Integrity.

“We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face so that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously.” (1 Corinthians 10:13, The Passion Translation)

Years back, I had a revelation from The Lord concerning what we call, “tests.” He told me that He already knows me and what He has put deep down on the inside of me. He is sure. But He wants me to be sure too.

So the thing we like to call, “tests,” are only an opportunity for us to know ourselves. To know ourselves the way He does. For he trusts us. Tests are only sent our way to reveal to us who we are in Him. He already knows. It is for us to know.

This truth has been etched out by Him in my soul ever since. Even before something like a test comes my way, deep down I know that this is something God is using to only peel back another layer of who I am in Him. It is a tool in His Hands to not only reveal His Faithfulness as He walks me through it, but also something that on the other side, becomes a trophy of His Grace in mine.

Why am I writing about tests today?

Because truth be told, life towards the fulfillment of dreams and destiny birthed through the revelation of His Promises will be marked by them. They may come at times when we least expect them, but as His Own, we can rest.

We can rest as surely as Jesus slept in the back of the boat in the midst of a tempestuous storm. His disciples panicked and even thought that perhaps, Jesus didn’t care. When they accused Him of being unkind, He quickly rebuked the wind and the waves till calm was restored and the disciples left with an astonishing revelation as Jesus said to them,

“Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:38-40, ERV)

He simply wanted them to know that they too had the authority to do what He just did. Likewise, as His Children, we too have authority when tests and trials come our way. His Name is what gives us authority and His Character is the essence of our rest. His Name has defeated death and won life everlasting for us, then in the light of this revelation, can we ever be intimidated?

No.

We may feel intimidated, but it can never get the better of us. For He who promised is Faithful.

He promised to never leave us nor forsake us. He promised to be an ever present help in times of trouble. He promised that hope will never let us be ashamed. He promised that even though we stumble, we will not fall for He upholds us with His righteous right hand. He promised that we have a spirit of power, love and a sound mind. He promised that He has hemmed us in, behind and before.

And because He has, we can rest for we know The One whom we have believed. His Love is constant and endless. His Mercy knows no bounds nor limits. His Grace is extravagant and all sufficient. His Majesty reigns and rules. His Supremacy over all things is incontestable. His Sovereignty makes all things possible.

He is the God of Love, Freedom and Purpose. When He speaks, He creates. And what He creates is what we have the privilege and delight to walk into as He takes us from one degree of glory to another. When He releases a promise from His bosom to ours, it not only becomes a guarantee of fulfillment, but also a guarantee that we will overcome.

Why?

Because He is watching to see that His Word is fulfilled.

Through every test or trial that we may encounter, we can rest in the integrity of The One who will be faithful to encounter us even more through it all. And my experience tells me with absolute certainty that when He encounters us, we never are the same again. For He makes sure that we become better than before.

And not just better than before, but even better acquainted with ourselves and The One whom we have believed. The One who not only breathed His very life into our being, but even the plans and purposes that He has destined for us to walk into. The One who enables us to put faith into action, and doesn’t let anything interfere with it. The One who overlooks all that we are not, and delights in who we are becoming. The One who has gone into all our tomorrows and yet is present by our side. The One who bestows upon us a newness of life rich with promises that are designed to bring us closer to the very One we are talking about.

For The One we are talking about is the truest person I know. And because He is True, I can trust. And when I trust, I can rest.

As I hasten to a close, the picture of the mountain that He has led me to use for this post has brought to remembrance one of the songs sung by Worship leader, Steffany Gretzinger; a song I’ve perhaps sung more than once,

“Standing on this mountaintop
Looking just how far we’ve come
Knowing that for every step
You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful.”

And He never changes.

Integrity.

Conversations with Christ.

“The strength of my journey is in how You talk me through it, and not just walk me through it.”

When God gives us a promise, more often than not, it embarks us upon a process and a walk with The Lord that when yielded to with a brave and trusting heart, possesses the potential to change us for the better, forevermore. In my experience thus far, the promise towards a circumstantial/relational resolution is only an invitation to allow God to do a deep work in us, which perhaps is not something we shout about instantly, but later, as The Word promises, is sure to yield a crown of life to those that love The Lord.

As I have received a promise for my life, I have recognized that as His Child, I can put the outcome in His Hands, while simultaneously seeking Him to give me the wisdom and discernment that I need to see how it is that He is using the process to change me from one degree of glory to another. God’s goal is simple: to make us Christlike. The situations and circumstances that come our way are only tools in His Hands to improve us and upgrade us, depending on our willingness to surrender to the process of allowing Him to forge the character of His Son on the inside of us.

