Go Back to the Beginning

Aside from dying this huge death and being completely immobile, I have been at a crossroads since Ireland. I know that I had gotten confirmation from the Lord, that Burn 24-7, a ministry that focuses on 24 hours of worship and intercession over a city, country, region etc, was the ministry I was supposed to be working for. And that I was supposed to stay in Orlando for a bit. During our last day in Ireland, I received an email that I was accepted to G-42, a leadership academy in Spain. If I were to go, I would be leaving in January for 6 months. Now I was faced with a dilemma, because I knew I was supposed to be pioneering Burn. I don’t think I could accomplish, what needed to be done with this ministry, in only a few short months. As each day passed, I wanted to go to G-42 more and more. I kept asking God for direction….but heard nothing. G-42 was looking better and better, especially after I got home, and found out the Burn in Orlando is basically non-existent. I would have to birth this thing from the ground up. Again, I asked God for direction and heard nothing. On 9/27/2010, God spoke: Jeremiah 29:11 (This was the verse God gave me when I was faced with a crossroad, and trying to decide if the race was right for me.) He continued to say: Go back to the beginning where it was hard, but you completely trusted me and obeyed me, even when you were faced with many options. You heard me clearly, and although you were afraid, you allowed me to take you on a journey of a lifetime, one that changed your life forever. Let me do it again, trust me to provide for you and to bring change to you and through you.) I had already been reading in the book of Jeremiah so I continued on to the next chapter that I was on. As I was reading, Jeremiah 6:16 really stood out: “Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” I prayed this verse as a prayer and made the decision that I would fast, as I did when I decided about the race, and believe that God will reveal His will to me. As I fast today and read Jeremiah 29, this is what the Lord says: “Build houses and settle down, plant gardens, and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters. Increase in number there. Seek the peace and prosperity of the city. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers you too will prosper.” So what was my reaction? I cried and cried and cried some more. The last thing I wanted to do was stay in Orlando, Florida for the next year, and possibly longer than that. Everything in me, wanted to go to G-42. I know the Lord knows what He is doing and I know He knows better than I, what is best for me. Although a lonely road, I choose to be obedient and pioneer it, because this is the purpose my Heavenly Father gave me:”This is for the ones that follow. To make a path for them to walk through.” As He finished saying this to me, I opened up My Utmost for His Highest and this is what it said:

   

THE COMMISSION OF THE CALL

“Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake.” Colossians 1:24 We make calls out of our own spiritual consecration, but when we get right with God He brushes all these aside, and rivets us with a pain that is terrific to one thing we never dreamed of, and for one radiant flashing moment we see what He is after, and we say – “Here am I, send me.” This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way! But when He uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object. We must never choose the scene of our own martyrdom. If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed. I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped? You are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you, the wine would have been remarkably bitter. To be a sacramental personality means that the elements of the natural life are presenced by God as they are broken providentially in His service. We have to be adjusted into God before we can be broken bread in His hands. Keep right with God and let Him do what He likes, and you will find that He is producing bread and wine that will benefit His other children.