A Season of Anticipation

I have lived through 65 seasons of fall. You would think by now I would fully understand the coming and going of each new season. This morning as I sat in the early morning darkness, I heard the distant sound of a truck shifting gears. At the moment the driver shifted into a higher gear the Lord deposited a fresh sense of anticipation in my heart for new season that is approaching.

I heard the Lord say, “Get ready”. God is beginning to deposit anticipation in His people for a coming shift into a new season. This will not be the anticipation of what was known and repeated in past seasons of life, but a movement into something new and not yet experienced. When this anticipation arrives it bring with it an expectation that God will perform what He promised.

I felt the Lord saying:

Anticipate spiritual, emotional and mental breakthrough in your family.

Anticipate safe passage through a dangerous circumstance.

Anticipate a financial blessing you had not planned or predicted.

Anticipate clarity of thinking to come and bring resolution to old problems.

Anticipate your enemies will become your allies.

Anticipate misunderstanding will be turned into agreement.

Anticipate old divisions will be healed.

Anticipate what was lost will be found.

Anticipate a prodigal will begin the journey home.

Your assignment in this coming season is to anticipate the arrival of God’s goodness in your life. Your childlike faith has been mocked in the past, but will soon be seen as the most mature response you could make while surrounded by a culture of unbelief and fear.

Inquire Of The Lord Before You Decide

There are deceptions afoot like the one that took place between Israel and the Gibeonites as recorded in Joshua 9. In one moment of time, without inquiring of the Lord, Israel was deceived and blindly entered into an agreement with an enemy nation - an agreement based on false evidence.

In this season be careful what alliances you form. Inquire first of the Lord before you make your decision. The natural evidence before you that seems so convincing does not always reveal the truth of the matter and if believed, can put you in a place of unintended bondage.

Judgment and Consequence

Don’t confuse the consequence of sin with the judgment of God. Much of the pain and sorrow that takes place in the lives of people and nations is the consequence of sin, not the judgment of God. The remainder of suffering is a shared vulnerability we all experience because we live in a fallen world. Unless we understand these distinctions we will end up representing God as a cruel and distant deity, not a loving Father whose heart breaks over each experience of sin and suffering.

God fully judged the sin of humanity on the Cross and someday, at the end of time, He will bring His final judgment.  We are living in between those two judgments as representatives of His Kingdom on earth. Understanding our role in this in-between time will craft the tone of our message and the course of our actions.

John wrote, “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17) That same mission was given to the Church. How we unpack our understanding of that mission will define everything we do in His name for the good and unfortunately, sometimes, for the bad. 

The Arrival

I have arrived at a place called, Senior Citizenship. I am not sure when this took place, but it has arrived. The first indicators were the mailings from AARP that began arriving in my mailbox in my late 40’s. Another reminder was the stray gray hair that appeared unexpectedly in my late 30’s as an unwelcomed visitor and whose presence I have chosen to embrace and not artificially color.

The decision regarding hair color came in my 30’s when I began to notice wrinkly-faced older people with unnaturally jet-black hair that overly accentuated their already wrinkled faces and advancing age. I did not want to shock people in my later years by an insecurity manifested by the application of Grecian Formula. I decided to grow old as gracefully as I could. Today, my wife, Jan, looks so confident in her skin as she displays her gray locks modeling a grace and ease that frames her overall beauty.

This place in my aging process also brings with it an understanding that the interior of my life remains unchanged. I still have a youthful fire and a warrior spirit that stands at odds with my physical body that no longer can back up the machismo once present in my youth. This realization keeps me out of trouble.

The most unexpected detail to emerge in this process is the increased presence of spiritual authority. This authority has come through years of yielding to a will not my own and by not submitting to the fear that demands my youth be preserved in a state of perpetuity. The Spirit is not limited by the presence of wrinkles or the occasional visit to the Social Security website to see what my monthly pay out might be. The Spirit is eternal and not restricted by the earthly limitations of age.

The scripture tell us our gray hair is a crown of glory. This is not our glory, but a glory that comes from a lifetime of trusting God and being transformed into His glorious image. This transformation is what overcomes our need to artificially maintain to a youth that no longer exists. We can embrace the fullness promised to us in our latter years. This fullness carries with it a blessing greater than we could ever imagine when we were young and AARP did not yet have our address.

 have arrived at a place called, Senior Citizenship. I am not sure when this took place, but it has arrived. The first indicators were the mailings from AARP that began arriving in my mailbox in my late 40’s.  Another reminder was the stray gray hair that appeared unexpectedly in my late 30’s as an unwelcomed visitor and whose presence I have chosen to embrace and not artificially color.

The decision regarding hair color came in my 30’s when I began to notice wrinkly-faced older people with unnaturally jet-black hair that overly accentuated their already wrinkled faces and advancing age. I did not want to shock people in my later years by an insecurity manifested by the application of Grecian Formula. I decided to grow old as gracefully as I could. Today, my wife, Jan​, looks so confident in her skin as she displays her gray locks modeling a grace and ease that frames her overall beauty.