It is His Love that finds us the way we are, but takes a hold of us gently yet firmly, with a devoted commitment to transform us from strength to strength. For me, it is in the process that I find my strength because I find Christ in it. It is in the candid conversations we have that I experience the beautiful divine exchange of my thoughts for His Truth. Where I want instant gratification, He knows what I need – transformation.

He knows that I need to replace fear with love, and anger with patience. He knows I need to learn to have rest and trust in the middle of the mystery. He knows I need to know Him as both, my best friend that sticks closer than a brother as well as The Lord of lords who is forever, invincible. It is His Lordship that guarantees the outcome, and it is His Friendship that keeps me close. Clearly, as Graham Cooke puts it,

“The One who knows us best, loves us best.”

As believers in Christ, it is a pure privilege to have an ongoing series of conversations with Him as we walk towards our reward and promise. Truth be told, Jesus Himself is our greatest reward. His constancy in companionship is an eternal treasure that nothing can stand against. Revelations of who He is and who we are becoming as a result of being in relationship with Him are what form the substratum of our journey with The Lord. His Love gives us the strength to persevere and His Grace empowers us in our weakness.

My own personal walk with Jesus has seen Him give loving assurances of His Promise each time I have felt daunted by doubt or unbelief. Every such assurance has never ceased to bring a smile to my face and light up my soul. He has his own ways to affirm us, the sanctity of which I feel we must cherish with all our heart. It is these tiny yet significant assurances that become arrows in our quiver as we continue to walk towards our promise, unabated.

Friends, conversations with Christ change us. They make us more and more sensitive to the still, small voice within. They begin to reveal the character of God to us. They keep us in sync with the leading of The Holy Spirit. They teach us to open our hearts to The Only One who knows how to take our vulnerability and lovingly translate it into strength. They begin to become the prime motivation behind our willingness to obey, for they are a response of love to Love. They slowly reveal to us the truth that the strength of our journey lies not in an intended outcome, rather in the process of communing with The One who is both, the author and the finisher of our faith.

Selah.

Doing it smart!

“Breakthroughs are a result of patient endurance and passionate persistence.”

Some things take time. God’s promises are as sure as His timing is divine. I know we have all heard of the common phrase that He may not come when we want Him to come, but He is always on time.

Why is timing so important to God?

I believe timing is everything, friends. A blessing when given prematurely, can easily become a burden. There is a reason that even a driver’s license needs us to mature to a certain age for us to receive and then, appropriate it.

Likewise in The Kingdom.

Promises are currency. They are permission granted. They are like I said, a license. But just as presenting a four year old child with a car is perhaps not the wisest thing to do, (unless it’s a toy car), God uses the tool called time in His Hands to mature, grow and season us as believers so that when we have developed sufficiently in and through a relationship with Christ, the sustenance of a manifested promise is something not only God can trust us with, but so can we.

I believe with all my heart that God trusts us. More often than not, it is us that need to learn trust, to trust in Him and to trust in ourselves. If Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and Hope is a confident expectation alive on the inside of us; then it begs the question,

What is trust?

Trust, I believe, is the bridge that takes us through the process and eventually catapults us into the promise we have been given. Trust is a spiritual weapon which when, having stood the test of time, serves as a potent weapon in our quiver. Trust is also a display of the confidence we have in The One who calls us by name. Trust is a huge part of our faith adventure, and as I dig deeper, the words of Bill Johnson are brought to my remembrance;

“Bold faith rests on the shoulders of quiet trust.”

But as we wait in this “quiet trust,” what is God doing? What is He saying? What is He developing? What is He pruning? What is He purging? What is He forging?

It is God’s ambition towards us to forge the character of Christ within us. This is not something words will ever be sufficient to articulate, but in and through our experience of Him, we begin to get glimpses of revelation into His Character and His Heart, and before we even know it, we begin to morph into the likeness of that which we have just witnessed in our spirits.

Jesus’s time on Earth was one of patient endurance and passionate persistence. He endured all the times that He was rejected, misunderstood, tempted, betrayed and eventually crucified. He bore The Cross for the joy that was set before Him, and the joy that is set before us also gives us strength. No, I’m not just talking of the manifestation of a God given promise, but rather, who that manifestation is pointing to. Our victories are assured through the blood sacrifice of Christ so much so that our starting point in every challenge or difficulty is – Victory. We are a race of people that do not work for victory, rather, from it. So, given this assurance, we can confidently put the outcome and it’s timing in God’s faithful hands, while simultaneously directing our focus, attention and energies on who it is that God is making us into, during the process; and who is it that such a Great God is revealing Himself as, at such a time as this? To me, this is the beauty of process.

