Grace

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

What I believe I am increasingly learning is the power of living in His Strength. Not struggling in mine, but thriving in His.

Where I am weak, He is strong.

And in Him, I am complete.

Praying for the power of the Most High to overshadow us, family as we tread into a new week!

His Grace is sufficient.

Shalom
🤍🌈

Wholeness

In the agony
Standing tall
Becoming a bit like You
Through it all.

Pain translates into purpose
As I surrender my all to You
The end of my rope is where You start
For You intend to make all things new.

No, I won’t bypass the process
Help me dignify it
For that is where I find You
My light in the darkness.

Things may look bleak now
Remind me You rose again
So I can look away and look into
The face that makes me whole again.

Amen👑

You mould as I behold

Breathing down my walls
A bit like Jericho
May have taken seven laps
Doesn’t matter for You fill in the gaps.

Don’t let me forget You’re The Potter
I’m simply the clay
Small yet significant
As You mould me day by day.

Feel vulnerable yet grateful
You love me too much to not care
You come running towards me
For You’re still The Father beyond compare.

Through the highs and lows
You’re my One Constant
The spring in my step, the joy in my soul
You’re the glue through all my pieces who makes me whole.

So I lift my hands to You
And receive a hug from Heaven
Feel Your Love like pure bliss
For You’re more than just providence.

💖

Love has paid the price

Your assurances never cease
They’re as endless as Your mercies
Should we pay attention, we’ll find
The precious thoughts that are in Your mind.

Your Sovereign Hand will be my guide
For Your Love has the final say
Whatever the journey looks like
I’m glad I get to do it with The One who promises to stay.

The enemy may have come in
But like a flood, You will raise a standard against him.
We are Your hands and feet
So teach us to move to the rhythm of Your beat.

The beat of love, grace and humility
Strengthening our community
Not giving him a foothold
For from us, it is grace You never withhold.

Our times are in Your Hands
That is our confidence
So we surrender all control to You
And simply trust in the infallibility of Your Permanence.

Thank You for being our anchor in the storm
Our strength when things have gone beyond the norm
Would You break the mould for us now?
For that, in essence, is in sync with Your ethos.

All powerful

Because Your Name is unshaken
We cannot be shaken
Because Your Love is unfailing
We cannot be failed.

You see it all
And You stand victorious over it all
It may not yet seem what will appear
But You will make sure that it does appear.

Your roar is enough
To send it all crumbling to its knees
Your thunder will be felt
And the face of it all will have to melt.

The remnants will be spoils
That Your Victory has won
We will lift Your Name on high
Till our sound becomes one with that of Heaven.

We know who we are to You
More loved than we can fathom
Help us to rest in Your Strength
That has gone to war with all that has come as an amalgam.

⚔️

💛

Lord, would You come?
With mighty displays of power
Dispel all darkness
For we need You in this day and hour.

Help us, guide us, support us
With constant affirmations of Your Love
This blue-green planet is Your garden
So whatever comes against, we pray to the side You shove.

We ask for wisdom, strength and faith
To move with You like never before
Watch these mountains crumble
For Your promises are till forevermore.

Keep us covered under the majesty of Your Mighty wings
You’re an oasis of peace and strength
Our one and only safe haven
The rest we keep at arm’s length.

You still the storm to a whisper
You hush the waves of the sea
So in the authority of Your Name
We will rest in the middle of the mystery.

For we’ve read the end of The Book
And we know full well that we win
So whatever has come or will
We declare You are well able to unhook.

Glorify Your Name
Do it once again
Certainly we will wait
For we are not taking any other bait.

Giants fall

I see a young mountain climber traversing the grandeur of snow capped peaks and mountain tops. Having set his sights on the prize of life, He dignifies every step of the process. He gets tired and thirsty; much like you and me. He needs his rest and then with renewed vigour, I see him pressing on. The fire of the passion that burns within seems enough to melt all the snow around him. But then I remember that this fire is the kinds that runs in our veins.

I hope you enjoy the video!

❄️

Music credits: ICF Worship 🎼

Welcome Spring!

Never seen Love like Yours
Never tasted anything so sweet
Never been held by anything so strong
So pure, so pristine.

It covers me.
It frees me.
It strengthens me.

It’s the Love that runs in me
that finds its way back Home
Each time I come to you
And You call me Your own.

Grace finds me in my time of need
He may find me broken
But He leaves me complete.

Mercy kisses me on the head
And tells me all is well
For the sound that I hear
Is not that of the clouds thundering
But rather, it’s The Lion that’s roaring.

Roaring over His Sons and Daughters
The song of victory resounding from Heaven
For as surely as we wait,
Hope will never let us be delayed.

For His mind is made up
It’s our hearts that need to catch up
And as they do
He’ll change the times and seasons too.

For they are turning as we wait
Ever so patiently
For Majesty to reveal Himself
In all of His risen glory!

Paradox.

“We fast track by slowing down.”

In an age of instant gratification that desires almost instantaneous results, my experience with God has taught me that if He is a God of suddenly, He is also the God of process. Simply because more often than not, even the “suddenly” moves of God are a result of deep process.

Miracles are the norm for God. But to me, the way He teaches us to travel towards them, is the real miracle. The real miracle lies in the person that He transforms us into, day by day, as we journey with Him. It lies in the process where we find each other deeper. The process is precisely where our scars meet His Strength and our weakness receives His Grace. It is the place that He loves to find us in because we start to become teachable enough to understand that the outcome is only a small part of our journey with Him, but the strength of our journey lies in the depths of our intimacy with Him.

