I woke up this morning and the theme of one of our Pastor's word last night immediately popped into my mind. He was talking about God's releasing of prophetic words into our lives, and it was very good. One of the examples he used spoke of a prophetic word being like a GPS destination, for where you end up in your future, given by God, who can see your future. He was talking about how when the word is released into our lives that it carries with it the grace required to accomplish that destiny.
I found that example very helpful as most of us have used a GPS solution like Google Maps, or Apples mapping solution to get from where we are (our present reality) to where we want to go (our destiny). The cool thing is that these navigation guides can recalculate when you take a wrong turn, and they can also divert you around bad traffic jams, and such.
In much the same way, God can speak into our lives, and direct us and guide us both in our day-to-day life, and for our future destiny and purpose. We need to learn to listen and cooperate with His words into our lives, for they are for our benefit! As I was waking up the Lord reminded me of two different situations in scripture, besides the one our pastor used, where we can see God releasing a word and then providing the means to see that word accomplished.
The two examples that came to mind were Phillip and Jonah. I will start with Jonah, as it is quite a well known story. In the book of Jonah, God released His word to Jonah twice, one time Jonah tried to flee from the word, and the second time he obeyed. Here are a couple of verses from Jonah 1:1-3 NIV:
[1] "The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: [2] “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” [3] But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish . He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord."
This is a very clear word that the Lord releases into Jonah's life, and rather than obey, he heads in the opposite direction. What ensues is God working in Jonah's life to recalculate his direction and decision to rebel against God's word. In short, God makes use of a storm, and a giant fish to convince Jonah to change his mind.
God once again releases the word to Jonah and this time he responds differently - Jonah 3:1-3 NIV:
[1] "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: [2] “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” [3] Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it."
I have a couple of comments regarding Jonah. First, this happened in the Old Testament, and at the time it was written, the full revelation of the Father, as seen in Jesus, had not yet been received, so things are ascribed to God which may or may not be an accurate representation of His heart and mind. Second, Jonah's destiny word wasn't lost through his rebellion. Often, the enemy will try to convince us that we have disqualified ourselves from God's plans and purposes for our lives through our bad decisions, sins and rebellion, and Jonah is a great example of how that just isn't true. God, when He released the word the first time, had already taken into account Jonah's future, and the word was not nullified by Jonah's rebellion. In fact, God just re-released the word, giving Jonah another opportunity to obey and fulfill it. That is amazing grace and mercy from God.
Going back to the GPS example, God is totally able to get us to our destiny, no matter how many times the route has to be recalculated! God is much better at all this than any application we use.
The second example that popped into my mind was the story of Phillip, found in Acts. Phillip has some interesting experiences with the Holy Spirit, and I wanted to look at them in light of one's destiny, and God's ability to fulfill what He says. Here are the verses - Acts 8:26-31,34-36,38-40 NIV:
[26 "Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road---the desert road---that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” [27] So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, [28] and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. [29] The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
[30] Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
[31] “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
[34] The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” [35] Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. [36] As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” [38] And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
[39] When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.
[40] Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea."
What an interesting story of God's intervention in Phillips life, which effectively caused the Gospel to be proclaimed to Ethiopia. In fact the Coptic Church in Ethiopia trace their roots all the way back to this occurrence, highlighted in scripture. Now we don't know if Phillip had received a word about spreading the Gospel to Ethiopia, but we do know that the Holy Spirit gave him very clear direction about where to go.
Sometimes, God's words to us are more directive, without an actual destiny understanding. We really don't need to know everything, and for us, our ability to obey the small words will often result in mind-blowing experiences, that we would have poo-poohed had we ever been told the whole thing to start with. Imagine if God had told Phillip that he was going to affect the destiny of Ethiopia, Phillip would have likely been planning to go to Ethiopia rather than heading down to the desert road.
Anyway, Holy Spirit tells Phillip where to go, and he goes there and encounters the Ethiopian, and it is clearly a God set-up. What a great confirmation to Phillip that he was where he was supposed to be. Secondly, Philip receives a second directive word to go near the chariot, which if he hadn't obeyed, he wouldn't have heard the official reading from Isaiah, and proceeds to share the Gospel of Jesus with him.
Again, it is so important to obey everything the Lord says, for often we don't get the whole understanding in the first word. Imagine if Phillip hadn't obeyed the second word, he would have been standing by the desert road and would likely not have been invited into the chariot. Now, before we let our imagination run wild, and think that Phillip would have totally missed his one opportunity, we can read the last two verses again. In God, there is even supernatural ability to fulfill destiny! Here we see the Holy Spirit, "spirit" away Phillip to some other location and purpose. Could not the Holy Spirit had done the same thing for Phillip to cause him to meet the Ethiopian further down the road, if he had missed his first chance? Of course He could! Its not like there was specific "spiritual" worn-hole that just went from where Phillip was to Azotus. In case you are wondering, the distance appears to have been over 40 miles that Phillip was transported by the Holy Spirit. I like to think of this as a true Holy Spirit recalculate and reroute!
One other thing the Lord reminded me of concerning His words, especially destiny prophetic words, is that they are not just a destination word (where we will go), but they also include our character and development in them, so they are as much about where we go, as who we become! In fact, they are more focused on the latter then the former. If God calls someone to evangelize India, for example, He doesn't just arrange for them to go to India, but He prepares them, their character and heart, for the task as well. God is so good He doesn't call us to do things we hate, He calls us to things and then reveals that we have the heart for those very things! He knows what we have in us, what we were made to do!
Finally, if I may share a word of caution, God's word is perfect and our understanding of these words are not. We can receive a clear word from the Lord, and think we know exactly what it means, and try to make it happen. However, because the words also have to do with our character, and heart, the words are often meant to help form us, to help us become who God says we are. In other words, we have work to do on ourselves (with God's help) before they can come to pass. We should consider God's Prophetic words journey words, not just destination words, for the formation of our character and heart occurs during the journey!
I have a sad example of someone misunderstanding the application of prophetic words in their life. A long time ago, we had a friend who was a young man who was passionately pursuing God, but had a very immature, or incomplete understanding of how God worked. He had someone prophesy over him that he was going to be a pastor. Within a week he had packed up his family and drove several states away to a bible school that He felt was where he was called to go. When He showed up, he was surprised to find out that he had to pay, had to apply, had to be accepted to the school, and several other things. He returned a few weeks later, back to our church, completely defeated and doubting whether he had ever even heard correctly. He had heard the word, but tried to make it happen on his own and found his own efforts completely lacking, and completely mis-timed.
I don't share this to discourage anyone from pursuing fulfillment of God's word over one's life, but rather as a final point. God's words over our lives are perfect, they are not just journey words, but also are future-state words. In other words He is looking into our future, and sees not only when and where, but who we become! Since His words are perfect, they also include our personal development, our character and heart! On top of that, His words over our lives are intersecting the lives of countless others, and those intersections also require the perfect set of circumstances for all involved. It is like God is the chess master over a 7 billion piece, multi-dimensional chess game, and His timing of every move is perfect. We can trust Him to have us at the right place at the right time, with the right understanding,heart, and word in this journey of our life!
He wants us to understand that He does see our future, and when He speaks a word over our life, He knows we need to understand His perspective about who we are what He has purposed for us to do! He wants us to believe that we are more than just random people doing our best to live out our existence. We are His sons and daughters and our lives have eternal significance! Let us learn to listen, believe and obey His words spoken into and over our lives!
Lord, we desire that You would speak, for we are listening!
Amen!
Just beautiful Sam. So very true.
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