Dear Writer, I hope you had a good week and took some time to consider how you can get and stay connected with others to continue growing as a gatekeeper of God’s glory!
This week, I want to share something a bit more unusual and personal. Something the Lord shared with me out of Isaiah 40 that holds keys to maintaining and growing in our positions as gatekeepers. While the world is moving into what seems to be increasingly more chaos, God is on the move in the midst of it all, and He’s giving us keys to stay rooted and unshaken in Him.
The following message will be broken into segments as the Lord gave it to me. The scriptures are clearly noted. What I felt the Lord impress upon my heart is in italics. The remainder of the text is my additional thoughts.
How this talk came about.
God woke me in the night at 3:33 a few weeks before the Experience Writing conference and led me into worship. During Worship I looked at the verse of the day. It was 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 “ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
I liked the verse and felt like it was something the Lord was speaking, but I didn’t understand what He meant. Then I felt impressed to simply open my Bible. It opened directly to Isaiah 40…
Comfort, yes, comfort My people!
The word arrested my heart. And suddenly I knew God had a message for His people He wanted shared. This is the message that bubbled up as I read through the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. The scriptures are quoted directly. The words the Lord impressed on my heart as I read are italicized. My own thoughts are in plain text. I hope this word brings comfort and encouragement to you as it did me.
Isaiah 40 – The Lord’s Comfort
1 “Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” Says your God.
2 “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended,
That her iniquity is pardoned;
For she has received from the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.”
This is a season where I feel God is saying…
You will not fight the same old battle.
He is victorious.
Your sin is forgiven. Release it and let it go.
I feel like some of us may have been holding battles of failings and God’s ready to do something new.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 3:13-14
God is wanting some of us to drop old battles and failings because He’s actually ready to move us past them into the new thing. I’ve had this experience in my life sometimes when I’ve had a battle, and I feel like there’s something I have to do to overcome it. But when I place it as His feet, there is something He does to move me past it.
John 20:23 says, if you forgive anyone’s sins they are forgiven. If you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained.
Some of us may have retained sins against others or ourselves. Those sins can tether us to our past or to those who we feel “owe us” something. Cutting off our expectations of others or of ourselves releases us from those tethers and allows us to move forward.
To cut those tethers, you have to understand that in God’s economy, no one owes you anything. You don’t even owe yourself. Even if we did owe—we could never repay that debt. And God already has. This dovetails with Isaiah’s message in chapter 43 verse 18-20…
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. 20 The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen… – Isaiah 43:18-20
If we’re afraid to let go because we don’t know how to fill that gap left by our sin or by another’s sin—God knows how to fill that gap and will do so as we trust Him.
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
5 The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
This is a season where…
God is getting ready to do new things in your life.
This is a time of preparation –of raising up low places…
…places of unworthiness & shame. Places God did not make low in us.
…and removing high ones…
Places where we think we know what ought to happen or where we’re set in our ways. These are places that, by His grace, He’s smoothing out…
…making a smooth path for this new thing He is doing.
Working with Him to smooth the path is key, so that when the new thing comes, we can move into it without tripping over anything in ourselves. If God’s highlighting high or low places to address in your life, don’t let it worry you. Just lean into Him and what He’s saying. He is our helper. He has prepared the works we are to do. He prepares us so that we can prepare the way for Him and His return in this beautiful upward spiral.
You may sometimes feel that you’re covering the same ground again with God, but often we’re viewing the issue from it a little higher up than before as we “circle around” in this upward spiral. Again, don’t be discouraged by the low places or high places you begin to see in your life. Just keep leaning into Him.
6 The voice said, “Cry out!”
And he said, “What shall I cry?”
“All flesh is grass, And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades,
Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.”
This is a season to realize…
All our efforts of the flesh are futile…
They just are. Realizing this takes the pressure off as we recognize that things don’t depend on us. It’s a season to drop trying to figure things out with our wisdom and trying to accomplish things in our efforts. It’s time to move into what I call an “active reliance” on God. Partnering with God’s grace means actively plugging ourselves into God through every step of our process and letting Him lead—as in a dance.
It’s also a season where….
There are certain things that distract that seem urgent, but will not last.
We must recognize those things that press and make demands of us that have nothing to do with what’s important—with the actual priorities God has for our lives. It’s a season to press in for the grace to release those things—graciously.
9 O Zion, You who bring good tidings,
Get up into the high mountain;
O Jerusalem, You who bring good tidings,
Lift up your voice with strength,
Lift it up, be not afraid;
Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”
This is a season to lift up our eyes from where we’ve been to where God is. No matter what the circumstances have been, lift up our eyes and see what He’s doing. Because He’s always working. God is constantly wanting to communicate with us. It’s simply a matter of how free we are to receive. As we push past the inertia to lift our gaze, He is ready to share more.
It’s a season where…
God’s word to you is key
Be clear on what you know of His word.
Stand on His word. Invest in His promise to you in prayer, thought, energy, and faith.
It’s a time to invest and prepare for the Word to come to pass. A time to pray over that word regularly.
I pray regularly for the Experience Writing Conference. Some prayers I pray daily. Some weekly. There is a way that, in prayer, we pave the way for what God wants to do. Ask Him how to pave the way in prayer for the words He’s given you. The more I pray for the Experience Writing conference, the more it put my mind and heart in a place to receive and hear from Him because it oriented my heart toward Him.
Sometimes, imagination can be key to invest in His word to you, and as we imagine what the fulfillment of His word to us will look like, He will bubble up wisdom and inspiration.
Another way of investing is through our energy—or our actions. There is almost always some small step of preparation or action we can take today toward the word He’s spoken to us. Often taking that one small step will unlock the next step and the next. All of these small steps add up in preparing and positioning us so that when the time is right we are ready to move into it.
All of these things—the prayers, the dreaming, the actions—help grow our faith. They are all ways to invest in the words He’s spoken to us, and ways we can partner with Him in the waiting. Because all waiting in God is active waiting. We are never passive…
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!