It is where we learn to walk with The Lord and find our own unique rhythm and cadence. We learn to wholly and wholeheartedly lean on His Spirit to show us the next step and the next move. We realize that there are times we don’t even need to make a move simply because by virtue of what He has spoken, we can rest. We can abide in His Love and let the power thereof bring in the much needed renewal and revival in our souls. We can let Him anchor us in times that seem stormy, and teach us to navigate our way through the waves till calm is restored and the horizon, cleared.

The process is where He enables us to clear out the debris of doubt, anxiety or unbelief; beautifully replacing it all with the reality of a faith so fortified through the depths of The Father’s Love that it leaves no room for anything of the sort, simply because we have come to a deep place of trusting His Heart for us.

His Heart that is always full. His Heart that is undivided. His Heart that is unchanging.

The process is where our heart meets His and His desires become ours. His timing looks favorable and trustworthy. His outcome remains a guarantee of fulfillment, and His covenant with us is as sacred as ever. Slowly, as all of this begins to dawn on us, we start to feel increasingly liberated. Hand in hand with Immanuel, we recognize that the freedom we long for is right here with us. It’s in a complete dependency on The Lord.

For leaning on Him means gleaning from His Heart; the wisdom, the strength, the grace, the favor and the strategy we need at any given point in time. He is Immanuel – God with us. He is ever present and ever willing to help us, should we let Him.

For as we let Him, we morph into a version of ourselves that has transcended into a being that is joyfully carried on the wings of His Majesty and therefore, in the complete dependency thereof, has now found a new found freedom.

And when you really think about it, isn’t that yet another revelation of The Cross? Yet another revelation of The Love that loves us too much to leave us by ourselves and gave Himself up so that we never have to travel alone.

Never ever.

For we can choose to depend on The One who is padding by our side. The One who has gone before. The One who has our back.

Because He does, we don’t have to. Instead, we can embrace the freedom that is found in a total reliance on Him, a freedom that positions us to partner with Him as we learn to walk more intentionally and deliberately, sensitive to the prompting and the leading of His Spirit deep within. A journey thus surrendered not only acquires the true taste of Heaven, but witnesses the truth that as we slow down, He will speed us up.

The Paradox of God.

What can I say?

Knowing Him.

“Knowing You is my strength.”

I thank The Lord that I know Him. In a world rife with brokenness and chaos, I am just thankful that I know Him. Somewhere, I have a feeling that you do too.

In my journey thus far, Immanuel has never failed me. He knew me before I did and now that I do, I seek to know Him more. I understand that the strength of our journey lies in the depths of our intimacy with Him. It is in that sacred, “soul to Spirit” space that has been bought by His Blood and sealed with The Holy Spirit, that I find Him and begin to find myself too. It’s a pristine journey that is new every morning, simply because I need to receive every morning – fresh mercies, renewed strength, daily sufficient grace. I need Him to wash me with tidal waves of His Love every single day. I need Him to remind me of who He is to me and the Truth that He is the same; yesterday, today and forevermore. Tethered to that Truth is the essence of true confidence to me.

Through the varied seasons of my life, I have encountered Immanuel as a Constant who through the valleys and mountains, remains steadfast in His Love and Faithfulness. I have seen both, the ups and downs of life and remained sensitive to the truth that it has always been the Hand of The Lord at work. He sends us as sheep among the wolves because He is confident in His Character towards us, and that confidence inspires mine too. He knows what He has put deep down on the inside of us, and every trial is sent to simply remind us that He is not testing us to see if we can withstand or not, because He knows that we can. It is simply we who need to know, and to know beyond a shadow of doubt that we can. Therein lies the strength of our intimacy with Him, which in turn strengthens our experience of life itself.

The Lord has even made a promise to us. He says that in this life, we will have tribulation, but we can take heart in The Lordship of Him who has overcome the world, and through all that we face, is teaching us to overcome as well. He calls us mighty warriors who know how to stand on the battlefield of life simply because in His mercy and majesty, He has first lavished us with His Love which is the very thing that gives us the capacity to stand. In short, the secret to our strength lies in the depths of His Love towards us.

In the days we find ourselves in, I feel it is important to know who The Lord is to us, personally. For me, He has revealed Himself in ways beyond articulation. I am certain that perhaps this is your testimony too. He has revealed Himself as an Invincible King and a Faithful Friend, all at the same time. He has met me at my worst and loved me into wholeness, every single time. Pardon me for repeating myself, but I think it imperative to reiterate that He is the same; yesterday, today and forever. In that Truth, my soul finds rest.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30,NIV)

The Lord will never put more on us than we can bear, and His Grace is sufficient in every circumstance of life. When we feel burdened by the cares of this life, I hope and pray that we remember The Heart of Our King who warmly invites us to lay our burdens at His Feet and our ears next to His Bosom, for it is His Words of loving kindness which are able to revive our souls and restrengthen us in a way that leaves us better than we were before. It is our dependency on The Holy Spirit; our Friend, Counselor and Comforter that becomes our confidence. It is our intimacy with The Father that makes Him our Greatest Confidante.

Knowing Him as The Shepherd who illuminates our path, step by step is a journey that we are privileged to walk. There is much ahead that He has in store for us, but as we walk, we begin to know The One who prepares us for what He has prepared for us. After all, He will never put on us more than we can bear, even if it is in the guise of a blessing, for a blessing given prematurely can become a burden, and a burden cast at His Feet can become a blessing.

As I hasten to a close, I will share an exhortation from The Lord that beckons us to draw closer and go deeper in our walk with Him.

“Oh, that we might know the LORD! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.” (Hosea 6:3,NLT)

Friends, He is Faithful to deliver, save, heal and redeem. There is nothing that He cannot do, but the more we know Him, the more we will know The Truth that sets us free.

Amen.