This place in my aging process also brings with it an understanding that the interior of my life remains unchanged.  I still have a youthful fire and a warrior spirit that stands at odds with my physical body that no longer can back up the machismo once present in my youth. This realization keeps me out of trouble.

The most unexpected detail to emerge in this process is the increased presence of spiritual authority.  This authority has come through years of yielding to a will not my own and by not submitting to the fear that demands my youth be preserved in a state of perpetuity.  The Spirit is not limited by the presence of wrinkles or the occasional visit to the Social Security website to see what my monthly pay out might be. The Spirit is eternal and not restricted by the earthly limitations of age.

Prophetic Principles – Prophesying Hope To The Next Generation

Each generation will have prophetic words spoken over them from the fathers and mothers of faith who represent a previous generation. Jan and I have had those kinds of words spoken over us by people like Dick Mills and Jean Darnall and others with a similar heart.  They spoke hope-filled words about our future while our future was still a distant and unexplored place. When challenging times crossed our path we revisited those words to find our way forward. 

When Jan and I began our ministry, now almost four decades ago, we were walking into the uncharted landscape of our future.  There were times when we wanted to give up and times where we missed the mark. Along the way we discovered two things were always waiting for us as we walked forward into the unknown.  We discovered the presence of God was present in our future waiting for us to arrive. We also experienced the fulfillment of the words of hope spoken prophetically over our lives by the seasoned saints who had walked this path before us. Their encouragement became our invitation to come and taste the goodness of God.  These words of hope have no expiration date.  They reside in our future waiting to be grasped in faith and lived out.

The Goliath Stone

Recently, our family was having a leisurely summer dinner on our patio.  At the end of the meal my daughter directed my attention to a rock on the deck just behind my chair. When I turned to look at the rock a word sprung up unexpectedly in my heart with such intensity that I got up from the table and went to my computer to begin transcribing what I was hearing.

The Lord said, “I am releasing a Goliath Stone.” I asked the Lord to help me understand what He meant.  He said, “I am sending a stone of truth into the forehead of a deceiving cultural giant. This stone has been hidden, but will soon be discovered and picked up by those who carry the heart and spirit of my servant David. When they pick up this stone and run toward the giant, they will not let fear stand in their way. Once released the stone will sink its truth deep within the lies now manifesting in your culture. I am about to bring down a giant many consider undefeatable.“

In the last few months, we have seen people become overwhelmed at the level of evil and cultural insanity being displayed. We have seen mutilated sexual identities paraded before our eyes as something to celebrate. The definition of marriage held sacred for millennia is now being redefined apart from biblical truth. The gruesome sale and barter of body parts from aborted babies has been uncovered.  God is about to defeat the giant who is creating the delusion brought about by these deceptions.

As a young man, David was not seen as someone who possessed the ability to defeat an opponent as powerful as Goliath. God retrieved David from a place of isolation and preparation and made him a victorious warrior in dramatic fashion.  As Goliath stood and mocked the God of Israel, God revealed to David an unconventional method to bring down the giant.  David’s courage grew out of his love for God more than a love for his own life. His faith in God displaced his fear of Goliath.

We are about to see the same thing take place.  God will bring some of you out from places of isolation and preparation to accomplish unconventional feats of courage similar to David defeating the mocking giant Goliath.  You may appear small and insignificant in the eyes of the giant and his opposing cultural army, but God has a plan to use you to change what appears unchangeable and defeat what seems undefeatable.

The truth you release will have the same result as the stone David flung at Goliath.  That stone struck Goliath’s head - the center of his thinking.  God is about to strike down the insanity of the lies being raised up against the knowledge of God.  He will prove Himself mightier than the greatest deception being shouted by the strutting giants of our culture.

“As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran out to meet him.  Reaching into his shepherd’s bag and taking out a stone, he hurled it with his sling and hit the Philistine in the forehead. The stone sank in, and Goliath stumbled and fell face down on the ground.”  I Samuel 17: 48-49

Prophetic Principles – You Will Never Prophesy A Complete Revelation

“Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!” I Corinthians 13:9

When Paul penned these words he was sharing a principle for life and especially for prophetic ministry.  Nothing we do or say is ever a complete or final word on any subject. Whenever you bring a prophetic word it only reveals part of a much larger picture.  To think we bring complete revelation is both naïve and arrogant. On the other hand, requiring this completeness whenever someone prophesies reveals a lack of understanding of how the gift actually functions.

Most of the people who hear a prophetic word will respond with kindness and understanding. A very small percentage will get angry and actually condemn the word because they feel it did not bring a complete revelation or filter easily through their theological grid. 

