Again, we all know it. We have been there before. The season to be jolly comes and we try to make it as memorable and colorful as possible. But then time moves on. The flicker on the candlesticks begins to die down. Gifts have already been dispensed with. Its time to take down decorations. There comes a period between the festivity and the new year that can be termed as no man’s land.
Consider this for a moment. The sun is 333,400 times bigger than earth. We travel a million and a half miles on our spaceship earth to go around it each day. It would take more than a million earths to fully fit inside the sun!
Were the earth to be a quarter, the sun would be the size of a 9-foot ball and would be located a football field distance away from the earth. Yet in our galaxy alone, the sun is just one of 100 billion stars! While you are still pondering that, allow me to add another mind-boggler. There are 60 galaxies for every one person living on the earth right now.
Now, picture yourself as this oversized being who could contain the sun and the earth plus the distance between them in the palm of your hand. When you begin to walk, the giant strides you will make will keep you moving 2000 times the speed of light. Yet, in order to reach the nearest star, you would need to walk for 19 straight hours through space without stopping. In the same manner, to reach the stars we see shining at night above us would take you some 20-40 years! To reach the nearest galaxy to us would take you 1,200 years of walking in such a manner!
What are we talking here? Size. Magnitude. Looking through a microscope lens makes even infinitesimal things look formidable and dangerous. Yet to a bug, you would seem astronomical and your house like the universe itself. The crux of the matter is viewpoint. It is the basis we use for perception.
Now you are the one about to cross the border. Land awaits you on the other side. Unexplored territory. Unknown limits. Unprecedented events. Unpredictable experiences. You are not the first one here.
There were others. Standing just like you and I, on the threshold of change, on the verge of the unknown. They were about to engage a transition that would change their lives forever. Crossing the border of time is just as significant to you as it was for those twelve tribes crossing their geographic border. It will position you to enter into promises that have been revealed concerning your own life. However, it is also a time to take precaution. A time to learn. Are we ready to cross? What can we do? Where do we begin? To help prepare them, the Lord sent the tribes two messengers with a paradigm shift. These were seasoned reporters and their communication was a change of perception.
The two held a different view of what lay across the border and the report nearly cost them their lives. The rest of the spies and the tribes were not buying it. They were so far entrenched in their worldview of impossibilities, they were not even ready to discuss. Taking up stones, they prepared themselves to forever rid their society of the likes of Joshua and Caleb. From all points of human argument, the challenges of stepping out into the unknown looked astronomical. Collectively, they refused to step into this paradigm shift, this change of perception. In so doing, they disconnected themselves from a focus that would have altered their lives forever.
While the rest of the spies saw themselves as grasshoppers pitched against giants, Joshua and Caleb brought home a radically new perspective. "Only do not rebel against the Lord, neither fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their defense and the shadow [of protection] is removed from over them, but the Lord is with us. Fear them not." (Numbers 14:9) The NIV translates, "We will swallow them up." What a declaration. What a shift in focus! Exactly what we need before new resolutions. Something needs to take place first in our personal think tank if what we have resolved is going to hold. How do you get the courage to take these steps? Remember He has already been there. He has read your book to the last page. Not only that, He actually wrote the book and has paid for it all. He took on Himself the price for you to be totally transformed. He is our final inheritance!
Reports have been made about you. Your character. Your capability. Your intelligence. Your future. Cutting. Crippling. Crushing reports. Believe me. I know how despair, guilt and fear can rob you of the strength to even give living another shot. But I also know something else. Look yonder. See into the vast expanse that lies just ahead. Focus your eyes on the rich landscape beyond, teeming with opportunities that the Lord has made available to usher you into His promises. They are all true because in His eyes you are essential and precious beyond what you can imagine. You are of much more worth to Him than billions of galaxies!
We need to return to the notes we wrote. What has God been revealing to us this year concerning our lives? What is our destiny in Him and in His Kingdom? Let these words be enshrined in our hearts before we cross this border of time. Let us immerse ourselves in them so fully that truly the giants begin to fade away. Then with hearts ablaze with new confidence, we will be ready to tackle our border. There is a reason why previous years have times of stretching as well as the unexpected. In Kingdom terms, that which has been stretched often contains potential to accommodate more. If your year has taken you by storm, confronted you with deep issues or given you a new definition of responsibility, then this blog submission is for you (just as much as it has been for me).
From all points of human argument, it may appear insane and suicidal to assimilate what has been revealed to you concerning your future. But faith is still the substance of things hoped for. This is why the enemy has done all he could this year to keep you marooned at the coast of despair. Despair and hopelessness are conjoined twins. He understands it is exactly at that level where you have lost hope, that believing becomes impossible. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)
Faith does not develop in isolation. In order for it to manifest, thrive and explode, it requires substance. It feeds on the substance that has been captured by hope. Therefore, if I have not identified what I am hoping for I am depriving my faith of its element. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations. "He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (Romans 4:17-18)
You may be hoping for certain things to begin coming through as far as your life, relationships and resources are concerned. If you are still holding onto hope despite the inferno that may have erupted in your life this year, then you are providing grounds for the formation of substance. And may we live such that the Master can say to us indeed, your faith has made you whole!
There is a place in time where our future begins to disagree with our past. We know this is a place worth fighting for and so we are shifting focus before making a resolve that will outlast the coming year. We are letting go of the microscope...
We are about to engage a new season. We have circled the mountain long enough.
With courage renewed
we are finally placing our hands upon the helm.
Eternity beckons,
purpose and destiny await beyond the border.
Hope is reawakening
and with it faith is regaining substance.
Challenges will be swallowed up.
The time has come and we will cower no longer.
If no one else is stands with you,
do not be discouraged.
Faith is not subject to distance.
I too am a comrade-in-arms.
Beyond no man's land I will stand,
ready to fight by your side.
Courageously brightening
at the verge of a breaking dawn,
we are prepared to engage.
They will be swallowed up.
The giants have become bread for us.
