A personal journey to consecration, and the turns that await the traveler on the road to the place of promise.
As a result of this journeying I must say that I might be a little more sporadic with my posts, especially over the next month. It is exactly a month to my birthday, and this season is a very spiritual one for me. I usually spend the weeks leading up to my birthday seeking the face of God for fresh revelation and instruction. And sometimes it seems that life pushes me to do so, which is evidence of the spirituality around birthdays - the intensified tug of war between the spirit and the natural. My spirit was sent here for a specific purpose, and so my prayer over the next month starting with the entrance of this light few nights ago in the place of prayer, will be: “Lord give me a revelation of who I am. Who you made.” Not who I believe I am, or who I would like to be but that I lack the strength to become. Who I am.
I believe that this revelation is layered, for our good, and while I have picked up some pieces of the puzzle along the way of a life in the Spirit, I want more, and there is no better time than as the circle of Time restarts for me, and goes around again.
Life is a Circle
This month has been a rollercoaster, but when is life a straight path, and for whom? More than anything, life is circular or cyclical, and so it is natural that within spaces of time we can feel both like we are in for the thrill of our lives, and shortly afterwards as though at the top of the rollercoaster - and upside down. Constant motion makes alive, and Time is the construct for progress and motion. The realm of God exists in Eternity, but this construct called Time he created in divine wisdom to delineate progress and to inject his will into us and into this world; in a way we can manage. Time itself is a circle, ending each day exactly where it started, which is why the Eternal God is both the Beginning and the End.
My circle this month began with a nudging into studies and prayers combating the spirit of fear at the end of last month. Don’t get me wrong: I was on pseudo-vacation at my best friend’s house, everything appeared great and I had few cares and concerns. Then the Lord began to speak through convictions, teachings and scripture, instructing me to consider carefully (Haggai 1:7) any areas where fear exists deep in my heart and to write them down.
“Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. (Haggai 1:7)
I have long learned that God knows me better than I sometimes dare to know myself, and so there is a reason for every “consideration”.
Man Shall Not Live by Bread Alone
Whenever we are sick in the flesh, doctors prescribe medicines that we believe over time can help us feel better. In the same principle, when the Lord and I are tackling a situation, manifesting as the Balm of Gilead he inspires me to prepare what I call “Word Tonics”, a spiritual medicine. Think of them as a series of scriptures one is prescribed to “eat”, night and day, twice or three times daily.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. - Matthew 4:4, Deuteronomy 8:3
We know that food is medicine, and spiritual food is spiritual medicine that is able to impact physical outcomes. So I did as instructed, writing down the fears I had identified in my consideration process, and meditating on and praying the scriptural antidotes prescribed to me - and then more instructions followed. This is a typical pattern of God - He unveils his plans with the unfolding of obedience, within the construct of time,
A few weeks later, I was led in what initially appeared to be an independent lesson, to study the life of Abraham. I will admit that it took me a while before it hit me, quite literally while in study, that Abraham’s life is a life of Faith, and Faith is the direct opposite of fear. I “whooped” rejoicing at the revelation that something was coming together. Let me be clear, I still have no idea exactly what God's end is, but God does and that is more than enough for me, and is the entire point of this Diary entry: Faith.
By Faith
One of the first things that happens to a life that has decided to be sold-out to God in Faith, is a separation. We call this Consecration but sometimes it really just feels like you are separated from everything and everyone you have been used to - scary and even lonely. This can depend also on how long you've spent in your “Haran”, before hearing the call of God to get out of that place and journey to the land of “Canaan”, into promise.
I spent a long time in my “Haran”, and so a lot of the people and the things I was surrounded with until my calling began to shift me in 2020, were based there. Think of it as Rachel carrying her family’s household gods as she left her father Laban’s land, with Jacob. She knew they were headed somewhere better, and that her husband served a far greater God - and yet, old habits have always died hard. Consecration is the dealing that exchanges habits with devotion, and dependence with separation unto God. Now, I have promised God to curb the desire to channel every possible revelation in a single post - difficult but I’m learning guys - and yet I have to say this. Going into Genesis 11 to confirm where Abraham’s Father lived, I saw this in verse 31, and Light flooded me:
And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. - Genesis 11:31 (NKJV)
Now here’s why the various translations of the Bible are more helpful than hurtful as some (misguided) religions might retort. In fact, these translations make studying Scripture much more powerful, and express the truth that Hebrew and Greek words carry more depth in nature and meaning, than English words can possibly make available. I realized: wait a second - Terah was headed for Canaan but stopped on the way, and stayed there. Other translations like NLT are clearer on the matter (I’m more of an ESV, RSV, NASB girl with a healthy serving of NKJV; for solid reasons, saved for another day):
He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there. (NLT)
I don’t recall that verse striking me as much as it did this time. So much to unpack there:
I wonder what stopped Terah on the way. Was he afraid?
