A New Thing

For I am about to do something new.

    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?

I will make a pathway through the wilderness.

    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. Isaiah 43:19

God is about to do a new thing. Are you ready for it? Are you prepared? For years we have been praying for Revival. The 1960s were before my time so I have never seen this Revival everyone longs for and prays for. What I do pray for is the new thing that God is about to do and I do feel that it has already begun and that once it gains momentum it will be upon us before we can even utter the word Revival.

In 2014 at a conference in Pukekohe New Zealand, I had a vision of Ancient doors about to burst forth. The light shining from the door was blinding and it got brighter and brighter until the doors burst open. I drew this vision and got given confirmation of my vision when a guest speaker stood up and spoke my vision out word for word. This started my calling to art and creativity.
A year later I received a vision of a shofar horn which I drew. When the Shofar is heard it is a call to repentance or a call to arms. It heralds and it calls and it rallies.

Over the years I have drawn and written many things that God has spoken to me such as Monarch Butterflies and swords. The one about the sword came when I realised that the sword was the shape of a cross and that my cross the I was to carry was not a burden but a weapon. The sword of the Spirit would be what I would use. My testimony and what God has done would be the thing that brought the enemy down. I have been seeing others draw these visions too. One I stumbled upon was a beautiful painting of the Ancient doors I had a vision of but from a different view point. I was seeing the doors burst open but from within the doors and there stood Jesus blowing a Shofar with a sword before Him. Jesus was about to walk through the Ancient doors that had burst forth.

Why I am sharing this with you is because I feel this new thing is going to come through the renaissance of art. God is raising up an army of artists. 20 years ago there were only a few artists here and there and it was very rarely seen in the church. The most art you saw was in the form of flags, dancing and music. Music has come a long way and so has dance. God has used new ways of expressions of music and dance. We are no longer only allowed to use a Church Organ on a Sunday we can use electric guitars, violins, drums, bass. We jump around dance and we sing loud and joyful songs to the Lord. Our expression has changed. The past wasn't wrong. Hymns are beautiful and they still hold power but with a new generation comes a new song. A new sound. I new thing.

So when we speak in tongues and prophesy and the Holy Spirit moves, where is the Art? Where are the paintings. The churches used to have stained glass windows and the ceilings and walls were painted. The floors were even beautifully done.
We are missing the art and the artist. We are missing the sculptors, painters, designers, decorators, florists, creators, innovators and the list goes on.

Social Media is so popular because this generation is a visual generation. Messages are processed quicker visually than they are verbally. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and it is true. One picture can convey a message to me in a flash whereas if I were to describe that picture in my head it would take a while to express it quickly.

This is what I wrote in my journal on the 27th October 2019:

"New revival is coming from the most unlikely sources. Squash those people who don't fit in your box and you will squash the revival you were praying for.
Speak negatively about art and creativity and you will stay stagnant. New Revival is coming in the form of a Renaissance renewal of art and innovation. Creativity is being released now as it was released over Bezalel. God is pouring out the Holy Spirit on all people to dream and see visions of all the things and systems they will create."

It is time to go deeper. Deeper in the Lord yes and deeper into how God sees His Creation.

Let the Creative people in. Do not be afraid. God knows what He is doing. But pray because this new thing although driven by God is also being attacked daily by the enemy. Depression. loneliness, discouragement, hopelessness and suicide are attacking creative people.

There are people who are going to come out of this new thing that will have genius ways of thinking. They will out think and out create even Leonardo Da Vinci and Albert Einstein. The dreams that they will dream the visions they will see will astound the world. Pray for them and don't miss this new thing by expecting it to come in a way that you have seen it in the past. Although all the signs were there people missed the coming of the Messiah because they were expecting something different.

 This new thing will be as crazy as rivers in the desert and paths in the wilderness.

Go to the Mountain

Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!
Genesis 19:15-26

In Genesis we read of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham asks God to spare Lot and his family and God agrees and send angels to rush Lot out of the city so that it can be destroyed.
Once out of the city the angels tell Lot, his wife and two daughters to flee for the lives, not to stop and not to look back but to flee to the mountains. Lot then pleads with the angels to let him go to a small town off in the distance instead because he felt he might be overtaken by the destruction and would die.

Lot chose a small town with very few people, over a mountain. How many times do we do that in our own lives? We choose the small and manageable over the huge and risky. We choose things just within easy reach rather than something that will take more effort and take longer.

Lot not only chose a town not very far from Sodom but one that he could see in the distance from outside of Sodom which meant that his view of Sodom would be plainly seen from the town. We too tend to move just far enough away to still see the past. We glance back on it and sometimes even long for the days gone by. Like the Israelite's in the desert who fled the Egyptian's slavery. They too thought going back was preferable. I get it. When things get tough the past always looks better. Transition and change can be unsettling and we feel uncomfortable so we feel that maybe it would be better if we went back because at least it was familiar.

What would happen if we fled to the mountains?
 Psalm 121 Says: I lift up my eyes to the mountains.
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Maker of Heaven and Earth.
He will not let your foot slip
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
 will neither slumber nor sleep
The Lord watches over you
 the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The lord will keep you from all harm
he will watch over you life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

When we lift up our eyes to the mountains we change our perspective from the small things in our lives to how big God is. He was not going to lead Lot out of Sodom and only protect him as far as a small town. The Lord even sent angels to protect him and lead him out but he thought that he would die on the way to the mountain. When God tells you to go His plans will work out for the good. He doesn't tell you to change without a plan. You see Lot was seeing on a one dimensional plain. He saw the small picture. Had he gone to the mountain his perspective would've been greater.
In the natural we like things to be rational. We see with limited sight. When we change how we see from the natural to the spiritual we see differently. Things will be three dimensional.

Lot's wife did not have a very good ending for when she and Lot arrived in the small town she looked back longingly at Sodom being destroyed and she turned into a pillar of salt. Sodom was not a very nice place at all. It was a place filled with lawlessness and so much so that Abraham struggled to find anyone that was holy in even a small way. When we look back and long for what was, we can become hardened and bitter. Things don't always work out as we had planned. The past can be hurtful. It can hold some fond memories even. Though to grow we need to move forward and leave the past where it is. Paul says in Hebrews 12:1-3 that we are to throw off anything that hinders us and run with perseverance the race that has been been marked out for us and fix our eyes on Jesus, who is our rock and strong mountain.

Can I encourage you today that if you are struggling with your past, I know it isn't easy to let go. The pull of who we were can be so strong but it is not impossible. We just need to resolve that the past is not in itself bad but longing for its return is not a good idea because it keeps us stuck in the small places. When we shake off the past that is hindering us we step into big places filled with promise and purpose. When we are in the mountains we go up a level, we look down on our past from a bigger perspective and it becomes small in the distance. When we have different perspective on our past we can see the bigger plan. When we are too close to our past we cannot see the big picture.
God is all about the big picture and He uses the things we learn in our past to serve our future and help others run the race marked out for them. That is why we do not run this race alone.

Maybe it is time for you to leave your past in the past and embrace a new future. God will use your past for the good but let God use your past, don't work it out on your own. Maybe it is a sin that you cannot shake or a hurt that constantly reminds you of an event. Step out and flee to the big spaces of the mountain. God will not leave you or forsake you. You will not die but you will live to run the most amazing race that He has marked out just for you.

Father thank you that you have so much more planned for us than our small minds can imagine. Help us to embrace your big plan for our lives even when it is scary and we are unable to comprehend it. We trust that You will guide us through just as You have done so many times before for us and others who have gone before us.  Amen