A Word to Open the Heavens

One word from God can change the course of your life forever. It may come to you through a single verse that comes to life and lights up your heart at just the right time, a word spoken by another in due season, or the still small voice of Holy Spirit. When God speaks, the heavens open.

The heavens opened over Joseph when God spoke to him in a dream about how he would one day rule a nation.

The heavens opened over Moses when God spoke to him through a burning bush and called him to lead the Israelites out of slavery.

The heavens opened over David when God chose him over his more qualified brothers and had him anointed by Saul in their presence.

The heavens opened over Mary when God sent an angel to tell her that she would bear the Savior of the world.

The heavens opened over Paul when Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and convicted him of his sin.

The heavens opened over John when Holy Spirit gave him the book of Revelation.

Do you need an open heaven today? Then the time has come to seek God for your word. It is only through the power of Holy Spirit that you will begin to burn with desire to see His will accomplished in and through you. It is only through His revelation that your life will be everything He designed it to be. It is only through His direction that you will be able to walk the path you were created to walk.

Stop trying to find the path on your own. Stop stumbling and grappling through the dark. There is no need to frustrate yourself trying to make your life count. Get a word.

When God speaks you will be released into the purpose that has been in your heart all along but has yet to be walked out in fullness. His word, spoken in His time, to accomplish His purposes will forever change the course of history both for you and for everyone you are called to reach..

This weekend, spend some time seeking the Word of the Lord.

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Never Ready

Are you ready?

That was the question I was asked last night while discussing a very big dream. My first reaction: of course not. I have been waiting for this moment for so long that I almost began to believe it was never going to happen. Five years ago, if someone would have asked me “Are you ready?” the answer would have been a resounding “YES”!

So what has changed?

Since the moment God placed this dream in our hearts, my husband Shane and I have been on a journey of healing, growth, restoration and transformation. We used to think that all it took to accomplish the vision was the right combination of gifts and opportunity. Every time I would grow frustrated with the way things were being done, my heart would scream “LET ME DO IT”!

My desire and knowing what I was called to do often blinded me to the truth of who I needed to become in order to do it. Now I know that accomplishing this dream will take so much more than talent and knowledge.

It will take unified people willing to fight relentlessly to see it come to pass.

It will take constant prayer and willingness to be led by Holy Spirit.

It will require perseverance long after the excitement has worn off and the hard work has taken its toll.

More than anything else, it will take humility that recognizes that I can not do this without the power of God behind every single movement.

I started off ready five years ago. Now, I believe I am less ready, but far more equipped.

What is God asking you to do? Are you waiting to feel ready to do it? Or are you willing to trust that when God says “GO”, He will make up for your insufficiency?

Get Burdened

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 NIV

This week Holy Spirit began to open my heart and mind to a new understanding of ministry. I used to think it was enough to have a vision and the God-given gifts to work to see it come to pass. Now, I have come to see what a narrow view I have held all these years.

Ministry, in the truest Biblical sense of the word is not about my vision. It is not about my gifts. It is not about my calling. It is not even about my purpose.

Ministry is about burden.

When I consider those people who are truly being effective for the Kingdom of God and impacting lives in a real, lasting way, I see one characteristic in common. They have a burden in their heart for the pain someone else is in.

A heart that is broken for what breaks the heart of God is driven to do something about it.

The missionary who seeks to help starving and neglected children in third world countries will bring about powerful change when she is motivated by love and desire to see a better life for those children than when she is motivated by a sense of religious duty or obligation.

The pastor who is able to see the faces of his congregation, hear their cries and feel their pain as he plans his sermons will deliver messages of conviction, challenge and healing. If his focus is on church growth, he will fall into striving and trying to win the approval of man.

The housewife who loves her neighbors and desires to lighten the load of the single mother living next door will be more likely to see that single mother as a treasure who needs love and compassion and not a project to be saved.

And the Christian who is broken for the weak, the vulnerable, the broken and the lost will be moved to pray. Moved to heal. Moved to deliver. Moved to support. Moved to give.

Moved to change their world.