When yielded to and guided by His Careful Hand, the process becomes a magnificent opportunity to know Jesus and who it is that He calls us to be. Viewing it through the lens of Heaven, as we travel from our time here on Earth into the timelessness of Eternity will not only help us receive the upgrades in our relationship with God and in our Identity, in and through that relationship, but can quite possibly even hasten the coming of the breakthrough that we are contending for. The process that God had for the Israelites could be easily traversed in eleven days, but it took them forty years. My guess is that we ought to be smarter than that.

When God initiates a process, He always does it with great intentionality. He does it with the outcome in mind, not only the relational/circumstantial change that we are led to believe and fight for, but also the internal transformation that He wants to bring about, a transformation that is necessary for us to be able to stand the weight of the blessing, once released.

I would like to exhort you at this point with something The Lord has exhorted me with,

“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19, ESV)

He will come through, friends. He will. But my hope and prayer is that we will learn to travel well during those processes that seem painful at the time, but will always produce a harvest of righteousness. We will learn the art of patient endurance and passionate persistence, simply because it takes all of that. It took Jesus a lot of patience to be still and not utter a word as insults upon insults were hurled at Him before the crucifixion. Let me say it the way Scripture does,

“He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.” ( Isaiah 53:7, NIV)

When the Sadducees and the Pharisees lied about Him and conspired against Him, He endured with such unrivalled assurance of Identity that serves as a model for us to follow till the end of time. His persistence, I believe, was rooted in an outstanding passion for His Purpose, to reconcile the lost and to redeem all of Creation. We were the joy set before Him, and as we learn to set our gaze and our joy on the author and perfector of our faith, Jesus Christ, we will begin to tap into the strength we need to contend for breakthrough, while simultaneously enjoying the process as we learn to journey well on this sacred pilgrimage called life with a Companion who is as faithful as the rising of the morning sun, and perhaps even more.

Now that’s doing it smart.

What do you say?

The Truth about Obscurity

“Those He chooses to hide within Himself, He is also Faithful to reveal when its time.”

We will all inevitably walk through obscure seasons in life, seasons where we feel hidden and unseen. When we put our hand to the plough, we at times may feel like what we are doing isn’t really making an impact. But, as we all know, it is the Truth that sets us free.

When we commit to walking with The Lord, we are positioned in the midst of such seasons on purpose. If we are going to go from glory to glory, then we must also allow God to transform us internally, so that we can emerge more whole, healed and restored. It is precisely in these seasons of waiting that we actually develop our wings. Taking flight is a matter of time, and depends on how strong we have allowed our wings to become. Just like a child is hidden within the womb of it’s mother in the form of an embryo as it goes through it’s various stages of fetal growth, Jesus also develops us in a similar fashion. I once heard someone say that when we feel its dark, its only because we have been hidden under the shadow of His Mighty Wings.

Let’s think about this a minute. Just like an embryo has to go through nine months of growth, development and nurturing care; even we have to be put through seasons in life where though we feel it is dark, it is precisely here that we are being developed. In the careful hands of Immanuel, we are allowed to come undone, and give Him permission to put us back together again. We feel vulnerable, but as long as we keep our sights on the Truth of Whose care we are in, we can feel safe and secure. Through the mess that growth often entails, it is crucial to remind ourselves that what we find ourselves in is just a season. It is season where perhaps, not much seems to be moving on the outside, but it is a season where God is moving on our hearts. He is not only holding our heart, but is taking us by the hand and leading us on, step by step.

I recently had God show me something as I was wrestling to see what lies ahead. He gave me a vision of a staircase, where I saw a series of steps. As I found myself on one step, Jesus had already gone ahead of me, was standing on the next one, and lovingly inviting me to follow in His stead. I didn’t have to see the whole staircase, because I had enough trust that it was leading me to my Promised Land. But the way to it was in my ability to honor each step, as I took it. The Glory of it lay in the joy and contentment of encountering the Person and Presence of Jesus, along each and every step. The more I began to enjoy my walk with Him, one step at a time, the more the allure of the future lost its hold on me, and I realized I already have all that I need because I have Jesus.

