Perhaps some of the most resonating words in my recent Bible reading come from the very mouth of Jesus himself in John four verse 34. He says to His disciples, “I have a kind of food that you know nothing about. My nourishment comes from doing the Will of God who has sent me, and from finishing His work.”

We live in a generation that is depleted, tired, empty, longing.

We live in the generation that is incessantly asking the questions, “Should I do this or should I not do this? How will it impact my life? How will it impact my family, my health, my mental health, my finances, my future?”

Have you ever felt the need to change?

Ever looked around and felt as though you’ll never catch up; like everyone else is a hundred years ahead of you?

Have you ever wondered why the progress is so elusive? Ever out of reach?

Like you can’t change fast enough?

Have you ever wondered if you’ll ever “get there”?

I have!

I heard the Spirit whisper to me, “There’s a difference between growth and change.”

A scrawling on paper in the failing daylight on a final day of a previous decade.  In the dim light and against the hum of household appliances, this daughter bent low beneath the breath of her Father as He spoke. 

Here’s what I heard.

Heaven’s whisper to our generation, in our current times.  A word of calling, invitation and challenge. 

A prophetic word:

What can compare with His mercies?

His deep graces and endless faithfulness?

Is there another anywhere who can match His splendour or His beauty? 

One moment, one glance, one touch is enough to settle that account.

The One who bestows such depth and favour on His unworthy, yet dearly loved children. 

He stands alone.

There is none like Him.

Faith is not the opposite of fear. 
Courage is not the opposite of fear.
There is only one thing that trumps fear, every time, all time, bigger, better, faster, more powerful.

Have you ever wondered in your prayer and petition for the miraculous, whether or not you’re big enough to contain the blessing you’re asking for?  Heaven’s silver platter provision comes not without a demand for stewardship.

When I finally gave away worldly dating and prayed for a Godly man, God was faithful.  I became quickly aware that to steward this blessing meant I would have to fight.  Fight for purity, fight for honour, fight for submission.  Almost two decades later I am still in a fight for my marriage.

When they told me I would not be able to have children, my 19-year-old self cried out to God for healing, and He was faithful – miraculously faithful.  Now with four children in my care I have realised that this is perhaps the biggest fight of all time – a fight for their moral integrity, a fight for their character, a fight for the Spiritual reality around their everyday experiences. 

Yes! There are Heavenly silver platter deliveries granted us, but not without a call to stewardship and arms.  Often, that fight is fearsome, riddled with question and clouded by doubt.

“Come at it with an opposite spirit,” Tim suggested in the midst of a ministry challenge.  Tim and Wendy McDonald have run alongside Sam and I in ministry for close to 20 years.  They have been true friends and co-labourers.  

I can no longer remember the specific details playing out in this particular scenario that took place many moons ago, but I have always remembered those words.   

“ACT IN AN OPPOSITE SPIRIT.”

Since that conversation this mantra has become a resolve to govern many of my difficult decisions over the years.  And now, more than ever, there is an urgency for Christians to carry the culture of Heaven into their circumstances and wider spheres of influence. The culture of Heaven is usually opposite to the culture of the world.

On observation, there appears to be a fair deal of struggle in people’s lives.  It may be the sifting mentioned so often in both testaments of scripture, and we should not be surprised when it greets us and leaves us with a decision to make – which response will govern our heart condition and our action?   

Will you be reactive or proactive?
Will you be led by emotion or by vision? 
Will you be overcome or will you overcome?

POURED INTO US

Piercing the clouds, a celestial Hand reaches out of Heaven and dips His miraculous fingers into dirt of the Earth.  He gathers, He shapes, He gives physical form to the yearning of His heart.  A body… of dust

Cosmic conversation takes place.

“Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)

Glorious Creator draws near, ever closer.  Leaning over the clay, He breathes into the nostrils of that humble yet magnificent countenance.  Searing pain of first-drawn breath into virgin lungs bring body, soul, spirit to life.   

It was a two-week rest with my children while they were on break between school terms.  It was a stay-cation.  We slept in, occasionally stayed in our pyjamas till the crack of noon, ventured out whenever it pleased us and enjoyed an agenda-free time together.  It was a well-needed time doing much of nothing.

One afternoon, as I was collecting damp pool towels off the white tiles, which were becoming increasingly littered with grass-clippings as the day ensued, the Holy Spirit breathed these words over me: 

“Karolina, when I said the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to children I didn’t only mean child-like faith.  I meant the Kingdom of God belonged to people who know at the very deepest core of themselves that they are MY children.  A child who approaches the Father with all confidence, in all love, in all security and fullness of identity – that is who the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to.  This is what it is to be a child of God.”

It doesn’t take a genius to see a problem.  We can all identify things that aren’t right.  It seems to me that most people easily make those sorts of observations.

It does however, require some kind of an excellent spirit to see and action a solution.  Many fewer people can do that.  Many fewer are willing to do that. 