I came to realize last week that while I had a vision, I lacked a burden. I had a grand dream in my heart but no real faces to go with it. So I began to pray for God to burden me with the need He is calling me to meet.

There have been very few times in my life when God has answered a prayer so quickly. I now know who He is asking me to reach. I know what makes my heart break. I know why He has called me to preach and to write. I know the burden that fuels my vision. And I will do everything I know to do to carry the burdens of those He is calling me to reach.

One face at a time. One life at a time. One burden at a time.

What breaks your heart?

Desert Dweller: Welcome to the Desert

Any Christian with a dream, a vision or a desire to be more like Christ will eventually end up smack dab in the middle of the desert. The Israelites wandered there for 40 years. Jesus was led there by the Spirit of God to be tempted by Satan for 40 days. King David was there, John the Baptist was there and you will be there.

 But there is a very distinct difference between the wilderness and the trials of life that never cease to be no matter who you are or what you are called to do. Knowing whether or not you are in a desert will enable you to endure the season, learn all you can and avoid staying there longer than necessary. So, what does it look like in the wilderness?

 Long Stretches with Little or No Breakthrough

Just when you thought answers were on their way, the heavens seem to have closed up. You have prayed and prayed and prayed. Yet your breakthrough is no closer than it was the first day you began to seek God for it. Or so it would seem. Keep praying anyway. The wilderness is the time for you to sow as much seed as you can, so your promised land will be full of fruit.

 Inability to Hear the Voice of God

Before you wound up in the wilderness, the Spirit of God was so close. Leading, guiding and whispering in your ear. Communion with God was an everyday experience. Now, it is rare and you long for the days when God was speaking and His presence was ever near. Despite how it may feel or appear, God has not forsaken you. He is in the midst of the desert with you and will continue to guide and lead even when you do not sense Him. In this season, God will likely be silent. Keep walking in the direction you were headed in and trust Him to see you through.

 Being Stuck or Making No Progress

Has everything come to a screeching halt? Are the doors of opportunity closed? Are you frustrated by a lack of progress? Welcome to the desert. No matter how hopeless your situation seems or how far away the dream appears, do not give up. A wilderness season does not mean that you heard God wrong or that you will never see the promised land. On the contrary, if you will stay faithful in the desert, you will emerge prepared for the promised land.

 Feelings of Doubt, Confusion and Fear

Many emotions will surface in this season. Among them doubt, confusion and fear are very prevalent and, at times, will overwhelm you. You will have to position yourself to fight against them so you do not fall into depression or despair (like I did). Even when you are struggling to believe it, stand on the Word of God. Hold on to the promise and the dream He gave you so you are not led to abandon the road when the next leg of the journey is so close.

 Stretching and Growth

You will never flourish in the promised land if you carry all of your wrong mindsets, past failures and paralyzing sin through the threshold with you. While you may not feel it, God heals in the wilderness.

 Mirages

Life in the desert is not as bad as it appears. You will encounter so many lies that will present themselves as truth. I believed most of them and prolonged my stay in the wilderness. This is one of the most important characteristics to understand about the desert. Tomorrow, we will talk about it in depth.

 Now you know what it looks like. Are you in the desert?

 

Make Him Your Vision

At the heart of every truly great dream is a true passion for God. Not a feeling or an experience, but a deep, slow burn that propels us to pursue Him and His purposes with everything we are. When we can genuinely say we love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we no longer need to concern ourselves with the path our lives will take.

For so long, the focus of my life was me. MY purpose. MY dreams. MY vision. MY calling. MY future. What resulted was a selfish, miserable life. Not only did I fail to achieve the very dreams I was so focused on, but I began to drift further and further away from the One who planted the dream in the first place.

Frustration became an everyday emotion as I tried to walk out a calling with little or no direction and a serious lack of power. Doors remained closed to me and no matter how hard I pushed, pulled or kicked, I could not force them open. Doubt crept in and before long, I was questioning whether or not God had ever called me to ministry in the first place.

