Desert Drama! :o

The day God visits you has come,
the day your watchmen sound the alarm.
Now is the time of your confusion.
Do not trust a neighbor;
put no confidence in a friend.
Even with the woman who lies in your embrace guard the words of your lips.
For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.
But as for me,
I watch in hope for the Lord,
I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. (Micah 7: 4-7)

 Hello sojourners! :) So we reached a point in the journey where DRAMA! rises up or rather heightens within the family/fellowship. This is part of the Desert series. "The Desert"is that season in between the past dissatisfying yet comfortable life and the future filled the hope of greater things as well as the feeling of uncertainty of newness.

 "The day God visits you has come, the day your watchmen sound the alarm"
As you know by now, I'm behind on sharing stuff that God's been teaching me (mostly coz I've been caught up/ distracted/discouraged by the drama I'm yet to talk about). Anyway, if you read my "Hello Africans post" God gave us lots of visions about stuff that's going to happen this year. In the Fall, He also gave us Isaiah 61 and He emphasized to me Isaiah 61:1-3. So yeah I really believe that God is going to visit us this year! :) But that's not a good thing for everyone :'(  ("To proclaim the year of Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God") In the post "Spring rains" He told me that we are in a bipolar season ("a time to mourn and a time to dance"). He is a God of Love and Justice. Anyway, this is not the main topic of this post. I'll have more details in an upcoming post "Sound the alarm" and don't freak out! God will protect us we just need to seek Him (stop your routine and wait for Him!) and make Him our refuge (Psalm 91) :)

"Now is the time of your confusion. Don't trust a neighbor..."

So there's lot's of stuff going on in this Desert season. God is leading us forward to a new place, a better place but the enemy, the devil, is anti-God so his plan is to confuse people to get them not to move forward into the promised land (so he wants to get us to either go back to Egypt (our past) or wander around the desert till we wear out and die there. Yeah he's really mean :( So we have the choice to either trust God's leadership into the promised land (which is unknown and new to us hence scary though biblical) or trust ourselves and what we know from our past experiences (our ideas about God and how we've related to Him in the past). In other words, we can either walk by faith (trust God's Spirit and His Word) or walk by sight (what seems logical to us based on past experiences or what other people taught us). It all boils down to trusting God's word. That's why we can't trust anyone because if we follow those who are following the past then we are being misled (not following Jesus since He is leading us forward). We have to let The Lord be our shepherd and follow Him even when others around us even our leaders are not following, they'll understand what's going on later and join in. God is gracious :)

" A man’s enemies are the members of his own household"

One reason for this is due to the tension created between those walking by faith and those walking by sight. Another is because everything is falling apart since people are getting fed up of the kind of life they've been living which is actually a good place to be at ("a time to breakdown and a time to build up"). God is also doing a new thing in the desert which throws people off.  He is reminding us our identity as leaders. He is rearranging things in the church to how they should be. During Winter break He told me that leadership (in His body) is not a job, it's not even a prescription but it's an identity for everyone in the body. This awakening brought a lot of conflict between those who already knew that they were leaders and those who were waking up to that fact. This is similar to the conflict that Miriam, Moses and Aaron had in the desert ( Numbers 12:2 when Miriam challenged Moses' leadership). 

"I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me"

So the practical for all of us is to surrender our all and follow Jesus knowing that God has only good plans for our life :) Let's stop trying to fix our problems on our own since we are in over our heads and the drama is too complicated when dealing with family/fellowship. But God exists and He cares for us! :D He specializes in the "impossible"and He is more than willing to step in and set things straight. He's just waiting for us to do our part which is to stop (give up on our futile efforts. We are only human!) and wait for Him (seek Him in prayer and in His Word, in fasting and in praising Him). We need to do this individually as well as cooperately (1 Samuel 7). 

K, let's stay in God's Word and put our trust in Him alone (not on our reasoning based on our past. All that will prove to be sinking sand if it doesn't line up with God's Word). Peace! :)

Thanks Lord for being our shepherd! Help us to trust You with our all and follow You wherever You go. Help us surrender to Your power. Yeah help us to let go and just rest in Your arms of love and victory. Fill us up with more of You as we lay our burdens and crowns at Your feet. In Jesus Name, Amen! :D

(I'll share more about this since I learnt about some cultural strongholds involved and I'll get more personal too. This was like an overview and general message lol.)

P.S: There's no condemnation to anyone involved in the drama. God is for us (all of us)! Things are changing and it's hard to adjust to change. It's hard to loose control and trust God and follow Him "blindly" (using the eyes of our heart = faith). But God remains faithful even when we are faithless. His grace is enough for all of us and His love is unending. So let's pray for each other and love each other even when we don't see eye to eye concerning this desert drama. God's light is shinning and will shine even brighter until we all see the Truth which will bring us unity. So let's fix our eyes on Jesus, He is the only constant when things are changing. He has exciting stuff in store for all of us! Yay Jesus! :) Watch the videos I posted in "The Desert" post if you haven't already. Love, Charlene :)