God has been talking a lot about Expanding. It’s a new season. I can feel it in my very spirit. At the recent Yes and Amen Beach Retreat, I could literally sense the excitement of Holy Spirit to unleash, unlock, begin a new work in all of us. It’s no mistake we call it the Yes and Amen Retreat.
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 1:20
This is what God is doing. But what about us? What is required of me, and you?
The Lord said to me about this expansion, “The faith that got you here, is not going to get you there.” Whoa. What? My current level of faith was very costly. And He wants more? Yes and Amen.
I read a timely devotion this morning about the 12 spies scoping out the Promised Land. It’s a familiar story 10 of 12 men who were unwilling to believe the Yes of God in impossible situations. However, this statement stopped me in my tracks:
The will, calling, and assignments of God are most often unconventional and occasionally downright outlandish. The math rarely adds up. It requires a suspension of rational judgment and an immersion into the imagination of Jesus and the kingdom of heaven.
From The Seedbed Daily Text
The author, J.D. Walt, goes on to call it the seductive hell of a predictable situation. “This story will show us something deeply embedded in the human condition—how people will readily choose a known misery over an unknown possibility.”
Ahhhh. Busted.
How many of us stay with what we can see, although it is desert conditions, instead of stepping into the more of God’s promised land? Maybe it has to do with that word, unknown.
The phrase, unknown possibility, is not quite on point for me. The outcome may be unknown, but God IS known to us. His beautiful, intimate leading IS revealed to us. Just like He led the Israelites through the desert TO somewhere better, He is leading us somewhere better. Therefore one thing we can bank on every time is His goodness. Sure, there may be wars. There may be giants, but they are dwarfed by His goodness.
What if I told you that F-A-I-T-H is actually spelled R-I-S-K?
Risk means taking action. It means making the phone call. writing the check, putting the house on the market, selling the car BEFORE you have all the outcomes settled. It means believing in our supernatural God despite what you see in the natural. Risk means, as John Dee used to say, putting some skin in the game.
We want God to do all the impossible stuff for us, but we don’t want it to cost us our comfort zones or our plans for independence and assumed safety.
Faith, and risk, is going beyond your own understanding to the realm where only God can pull it off. Is dependence on Him terrifying? Yes. Is our faith worth it to God? Absolutely.
What can you risk today that puts you one step closer to your promised land?
Together, we will cry Amen to the glory of God.