Setbacks are one thing, but being faced with a constant, impenetrable wall of opposition is quite another. Clearly, I was not getting anywhere, so eventually I gave up the fight. With nothing to pursue but the presence of God, I slowly came to the realization that all along, I was asking for God’s vision for my life and He was asking for me to make Him the vision of my life.

There is no denying that keeping our eyes focused on Christ when we have a dream burning us up from the inside out is a difficult task. At times, we convince ourselves that if we take our mind off of the vision for even a moment, it will slip away and we will miss out on God’s plan for us. But the truth is that He must become our vision. His presence must become our greatest pursuit. Our desires for what He can do for us must give way to the desire for who He is to us.

God is fully aware of every dream in your heart. He knows what you wake up and go to sleep thinking about. He had a plan before you ever knew to ask for one. But there is nothing He longs for more than to be what you long for most. When your eyes are fixed on Him, he will speak the words you need to hear, guide the steps you need to take and open the doors you need to walk through.

Has knowing God’s plan for you become more important than knowing God?

Complacency Kills

What are you passionate about? The purpose behind everything you do? The meaning that fuels your days, gets you out of bed in the morning and keeps you excited about the future?

If you were not able to answer these questions, you are not alone. So many people struggle through life in a haze of pointless activity, chasing success and status. Not because they really even care that much about what they are chasing, but because they have nothing else to chase.

Until about a year ago, I was one of those people. I had once held a dream close to my heart but over time the life drained out of it, and eventually, me. Every morning I would wake up with an ache in my heart, feeling as though life was passing me by and I was too despondent to change the course my life was taking. Getting out of bed became the most difficult part of my day.

This went on for the better part of two years, until one day, in the midst of the tears and the anger, I cried out to God. I needed to know why my life felt like it was on hold. Why was every day such a struggle? Why didn’t I enjoy life anymore? What happened to my drive?

As I sat in His presence, the answer was clear. I had grown complacent. After years of believing that I would see the promised land, I got weary and tired of waiting and settled into the desert. The pain of waiting and seeing no progress had worn me down and it was so much easier to abandon the dream and choose to take life as it came.

But the thing about a dreamer is that once the dream is there, it is there forever. You can run from it, hide it or stuff it beneath layers of denial; but once you peel those layers away, there it will be.

Nothing will ever compare to what you know you were born to do. Nothing else will fulfill. Nothing else will make you fall into bed at night, exhausted, but knowing you spent your day exactly the way you were meant to.

Complacency kills. It makes no difference why you are complacent. Lack of direction. Being unsure of your purpose in life. Weariness. Discouragement. Disillusionment. Setbacks. Doubt. Heartache. Unforgiveness.

Regardless of the origin of complacency, it will sap the life out of everything in you. It will rob you of your focus. Your potential will be stifled. Creativity will give way to following the status quo. Dreams will subside and in their place you will be left with an overwhelming sense of loss and disappointment.

Are you desperate for the passion you used to have? There is only one way to get it back. Stir yourself up. Fall in love with God again and ask Him to renew your desire for His purposes. Remember what you used to love. Allow yourself to dream again, no matter the cost. Let the guards of your heart down and be willing to hope for the future God has promised. Refuse to let go of the dream.

So, again I ask, what are you passionate about?

Waiting Sucks…Is It Worth It?

You’re still reading so I can only assume that, like me, you are fed up with being robbed of the best experiences life has to offer just because you can’t have everything you want exactly when you want it. I also gather that you desire change; to begin transforming from a broken, bitter shell of who you were meant to be to the real thing. Dreams, desires and future intact. To have hope restored to your heart even if your circumstances remain unchanged. To realize that much of life is spent waiting so you might as well learn how to do it well. Maybe even with a little joy. To do that, you will need to take a journey. There will be questions you need to ask yourself and you will be required to answer them honestly. If you are not happy with the answers, you will have to work to change them.

