Last month, someone shared a vision with Allan that they saw for our team. They told him that they saw our team as six separate flower pots, with limited space to grow. After our first three months together, we had outgrown our flower pots and we were stuck. As a team, we needed to be uprooted from our separate pots and be planted together in a big field with unlimited space to grow and deepen our roots. I thought that was a really insightful analogy for our team-we all love each other and get along well, we just haven’t been able to reach any level of team depth because we have allowed ourselves to remain in separate pots. We haven’t allowed our pots to be broken-we have left our walls up. On the outside, we appeared to be a great, fun team; but in reality there was something missing.
As most of you know, we had team changes at the end of last month and we gained the beautiful, amazing, talented Ginger Larson ☺ We decided with the addition of a new teammate, we needed a new team name. After much deliberation and many interesting suggestions, we decided to change from [Rooted] to [Raised]. The six of us have been uprooted and replanted with Ginger in a huge field where we can all grow together and our roots can become intertwined. We are being raised up together to bear fruit.
As I was praying with Alex and Ginger the other day, God gave me a vision (which is something I have been longing for ☺). There was a limbo stick and it started out low. We had to pass under it and it was very difficult-we sometimes fell. It was awkward. But as time went on, we began to raise the bar and stand up straighter to walk in more. Eventually, the bar was high enough to walk under and yet it was still being raised, so we began walking up stairs to reach up to our potential-to walk in who God wants us to be. I think that is such an incredible picture of what God is calling us to this year as teammates. To continually raise the standard for each other so that God can continue to transform us into who He has called us to be. I love this because the bar kept being raised higher and higher and there was no sign of stopping. I don’t think we will ever reach our full potential-there is always room for growth. Whenever we think we have made it to a certain place, God calls us to MORE.
In Ezekiel 37, God calls Ezekiel into a valley of dry bones and the Spirit of the LORD tells Ezekiel to prophesy and bring life to the bones that they should live and become a great army. Ezekiel saw the dry, lifeless bones, but he also saw their potential-he saw them how God sees them-and he trusted God as he spoke that into existence. This is our calling this year and really for life-to call people up [raise up our teammates] to live in their full potential…and to raise others up to find life in Christ…to bring life to what is lifeless and light to the darkness.
Please continue to pray for our new team as we work through this together ☺
