Day Ten - To Anyone Pioneering Any Dream In Their Heart
Some of you right now on this journey have super specific areas that you are believing for breakthrough in. I do not want you to NOT believe specifically .... you NEED TO! There have been seasons when our lists of areas we are believing for have been so long and that is completely ok. But my prayer is that you would begin to see favour everywhere whether your list is being fulfilled or not. Are you recognising His favour? Are you sensing it wherever you move your feet? Are you opening your eyes and seeing it?
I really hope you are, because favour is so much more than just ‘things’ sticking to you. It‘s a sense of God’s goodness, kindness, strength or mercy (sometimes even in the midst of pain and suffering).
What I love in this same conversation Moses is having with God is that he prays:
Exodus 33: 13Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favour in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You [progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with You, perceiving and recognizing and understanding more strongly and clearly] and that I may continue to find favour in Your sight.
I love that .. Gods favour seems to be less about ‘getting stuff from God’ and more about knowing Him more and more. Its about the favour of HIS FACE! His presence. Encountering Him in new ways.
This particular journey of 40 days I have come to have less on my request list that is specific and more that is about Jesus revealing Himself to me. There are so many things I am believing God to “DO” for me.. and that I want and need. But these last few months I have honestly come to realize that the more I KNOW God the less it is about the stuff and the more it is about who I am becoming and what He is really doing in me.
To be honest on this journey with you, sometimes I long for 'bigger' and 'more' and feel so insignificant when we just look at numbers and stats of where our impact and reach is right now compared to the life that we have lived and ministry we have led in the past. It is not that I even compare to other people, I do just have a bad habit of living in the past in general and our past just happens to have had quicker momentum on it.
However I would NOT replace this present season for anything. People are people and they are incredible and are certainly not a number or a stat. Its just that I do long for even the people who we shepherd to experience the joy of growing church life, momentum on people finding Jesus and great encouragement for all their labour. I want them to know the BIGNESS and wonder of a life-giving environment that is growing. Let's be honest .. I, like most people who pioneer, miss being part of something bigger in those early years.
That is super honest and vulnerable. So here is what I have been learning ... I have genuinely learnt the discipline when I find myself craving more, or bigger, or momentum and i do two things:
1. Check my motives (and really ask what am I longing for)
2. Choose to see BIGNESS by casting my eyes, heart and expectation on an expansive ‘kingdom come’ as opposed to (in my arena of influence) ‘people come‘.
Why would I limit my expectation to what is only on earth? How about an open heaven of access to things that this world can never provide? How about more of Jesus, not more things?
It’s the favour of INTIMACY. It’s a growing knowing.
Then as I get to know Him more I find myself saying – ‘wow that’s the favour of God, there He is there – and there – and there .. He is everywhere and His favour is everywhere!!!’
And it is no longer limited to what is or is not happening.
When the ‘daughters of Z’ came forth, they positioned themselves in the very place of holiness, where the Ark of the presence of the Lord was. In this culture women were not even invited there or were even allowed close to it. I believe they truly understood the ‘AH’ on the end of their name (day 7) and they came boldly.
The third thing I do is a
3. Calling clarification - by reminding myself how I was called and what Jesus has promised.
I love this verse in the message translation
“You tell me I know you well and you are special to me” Well if I am so special to you then let me in on your plans. That way I can run with you and your plans and keep experiencing your favour” Exodus 33:13
I regularly think about this scripture
“I pray that the light of God will illuminate the eyes of your imagination, flooding you with light, until you experience the full revelation of the hope of his calling—that is, the wealth of God’s glorious inheritances that he finds in us, his holy ones!”
Ephesians 1:18 TPT
So of course your Bold Step today is to RUN INTO HIS PRESENCE AND DISCOVER HIS PLANS!
It may not reveal clarity of details, but it will reveal clarity of calling! True calling. To Him. This is our inheritance. Here lies unlimited bigness!
This one was for all the pioneers of anything with small beginnings. Love you