When someone confronts you and challenges the content of your word they may simply need a gentle and private response from you.  Your mature and gracious interaction with them has the potential to ease their displeasure and provide for them an opportunity to consider a more compassionate and measured response in the future. For those who continue in their angry correction bless them and move on. Your response, no matter how gracious, will actually fuel their negative attitude giving them a wider audience where they can vent their anger.

Whenever you open your mouth and speak in God’s name you will always run the risk of experiencing someone’s displeasure.  Use that experience to develop the depth of your character and the maturity of your gifting.

Prophetic Principles - Don’t Take It Personally

At some point you will share a word with someone and they will not like what they hear. They may disagree with your delivery or even the content of your theology. The wider the audience for your ministry becomes the more this will happen – sometimes with regularity. This can take place with such ease in our immediate and unthinking world of social media where people take the liberty to judge your life and the content of your theology based on a single paragraph of insight you share. Take comfort, it also took place in the Early Church when some people complained that Paul’s letters were too forceful. 

Be careful to not allow a negative response to offend you. If you are a feeling human being you will have a reaction to these challenges at first, but give your reactions to God – immediately. A wasted moment in offense or in a public defense of what you shared will begin a work in your heart that can actually hijack your voice for the purpose of another kingdom. Forgive your critics and move on. God never promised everyone would agree with everything you say or write.

Your Defining Moments

Every life will have those moments when something so significant takes place that it indelibly marks your life forever. These events become the before and after point for everything else that follows. These marker events can be a divorce, assassination of a public figure, death of a love one or the time when a deadly disease came to visit.

These painful experiences are not supposed to define our lives. Our definition is supposed to come from what God was allowed to do in our hearts in the painful moments that take place between the before and after, when all hell was breaking loose. A new definition for our life waits within each tragedy to be called out in faith and spoken over our present circumstance and our future.

I learned this lesson so vividly years ago when a pastor’s wife had a mental break down while he was hundreds of miles away in another state.  On the long drive back home hell began painting horrible images of his future and the future his marriage.  He was taken to places in his mind where only dark resolutions lurked. Finally, he had enough and spoke out loud to these deceptive spirits and told them to be silent. He declared the words of hope God had spoken over his life, his marriage and his future. When he spoke the words of hope the atmosphere within his car was vacuumed of all the lies illegally hitching a ride with him back to his home.

When the pastor walked into his home and saw the condition of his wife he spoke again the same rebuke he spoke to the darkness that filled his car. The words of hope and promise broke the power of the lie that wanted to take up residence and fill their home with deception. It was as if a light had been turned on and sanity returned to his wife. In the months that followed loving friends and professional counselors helped the pastor’s wife learn how to reorder her life and continue walking in her new found freedom.

Some people allow painful events to become a destination. As a result, overwhelming pain and sorrow continues to walk with them for the rest of their lives causing them to live out a false destiny against the will of God. No matter where you are in your life-journey your life as a believer is always defined by resurrection.  Your life is always a rising, never a descent. When you face moments of tragedy your part in the victory will be to speak truth into the dark moments and call forth resurrection life.  That is your ultimate destination no matter where the events of your life may lead.

“But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.” Proverbs 4:18

Prophetic Principles – When To Remain Silent

The prophetic gift is not a water faucet you turn on and off at your pleasure. There will be times when you do not have a word to share.  It is important for your integrity and for the safety of those to whom you minister that you do not put yourself in a place where you always have to produce a word. This is where a danger lurks that can have you prophesying out of human imagination with words fueled by fear and pride. The fear of not being heard and a pride that will push you to always need to speak in order to validate your gift.

Waiting until the Lord speaks can be a challenge when you have someone standing before you in desperate need of hope.  Hope can be delivered in different ways, not just through prophetic ministry.  When God is silent you can still speak over a life with words of destiny and hope that apply to all believers. The scripture is filled with these words. Learn them – they are powerful.

When you begin to minister to someone and you do not immediately have something to share, pray. Ask the Lord to reveal what He wants you to do.  Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing.  This is our model in all aspects of ministry. Over the course of your life, as you learn when to speak and when to remain silent, you will develop a deeper acuity to the Spirit’s voice that only comes with discernment, not assumption.

Prophetic Principles - When Bringing a Word of Correction

One of the most challenging things we can do is bring a word of correction. Hopefully, these corrective words are rare and birthed only by a merciful work of the Spirit and not by our own impatience or frustration at the level of brokenness we see in the lives of the people to whom we speak. Perpetually angry prophets, who are upset with broken people and a broken culture, are many times dealing with unresolved personal issues. These unresolved issues fuel the angry words they bring.  These angry attitudes and harsh methods of delivery can sound spiritual to those who share a similar anger, but they do not reflect the heart of God.

There is a safeguard in place that will help you not become another voice in the angry prophetic chorus. When you find you are being asked to bring a word of correction allow that word to first pass through your own life in an attempt to discover where it might apply to you. This process of self-examination will surround the corrective word with a merciful attitude, content and method of delivery that only comes when you have discovered your own need for God’s mercy before you speak to others in His name.