This morning in my quiet time I was praying for the people of the world, and asking God to stir up revival. True confession- I don’t pray for the whole world in general as much as I do for the people and circumstances God places on my heart to pray for, and I was just thinking that I need to be believing and interceding for the bigger and more amazing that I know God can do.
I consume the news like most people, podcasts, social media, mobile apps. You can read the headlines and skim stories, but lately, it feels as though the darkness of the world is encroaching, even into my neighborhood. Anger, frustration, and hate running rampant, and in my opinion, there’s been a major shift since 2020. It’s like people have lost their filter, or perhaps they’re so stressed out about the uncertainties of life that their emotions have ruptured and are bursting forth in ways I’ve never seen before. It points to a root of fear that people have. If you walk on eggshells long enough in life, you begin to react to everything. You become a product of your environment, rather than being in control of your response to people, situations and the like. I was telling God that I see fear and hopelessness rising like a flood, and asking him to come into the circumstances of the world and be change and hope. He is. He gave me this word today:
“Hatred IS rising. Can you feel the pressure? Like labor pains. The time is coming, but has not come yet. There are more who must come. My people are my burning matches in this dark world. Will they rise up? Will they let their lights shine- my light shine through them? This isn’t talking a christian talk and walking a worldly walk. My disciples live and move and have their being in Me. They speak differently. The think differently. They are the 1 in a room of none. A match burning in the darkest night. The wind will not snuff out their flame. The rain will not put out their light. They burn from within because they are kindled in Me. They don’t claim religion. Their flame doesn’t diminish then burn brighter. Their light is immovable. Unchangeable. Just as I do not change. One match burning bright can start a wildfire in the right circumstances. Trust me with the circumstances and just be my burning match.
Wildfires will break out in cities, countries, and in nations. My spirit will not be put out! Watch it go forth! Watch it spread! NOTHING will come against what I will do through my people by the power of my Spirit.”
Even as disciples of Jesus, it’s easy to fall into the same patterns and traps that the world does. I do this..deadlines, goals, the future, etc. Day-to-day life for the believer can look like the same gerbil wheel the world runs in. We’ve just decorated our wheel with Jesus stickers, and we’re running to worship music. I’ve been making a consistent effort to spend my mornings with my Bible and in prayer for 2 years now and it’s amazing how God has shifted my vision to seeking out God’s heart, his goals, his future, and how he wants to use me to be his change agent where he’s planted me. I have to lay my plans down and refuse to rush from his presence. Do I get it right everyday? NO. But it’s a discipline that I’m building because I know God wants to speak. We’ve got to make room for him. I’m reminded of the song called Authority by Elevation Worship. One word from God can change everything. One instruction. One plan. One assignment.
God’s word is a reminder that our being rooted in relationship with him, and being kindled in his fire daily, is the way we are transformed. It’s the only way we can know God’s plans (see the verse in 1 Chronicles that God showed me above), not only for the world, but his plans for how he wants to use us to accomplish his will. So we are burning bright. So we are ready to be the 1 in the room of none. For such a time as this. So God can transform the world through us.
I want to leave you with this verse from Luke 8:16 (KJV). If you grew up in the church, you probably know the song, This Little Light of Mine.
“No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light.”
The Gritfull Life 