Notice how different seasons ask different behaviors of us?
One generally doesn’t snuggle up with a blanket in front of a warm open fire on a sweltering hot summer’s day. Instead we adapt & move according to the nature of the seasons.
It seems right now all over the world we are hearing the same season as we listen to our colleagues; God’s people are being beckoned to take a new step of faith, and accompanying this step of faith is the invitation to close our eyes!
What used to be a step of faith, is likely the place we are now living in. This level of faith has grown to be part of us & doesn’t take as much faith to live there now. We are familiar & comfortable with this level of faith.
We are being invited to take a step of faith, to get out of the place of comfort, of support & visit a land we’ve not seen before.
Over these last weeks the Lord has had me meditating on Exodus 14 – the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. Behind them their eyes & ears witness the Egyptians coming to take them back into slavery, in front of them they look at a massive impasse of water. They are stuck.
The instruction at this sudden step of faith, ‘Fear not, stand still & see the salvation of the Lord.”(14:13)
Right now, we believe that the Lord has called us from basing in the USA to basing out of Sydney Australia. With this new place of base, is also a new development long dreamed of, where nations would be discipled & soaked in His presence, resulting in knowing how to host Him & expanding HIS Kingdom locally & globally through His manifest presence.
In the natural realm, we stand like the Israelites at the Red Sea. Behind us is a season of people, ministry & a house for us to live in. (Interestingly our house is still not sold at this point, tying up our financial resources.)
In front of us is the sea of unknowns & impossibilities. We do not know what home we will have in Sydney literally or spiritually. Properties in Sydney far exceed the range of our financial resources to buy or rent as it is currently. Our son is due to begin school in January, but where? While greatly blessed in renting a unit on the property of Wycliffe Bible Translators, it is unavailable to us from Dec, just weeks away now.
The scene is set for a supernatural act & intervention of God.
This step of faith is stretching us! We are definitely out of our comfort zone. And in this season, we as with so many, are being invited by our Father to close our eyes to the natural realm.
Maybe the Holy Spirit is speaking to you but your eyes are saying another? Peter got out of the boat because of what he heard, but sunk because of what he saw! (Matt 14:22-33)
Stand still, close your eyes & see the salvation of the Lord!
The step of faith to “stand STILL & see the salvation of God”, was asked from a people who carried a slave mentality (emphasizes service & doing from obedience). This moment at the Red Sea began a journey in mindset & identity, from slave to son.
Slaves supply a service (doing) based on obedience, sons receive because they are. Sons experience relationship that transcends obedience. Sons are stationed in love, knowing what their Father is doing. (John 15:15)
For the people of Israel to step forward, they would have to learn how to receive! (Interestingly this is also a skill that orphans have to learn. Orphans go to get & have to fend for themselves, but it is not in their realm of experience to receive what someone else has for prepared & saved for them.)
You see the hero in this story were not the slaves, but a Father who was about to provide for them on a scale they could not even imagine or comprehend from their one dimensional, constrained experience of life.
They were about to see something they had never seen & it would require them to close their eyes!
They had to close their eyes to the natural (sea ahead) & to what they used to look at, the Egyptians.
I see the Father God really wanting to drive this ‘stake’ deep into the hearts & spirits of His people all over the world at this time. I submit this is a watershed moment as globally we cross over from slave mentality to knowing, living & thinking as the sons of God! Creation is travailing for this moment! (Rom 8:22-23. )
The scene is set for a supernatural God. It is a new season! A new step of faith