We all have to wait. We have to wait for our food to cook before we can eat it. We have to wait to turn 16 before we can drive. We wait in lines at amusement parks, grocery stories and movie theaters. If we really need or want something, we will wait for it. That becomes the deciding factor for all of us on the path to pursuing our dreams. Do we desire what we claim to desire enough to wait for it? If your answer is no, that’s ok. You should probably take that as an indication that there is something else out there for you that you really believe is worth pursuing with everything you are and everything you have no matter how long you have to wait or how many obstacles get thrown in your path. If you do not have that resolve in your heart, the waiting process will wear you down. So before you move on, answer a few questions

1. Do you believe that your dream is from God? The Bible says that God will give us the desires of our hearts but we need to realize the condition is that we delight ourselves in him first. When we truly delight in Him, we begin to desire that which He desires for us. Many dreams and desires are clearly what He would desire. Healing, salvation for loved ones and restored relationships to name a few. But then there are those that are not so black and white. Do I adopt or keep trying to have a baby? Am I really called to be a Pastor, writer, singer, teacher, politician etc? If you have truly submitted your dreams to God and still have a strong longing to see them come to fruition, keeping praying for them and following His leadership.
2. Is your dream of God? When you picture yourself living the dream, is everything about it pointing to God? Is the glory His? Selfish dreams lead to selfish lives. We were created for the glory of God and everything He calls us to do needs to be about Him.
3. Is your dream for God? There is nothing that we could ever do, no matter how big our dream is to repay God. But He does ask us to partner with Him for the sake of His dream. A passionate, pure church, children who follow Him wholeheartedly and a world that is being offered hope through Christ. Is your dream for Him or for you?

These are not always easy questions to answer and they might take some time. They are worth mulling over even if you are not proud of the answers you come up with. Realizing that my vision for my life was largely about me is a big part of what caused me to examine the path I was on and allow God to give me dream that was really worth waiting for.

Waiting Sucks…Don’t Make It Worse

Waiting can have a strange effect on people. Depending on our personalities and how we choose to deal with it, we can end up in the best place of our lives or the worst. We can be tested in the place of waiting and be found to be faithful and persistent or we can quit, get bitter and betray our passions. I have reacted in all of the preceding ways. In the midst of certain seasons in my life, I have become almost unrecognizable to myself and others. I have allowed jealousy, bitterness and doubt to creep in and take over. My self pity was disgusting even to me. It was impossible for me to enjoy the talents of others without asking “What about me?” I refused to attend events, conferences or services because I couldn’t handle the fact that someone else was speaking and I wasn’t. I know, it makes me sound like a spoiled rotten twelve year old who refuses to attend a birthday party because the person throwing it wouldn’t come to mine. Sadly, however, that was my life for longer than I care to admit.

Maybe for you, the effect waiting has had is more subtle. Maybe you are a bigger person than me and have handled it with more grace and maturity. Outwardly. You still attend the birthday parties of your children’s friends even though you remain childless. You smile, take pictures and bring gifts all the while feeling empty and inadequate. You have watched as friend after friend has walked blissfully down the aisle. You wish them well, welcome their new love into your circle of friends and then go home and cry yourself to sleep, wondering why no one has chosen you. You congratulate your siblings when they get promoted at work. You tell them you are happy for them and always knew they had it in them to be a real success in life. You say they deserve the big house, the new cars, the exotic trips. Then you go home, look around your tiny, cluttered home and think to yourself “I deserve it so much more than her. I work harder, sacrifice more and I am better person all the way around. Why can’t I catch a break like that?” It’s shocking to see it in black in white, isn’t it?

I know the feeling. I will never forget what it felt like to have God begin to reveal the true state of my heart to me. When I began to realize who I was becoming, it broke my heart. How much time had I wasted being miserable? How much did I miss out on? Did my lousy attitude extend my waiting period? Could others see how selfish and unhappy I was? I blamed God for my lack of success and began to grow cold towards him. I was letting the most important relationships in my life slip away. I was so far from the person I wanted to be that I had no idea how to get back. Slowly, though, I am getting back. I am passionate about God again. I can enjoy the gifts others bring to the party. I don’t wake up aching every single morning. Jealousy and bitterness are no longer my constant companions. It isn’t easy but it’s worth it. First, though, I had to get fed up with living the way I was. If you are fed up with being a miserable waiter, read tomorrow and start the road to recovery.