These are the few who manage to tap into a source of favour the rest only pine after.

In the natural, when a man and woman come together children are born.  In the Spirit it is the same.  When men and women lead side-by-side there is generational fruit.  Where one of the two is absent, the efforts and success of the other will only ever be one-generational.

In a world of up-side-down values we are barraged with a host of persuasive arguments.  Feminism tells women to lead in-place of men, making both sexes weaker counterfeit versions of their powerfully true designs.  Chauvinism silences the female voice, foolishly capping its own potential to one generation.  Both inside and outside the Church we are struggling to know who we are, how to stand and where the lines are to be drawn.   

We all have a sense of purpose deep down on the inside of us.  We all have a sneaking suspicion that there is more to life than the tangible, nine-to-five, every day, waking-eating-working-sleeping life.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (AMP)
11 He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]

Whether we know God personally or not, we are all aware of something greater than what we are experiencing right now.  God made us that way.  He put that knowing, that longing, on the inside of us.  And so we dream. 

Sometimes life will try stealing our dream.  We may face some set backs, some heart breaks, some bad reports, or make mistakes that lead us to feeling like a failure.  Life can try bringing us to a place where we live a sub-standard version of who we know we were meant to be.  You need to hear me tell you today:

God’s plan for your life still stands! 

No person OR no circumstance has the power to steal the dream without your permission.

Laughter, joy, thanksgiving and praise are some of the most underestimated weapons in our artillery as Christians.  We easily interrupt fear, worry, and anxiousness by remembering our blessings and giving thanks to God.  We easily transform the atmosphere of our circumstance by laughing out loud.

I remember enjoying lunch with a woman I greatly admire.  I was asking her questions about life, marriage, motherhood, ministry and just about anything else I could think of.  As our conversation continued I noticed something about her talk that made me pause internally.  She laughed… a lot.  She turned every topic into the positive and managed to laugh as she shared her stories and experiences with me.

I walked away from that lunch date asking myself,

“when did you get so serious?” 

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, because they become actions. Watch your actions, because they become habits. Watch your habits, because they become your character.” – Margaret Thatcher

So true!  You become what you think about.  Your reality is shaped by what you look for, what you see and how you see it.  And in a world where the news media and social media barrage us with doom, controversy and fear, we need to become exceptional at leading our thoughts and our feelings.  After all, you are what you seek.

God often asks us to do the very thing we didn’t want to do. 

Sometimes we feel inadequate; other times we simply nurture ideas more grandiose.  We can spend years resisting what is in truth, the direction of the call of God on our lives.  We construct clever diversions and substitutes, we submit alternative plans to God and we bang on doors He never intends us to walk through.  So many times, we are convinced He’s picked the wrong person, or He’s put us in the wrong setting.  

If you are being asked it is because there is something in you that God wants to activate to bless the world with. 

It is futile to disagree with or question a God in Heaven who knows you, loves you, planned your existence and endowed you with gifts.  The only meaningful response is to say an obedient, unattached, unhindered “YES!” regardless of how limited you might feel.

When we pursue self-gratified ways, we find ourselves at war internally. We are at odds with our true purpose and we find that, sadly, the reward of self-gratification is short lived.

Who am I?  Have you ever wondered that?  The answer to that question resolves just about everything; or at least establishes the viewpoint from which we form our perspective on all of life. 

Today, more than any other time, people want to contextualize what they personally identify with.  We want to know what defines us.  We want to clearly understand who we are.

We name ourselves.  We label ourselves.  We are named and labeled by those around us.  Good or bad, those names start to form our identity.  As Christians, we know that Christ also names us – victorious, blessed, healed and whole overcomers. 

In bible times names carried such weight in people’s lives.  Then God would rename people.  Jesus also renamed people. The giving or taking of new names was often when a critical turning point in a person’s life had been reached.  Names were a kind of prophetic declaration over the rest of a person’s life. 

Names bring identity.

So as I’ve been thinking about the power of a name my attention was drawn to the life of Saul who became Paul. 

I started to ask questions like, “How did Saul become Paul?”
“How? When? Why did Saul the Pharisee, become Paul the liberated evangelist?”

In relation to my own life,
"How? Why? When do I discover what God has called me?

Hi. Can you do me a favour? 

Close your eyes and imagine for a moment that you are living at your fullest potential and walking in the complete blessing God has assigned to you.  Go on.  Come back in 45 seconds.

It’s there.  It’s real.  It’s waiting for you.  All that goodness and fullness it’s waiting for you right now.  Not for tomorrow, or when you figure out a little more, or clean up a few things.  Nope.  Now.  Yours.  You.  Now.

So the pain you’re in; what do you do with that?  How do you reconcile your hurt to the alternative reality I’m coaxing you with? 

When the prison is real but your faith is too. 
What then? 
Oh dear friend, you’re in for the ride of your life!