2020 has held many ups and downs for most of us. Up one day, down the next. I feel like I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster ride of faith most of the year. I’ve experienced triumphs in my faith and it has also been tested to the point of pressure and tears more than I dare count.
But at the end of the day I’m still standing. I’m standing in faith. Not because of anything I’ve done but because of what God has done in me in prior seasons. we don’t often think of that in a crisis of our faith. But our faith has been being built all along. We are not where we want to be but we surely aren’t where we once were either.
I do feel like the Lord gave me a bit more insight this week while in prayer. One of the insights I feel certain of is the fact that this has been a transition season. We’ve left a decade or more not just from a literal perspective of time but from a spiritual perspective as well.
We have been in transition.
All I could do in prayer on Monday once the Lord began to speak and reveal this to me was to prophesy that the old has gone and the new has come. It is literally upon us.
This year has been such a chaotic and unclear time for most of us. But I feel like some of the fog is lifting and I’m beginning to see the transfer and transition from an old season/decade to a new one -just ahead.
So as I connect some of these dots, I feel like this transition year has been a year where God is increasing our faith for where we are going.
You know many times God increases us little by little. We like to look for the big moves and answers of faith but that isn’t always the way God works. This year I’ve experienced the little by little method with God. I have felt pulled, tugged and stretched in my faith, but I know it’s unto something because God wastes none of our struggle.
Let me encourage you with that today.
I do believe we are in a time of faith expansion. Little by little our faith borders are being stretched.
If that is you I want you to allow the stretching of your patience to have its perfect work in you. The book of James chapter 1- tells us to count it all joy. I know it sounds so cliche but I’m really trying to count it all joy because I know God is building trust in me for the days ahead-not just for now. One of the big things I’ve learned with God is that he is present future focused with us. We like to look back but he’s always beckoning us forward in him.
So anytime we are walking through some thing it’s not just for now but he is inviting us to go somewhere new with him. Right now I see him taking us somewhere new in faith. The end of Psalm 23 is such an encouraging promise for our faith journey.
.... surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house (presence) of the Lord forever.
That’s not an assumption based on a phrase. It’s a fact that I have experienced my whole life.
In the midst of storms and dark valleys and shadows of death it may be hard for us to to see-but we don’t always have to see. We just need to remember that the Lord is our Shepherd. He leads us beside still waters, he leads us in paths of righteousness for his name sake, he leads us to green pastures and he restores our soul. He leads us in faith. He builds us in faith-little by little. And that’s why we must return to the stronghold of hope in times like these. It causes us to remember the faithfulness of God from prior seasons.
Don’t be a prisoner to fear or the unknown-be a prisoner of faith, hope and love. Let those 3 things capture your hearts and minds today and let them keep you hidden and sheltered in Christ Jesus.
You are loved,
Dana