I allowed myself to drift off for a bit, but only because I felt the need to share this profound picture of our walk with The Lord as something that will give us the strength to take that next one step He is calling us towards, fully assured that He has already gone ahead of us and trusts in our ability to handle what has already been graced with His Presence.

Growth always mandates vulnerability, and Jesus is too protective of us to expose us in our seasons of vulnerability. He does His best work in the dark. When we bring the petitions of our heart to Him in prayer, I believe He instantly goes to work. But He begins the work first IN us so that we evolve into the version of ourselves that is able to handle the weight of what we have prayed for. Internal transformation always has external ramifications. The more we trust Him in the process that He will inevitably initiate, the more we are on our way to see the fulfillment of the Promise. But it is this process that becomes both, a testing and a training ground. Will we allow Him to take us THROUGH to the other side, or will we succumb to the lies that come to daunt us? Will we allow Him to manifest the spiritual warrior on the inside of us, or will we cower in fear and unbelief? Will we fix our eyes on Jesus who is the author and the finisher of our faith, or will we let our current circumstances dictate our responses? Simply put, will we choose to trust Him even when we don’t understand? Because trust simply negates ANY need to understand.

At many times in my life, I have found great encouragement in how Jesus calls forth our Identity in Him. Let me share one of my favorite Bible verses,

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.”

If we truly are going to be the light of the world, then it naturally follows that God would take us through seasons where we learn to fan the flame on the inside of us till it burns brighter than anything on the outside. Light has its best use in the dark. A bulb in a fully illuminated room would have from little to no use. But in a room that is dark, it will serve as a precious gift and an absolute necessity. Friends, that is what we are called to.

We are called to be beacons of light in a rather dark world. Needless to say, wherever we turn, there is pain, suffering and trauma. But, as Children of Light, we are not called to run away from, but rather run towards such scenarios that need the love and light of Christ that we carry on the inside of us. As human beings on this planet, this is definitely not our first nor natural response. But the degree to which we have allowed God to cultivate His character in us is the degree to which this response from us simply gets easier and easier till we reach a point where we learn that THIS is the hope of the calling we have received. THIS is where we will find soul satisfaction. THIS is where we are revealed as Sons and Daughters of The King of kings and The Lord of lords.

Let this Truth sink into our bones today. God develops our character from strength to strength, but our process will invariably see us go through seasons of obscurity. They may seem disheartening, but when we tap into the Truth of what God is intending to do in such places, we will be liberated from the need to know and simply trust that if He has chosen to do such a deep work in us, will He not also birth a great work through us?

He hides us within Himself in such seasons, much like a mother hen would hide her chicks beneath her feathers. This, to me, presents a beautiful picture of Our God’s exquisite Love. He is caring, protective, nurturing and kind. He develops us in the dark, but when the time is right, just like an eagle pushes her eaglets out of the nest, wanting to see them take flight and soar into the blue unknown, Our God does the same. The vision awaits an appointed time, but when it does come to pass, He will leave no stone unturned to ensure that what He has developed in the dark will be revealed in the light. The Bible says it like this,

“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.”

Friends, let us be encouraged that if the season we find ourselves in is rather obscure, then it is a sure sign from Heaven that our season of prominence is well on its way. However, will we remain as tethered to Him in the latter as we are in the former? Is our attachment to Him driven out of need or desire? Will our faithfulness remain consistent in all seasons? Will we continue to be moved by obedience or manupilated by applause?

These questions reveal to me the purpose of obscure seasons, which through the passage of time, will undoubtedly give way to seasons of favor, promotion and elevation as we continue to pursue the Heart of God, because when its all said and done, the truth is,

“Those He chooses to hide within Himself, He is also Faithful to reveal when its time.”

A Call to Believe.

“Is why we are called ‘believers’ and not ‘knowers.'”

I asked God today, “Why do you call us to ‘believe’ and not ‘know’?”

I have often found myself wanting to know what the future holds, annoying Him (if that were even possible!) with questions such as what is the next phase, the next dimension, the next breakthrough?

Although I don’t feel there is anything wrong with such questions and in fact, are perhaps necessary to give us the vision for our life which can serve as a potent driving force to press through our challenges and continue to walk into seasons of our souls and chapters of our lives that only go from glory to glory; it is equally important to be securely anchored to His Presence in the “here” and now,” which is the only way to one day manifest, the “then” and “there.” The wisest question we can ask ourselves on a daily basis is, “What is The Holy Spirit doing?” and then wholeheartedly partner with Him towards an assured outcome for the day we find ourselves in.

