Reflecting on my Quieter Days

Ten years ago I sat with a friend who was also a prophet and he was excited about our future in Christ. He sensed destiny in the early stages of my development in Christ and told me that I would travel the earth for Jesus Christ. He imagined that we would go around the world and come back to our little church time and time again and share stories about what God had done. He quickly fell away from his destiny after that moment. He got tied up in this world and even found himself having to deal with the law in matters regarding his wife and family. He could have avoided this if he had continued in the Lord. I saw this in a vision and tried to communicate it to him but he would not listen. He was too proud. I on the other hand took off like he envisioned and I ended up traveling around the world as he saw it. In the days when I first came back to Christ I was not sought after like I am today. I had so much time that I could sit for hours in a coffee shop studying the bible and writing my thoughts down on paper. I read so many books in those days. I had a lot of time to get fed in the things of the spirit. i attended conferences and I listened to a lot of preaching. I wanted my life to become the dream that my friend had seen and so I studied to show myself approved. I even thought about going back to do a theology degree but in the end didn’t see much point because I already had 2 degrees plus 2 years of bible school. I learned that I had enough book knowledge and that what I really needed to do was go into the earth for the gospel sake and that he would meet me there and strengthen me to be a strength to many. There are days now that I am so busy that I look back at that time as one of the greatest times in my life, but in those days I was so impatient. I guess I am writing this to encourage you that just because things do not seem to be happening now does not mean they will not be happening in the future. If you put your hand to the plough for the Lord you will be used by him. There will be no end to the number of people that you might minister to. Just as soon as you think you have reached a peak in your ministry there is a peak higher still. and it doesn't take labor to fly to these peaks either. As you are obedient and pass the tests that God puts before you, then you go higher and higher. This life is really not that long. I decided a long time ago that I would make all my days count in him and that I would obey him and that I would stay humble. I learned to enter into his promises by learning to rest in his voice. I learn to trust in his promises and wait for his moments to promote me. In his voice I was confident because I learned to rest in his great peace and joy which became markers guiding my journey ahead. I can even rest now when I am in the middle of a full blown spiritual attack. There are times when I am surrounded by darkness and great fear tries to take a hold of me but in his presence I feel nothing but peace. As I wait on his voice he strengthens me and I am brought to a new level of peace. I have learned that there are some tests that can only be passed by being 15,000 miles from home and all alone. God is everywhere and this you can only learn by going. Many of the trips I have gone on have been about me learning to trust God with another facet of my life. Will I trust him to provide and protect my family. Will I trust him to heal my body and my mind. Will I trust him to take care of me in a country and land that is not my own and where I do not even speak the language or understand the laws. This will happen as you put your hand to the plough but my testimony is that I can trust him with all things. The further that I go into the earth the further I want to go. I am a pilgrim on a journey bringing Christ to the nations but meeting Christ through the nations. This life is an adventure. I have learned to trust God now not just through books but by experiencing him in the midst of my own stories. He is there and he is real. I pray that you to will experience him and learn to trust him to bring you to the nations. I ask the Lord to give you great courage and boldness to face the enemy and trials of many kinds. One thing that I have learned in all of this is that the enemy is not the voice of my family or the face of any person that I meet, but the enemy is a spirit that wants to destroy everything about my life and yet I have learned not to fear him because my God is greater. You can become like David in the face of Goliath and do imaginably greater things that you ever imagined. I pray for this great strength to come upon your life today.