Every year I ask the Lord for a scripture or a message that He wants me to carry with me all year. This year my experience is that His Word for me is a fairly short sentence. Only a few words but I suspect and have an expectation that He will unpack it in the year to come in more detail. I believe this encouragement is packed with meaning and significance that will unfold in a myriad of different aspects of my life, and it will prove to have a far-reaching impact in my spirit as He will unfold it in the coming months.
The sentence I hear in my spirit is:
"Live fearless - and with purpose"
A number of scenarios from scripture came to mind recently:
- Think about Daniel and his three friends for example. They were God-fearing and living righteously, yet they were subjected to going into exile because of the national sin of God's people. They must have had other dreams for their lives than to have ended up in service of the Babylonian king? They must have had their dreams shattered and their fears amplified in a time like that - YET - they managed to find courage and purpose to continue living in faith.
- What about Joshua and Caleb? They had to live through 40 years of continuous desert experience without it being their fault - they were the only ones who were ready to take in the promised land and yet because of the lack of faith of the people they ended up seeing every single one of their family and friends over the age of 20 die in the desert before they could take in the promised land.
...and so we can continue to gather scenario after scenario in scripture where God's people were faced with times where they had to focus on their purpose and live it out in a whole different set of circumstances that they may not have foreseen or planned. However their purpose did not disappear in those times, they just had to find a way to still live it out within a new set of circumstances that they did not bargain on.
"Live fearless - and with purpose" it is a short sentence - but it is packed with challenges and treasures alike. May 2018 be a year where we will discover the treasures that God has placed inside of us before the foundation of the earth specifically to live fearless and with purpose, in faith and trust that He who is able to do far more than what we can even dream will develop in us every kind of treasure needed to fulfil it in every way He wants us to.
May 2018 be filled with blessings from the Father's hand.
Enjoy this video from Casting Crowns - it so underlines this message for me...
Love
Gerda