Personally, this revelation to me has been a major breakthrough in itself. As someone who always was performance driven and needed a vision to propel me forward; I have, of late found myself walking with The Lord in a season where He is teaching me that to find peace, love and joy in the delights of the ordinary everyday is true wisdom and wealth. He is tethering me to His Presence more than an expected outcome from circumstances. He is assuring me that His Presence is stronger than anything I will ever face. He is uncovering layers of my Identity in Him and dismantling the lies I seem to have inadvertently believed about myself previously.

This season is both, painful and glorious; all at the same time. As I allow His Spirit to go deeper within me, He seems to also be working through me and around me; changing my circumstances slowly but surely. This has shifted my whole perspective of faith. Hebrews 11 is a verse we are all very well acquainted with,

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Faith is what we need to tap into as we walk out the process towards the promise. But does that mean that we are going to postpone our joy to, “one day when?” Or are we spiritually mature enough to exalt His Presence over all else, be secure in it and allow Him to reveal the mystery, day by day, layer by layer. To me, faith now requires me to activate my joy in The Lord each day that I wake up alive, knowing that when times will have reached their fulfillment, there is no demon in hell nor person on Earth who can stand in the way of Him manifesting His Promise in my life.

And that, dear friend, goes for you, too.

My journey, needless to say, has seen me wrestle with God. All until He stilled me long enough in His Presence and through a cherished woman of God gently whispered, “Rest.”

In The New Testament, it is clear that the only thing we are to strive towards is to enter the rest of God. This, to me, is hugely profound. It displays an unquestionable trust in the character and nature of God, in “who” He is and “what” He is able to do; in His own will, way and timing.

THIS is why we are called to ‘believe’ – believe in the goodness of God and allow His Spirit to woo us into His Presence consistently, remaining firmly tethered to it. In His infinite wisdom, God does not reveal all the plans He has for us and the things He wants to bless us with, all at once. If He did, I can’t help but wonder if we would still desire relationship? I feel that we would perhaps like prodigals simply turn our backs on Him, and desire the resource over the relationship, a desire that is sure to bring about the utter devastation of our precious souls. It is evident that He has our best interests in mind, wanting us to attach our affections not to that which is temporal, but that which is Eternal.

It is not too much for God to bless us with what we are believing for, right here, right now. But I think He is far more interested in developing within us the character necessary to sustain the magnitude of the blessing that has already been prepared for us. He is far more interested in knowing whether we believe Him for who He is, or whether we believe Him only for what He can do, whether we honor The Blessor over the blessing or desire the blessing over The Blessor, whether we value The Producer over the product, or the product over The Producer?

Now maybe a good time to get our priorities in order. For it is ONLY out of an abundance of relationship with Him, that the true riches of life begin to flow. As we seek Him for WHO He is, He begins to forge a Love relationship with His Child so much so that anything else in this world would fade in comparison. As we walk with Him, our deep needs are met : acceptance, affirmation, healing, wholeness, restoration. This journey deepens our trust in The Person so much so that we begin to believe that if He could access those parts of us that we once had no hope for, how much more is He both, able and willing to do? We eventually come to a point where we begin to trust Him to really do the exceeding, abundant that He has promised in His Word, without wanting to know the details of the “when” and “how.” Simply because we have learned to trust, and answered our call to ‘believe.’

Friends, tethering our souls to the things of this world would never satisfy, but tethering our souls to The One who holds all things together, certainly would. Postponing our joy to “when” we get our breakthrough is a sheer thievery of the glorious gift of life, and gets us back into the bondage that God, in His Mercy, has rescued and redeemed us from, in the first place. Conversely, choosing to believe in the impeccable character of The One who promises to be Faithful, no matter the circumstance, is true freedom. Scripture says it like this,

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

The death and resurrection of Christ is reason enough to believe. Jesus came to reveal the heart of The Father. He is Good, Gracious, Kind, Compassionate, Loving, Merciful, Mighty, Strong, and Faithful. He is not a man that He should lie, and in Him, there is no shadow of turning. So, if we are called to ‘believe,’ let us make a conscious decision to believe Him for WHO He is. The what He will do will inevitably follow. As I continue to write, I also feel a strong stirring in my spirit, that if, at any time, we feel the need to ‘know,’ let us be quick to remind ourselves that the only thing we are called to ‘know’ is actually a Person, the Person of Jesus Christ.

And because He IS who He says He is, we are called ‘believers’ and not ‘knowers,’ for we ‘know’ The One we are called to ‘believe.’

Selah.