wonders and miracles, though the supernatural is only the norm with God. He is also
creating us into a people who once having had a taste of being raised up by His Spirit, have now seamlessly morphed into beings that when yielded to His careful hand, become instruments of Grace that leave no stone unturned till we see every promised area of our lives, raised up too.

“When I raise, You create. And what You create, will in turn, raise.”

It is so.
And so it is.

It’s time to shine🌟

Just as star differs from star in splendour, so do we. We each have our own unique gifts and talents, skills and abilities, and when we use them in a way that releases the Light within, we will find that not only have we just inched closer to becoming the most authentic version of ourselves, but have given permission to those around us to tap into their special sparkle too!
Shine forth, my friend!
✨

Infinite.

“Because You are limitless, we can travel weightless.”

God is infinite.

When I googled the synonyms of infinite, one of the words that caught my attention was, “boundless.”

Truly. God is boundless and not limited to the constraints of human logic or rationale. He is beyond what we see, feel and touch; a thought that brings to rememberance one of my cherished verses of Scripture,

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18, NIV)

We see glimpses of this truth in the Word of God throughout which challenges us to perhaps discern what is happening in the natural, but not be bound by it simply because the God we serve is limitless. For every problem we face, there is a corresponding promise of God. More often than not, this promise draws us into the presence of God where anything that He tells us to believe is rendered possible. His Spirit gives us insight and revelation knowledge into that which He is speaking. Our part is simply to believe.

Believe that what He is speaking is true. It usually does not make sense to our natural mind, and the Good News is that it doesn’t have to. One of the things that I recently heard Bill Johnson speak comes to mind,

“Your heart can hear what your head can’t fit.”

I love that. It stems from an absolute confidence in the goodness of God. It reflects a radical confidence in the nature of God to perform and bring to completion that which He has spoken into being.

Therefore, we can travel weightless. We can choose to simply take Him at His Word and put our trust in His Character to do that which He has already purposed in His Heart. We can cast all our burdens on Him and watch Him transform them into blessings. We can do as He says in a passage that I have crossed paths with more than once in the past few days, a passage that truly anchors us in the midst of all that seems to be swirling around us simply because it puts us in touch with the true reality of what our journey really, really looks like. So, allow me to share,

“Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 4:6-7, The Passion Translation)

Friends, if His peace transcends human understanding, then His power does too. His power to rend the Heavens and make a way where there seems to be no way. His power to work signs, wonders and miracles behind the scenes that manifest in our lives in the natural at the appointed time. His power to either remove or supersede those barriers that seem to be in the way of the fruition of His promises over our lives. His power to illuminate the path in the process when things seem hazy or unclear. His power to break through the gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron, all for our good and His Glory.

His power contained within the limitlessness and boundlessness of His Majesty, yet released without constraint. For what is enshrined within Someone who is infinite is the very thing that empowers us to travel weightless.

As I draw to a gentle close here, I hope and pray that regardless of the weight of our circumstances, we will ask Him to help us cast it all on the mighty shoulders of Him who took that Cross at Calvary, simply so that you and I can travel light and free.

No burdens. No worries. No cargo.

Because HE is limitless, WE can travel weightless.

In Jesus’ Name,

Amen.

In a capsule.

Perfect Love. Bold Faith. Quiet Trust. Radical Obedience. Magnificent Outcome.

The Gospel is perhaps the best love story ever told. Its a story of Someone who takes us just the way we are, and commits Himself to work with us: covering us, understanding us, shaping us, transforming us and above all else,

Loving us.

He loves us with a Perfect Love. There is nothing we can do that can make Him love us more, and there is nothing we can do that can make Him love us less. He loves because He IS the very embodiment of Love. His heart is full towards us, and the more we seek Him, the more He encounters us. These encounters in my experience, are pivotal in our transformation. For when we realize that we are deeply, deeply loved children of God; it gives us the faith to believe.

I had a recent epiphany with The Lord that I’d love to share. I realized that we often say that we are standing on the promises of God. But He took me a step further as it dawned upon me in a sacred moment in time, that it is because He allows us me to stand in His Love that I have the courage to stand on His promises. It is the integrity of His Character and the fullness of His Heart that give us the faith to believe that He loves us too much to ever fail us. And when He says that He will never leave us nor forsake us, He means business.

Such a relationship inevitably gives way to bold faith as His Love takes us from one degree of glory to another and ultimately, graces us to begin to believe for the impossible. We begin to find ourselves confessing things like, “With man, this is impossible. But not with God. With God, all things are possible.” As our hearts, minds and souls start to align with the truth of our confessions, we discover that The Lord has just taken our journey into the next dimension.

Quiet trust. My experience tells me that this is a kind of trust that perhaps is best described as, “child like,” where we trust in the nature of God as a Loving Father, a Good Shepherd, an Invincible King and a Best Friend Forever. We put our feet on the feet of our Big Brother, Jesus and allow Him to carry us forth into the abundance of all that He has in store for us. Our journey has now morphed into a rhythmic dance where He leads, and we simply follow. No questions necessary, only child like awe and wonder.

A oneness of soul and Spirit begins to become our experience as we allow The Lord to create a space within ourselves that starts to say, “Yes,” more easily and promptly. It is where we have stepped into a place of radical obedience to The Lord, a kind of obedience that by virtue of having had a taste of Heaven, now starts to tug at it and gently pull it down till it alters everything, from our perception of who we are and our circumstances, till our circumstances come into alignment with who we are in The Lord. This is a place in our walk with Him where we recognize that what is beyond our ability is well within His Sovereignty. This is a place where we begin to expect Him to work on our behalf. This is the place where we see Him as the God of angel armies who commissions all of Heaven to back us up. This is a place where we know that the battle is not ours, but The Lord’s. This is a place where His Majesty intervenes and reveals His Glory. This is the place.

This is the place I’d like to call, as Jacob did, “Bethel.” It means the House of God, which by virtue of who Christ is in us, is now within us. And The Treasure that is within us will leave no stone unturned in finishing that which He has authored in the first place. He is the alpha and the omega, and should we find ourselves in the space between the two, we can be rest assured that Our God will find us there too.

He will find us there as Someone who is leading us and guiding us towards the finish line. For when HE finishes something and brings about the outcome, it is a reflection of who He is:

Magnificent.

Wishing you a great year ahead, friends!


Happy 2020! 🎉

When times change prompting us to shed the old and step into the new,

When cycles of growth are completed signalling the way into yet another dimension of our being waiting to be tapped into,

When seasons shift ushering in a breath of fresh air that causes us to pause and ponder,

When everything seems to come into alignment on the inside so seeds of greatness from deep down within can be made manifest on the outside,

When change is upon us and the only way forward is to embrace the adventure of a brave free fall,

It’s enough to say that the pain that prospered us the past year only served as a pathway towards the breaking of a new dawn.

For when God decides to act, who can reverse His decision?

The verdict is final:

It’s only the beginning of times.

Wishing all a very Happy New Year, and a life that is exceedingly abundant from the inside out!

Happy 2020, friends!

❤️🌟