It’s clear from this and many other scriptures, that if God cannot fulfill his purposes through you, your children will do.
Marriage and lineage is a more powerful concept than the largely unreliable feeling of butterflies: it is a divine channel of and for the purposes of God.
Did Terah no longer believe in the God who had called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans?
Faith is the corresponding action we take based on a conviction of the revelation of God’s power, his goodness, his grace and his ways.
I suppose sometimes we’re in too deep. Some of us started our real journey of conviction from Haran, while some others were found deep in Ur - without parents who even believed or had the slightest clue on how to raise children in the ways of God - and so the journey can appear farther. And in fact, it is. But there is power in every journey, no matter where it begins, because it is a deliverance to a future generation and we are not called to faith for self-centered purposes. The lives of everyone who carried God's purposes testifies to this.
Consecration and Separation
When God called Abraham, I believe it must have been similar in context (perhaps not in experience) as his father Terah was called. It must have felt vague, and the instructions appearing incomplete: Why was he leaving? Why Cannan? - after all Haran looked good enough. What would he face there? And how would he know that the land truly would be his? - after all, it certainly was occupied.
Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family, And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. And I will make you.. And bless you.. - Genesis 12:1-2
As unclear as God’s instructions can appear, this much is clear: our obedience will make us, and bless us. And answering the call starts with Consecration - not with emotional tears and confessions we love to release in the heat of some really good worship. When we truly decide to walk with God, it will get very lonely because this decision is an individual one, outside of the familiar group behaviors of society. This had to be true for Abraham as well. We like for everyone to agree with us, we like trends because it denotes crowds and communities bound in agreement and approval of us. How difficult it must have been for Abraham. Leaving his large family, yet to multiply even more as we saw when he sent Eliezer back to them to take a wife for Isaac, had to be difficult, but yet there was no other choice in his heart, because conviction carries through to action - and then it can be called Faith.
I remember the early days of God’s call to me to “come out from among them and be separate” (Isaiah 52:11,2 Corinthians 6:14). I certainly tarried and created my own loopholes which I used as skipping ropes to dance to my own tune, avoiding a complete consecration. Until I was truly ready to begin my journey. This is normal behavior and if God has mercy on us, as we walk with him we will slowly stop seeing things as we have been conditioned, and begin to see as God sees. This is that Pauline experience on the road called Straight on the way to Damascus - the scales fall off our eyes.
I’m still not there yet; I'm very much on the journey to the promise. Consecration is a lifetime journey, until we are joined with Love at the shores of Eternity. But it begins with a consistent devotion, where we surrender the piloting of the ship of life to the one who predestined us for a life in him through Christ. The truth is that nothing can offer peace but saying yes to God - with our hearts, not with our words. It is the heart that controls corresponding action. The world offers temporary pleasure, creating addiction because the pleasures do not seem to last. In fact seeking pleasures outside God seems to (mysteriously) lead to an unexplainable emptiness - almost like the continuous pursuit of pleasure costs something that we cannot actually see but we very well pay. Does anyone else know this feeling? I think we do.
Choosing Him who First Chose Me
I watched something very profound today, the Lord was teaching someone how some of the relationships - with people, behaviors or things - that we feel attached to are a prison, and our "supportive" community in those relationships are fellow cellmates. Many people are addicted to their cellmates, after all, they have spent so much time together. I certainly get it - it took me a long time to separate myself from certain things and people. And I yet guard my eye, ear and heart gates intentionally because there is a part of my flesh that enjoyed the prison, and is susceptible to return (ask any ex-prisoner).
Strangely enough I also saw a post from my electronic journal reminding me today of my entries exactly a year ago. The first of 7 entries read: “if you’re no longer a prisoner, why are you still in prison?”. I don’t believe in coincidences, and while I cannot detail all the contents of that journal entry, I will say two things:
Get a journal!! And use it faithfully: An electronic one is best. I recently found out that I can print a book out of select years from my various journals (I have a few in the same app, for distinct purposes, for example Dreams or Spiritual Revelations).
Progress takes patience, commitment and consistency: My teachers taught me one thing, the enemies of your body and soul are not moved by your once-a-month inspiration to spend all day in prayer, they are confounded by a life committed to living in the Presence of the Lord all the days of your life.
It is as God told Abraham right as the promise was about to (finally) be fulfilled:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.” Genesis 17:1-2
Now this is by the way, but many people query God on why the promise took so long to manifest. None seem to recall how Abraham was a (pathological) liar, susceptible to women, when God found him and in the heights of their journey. God has a promise for us, but without transformation, we will more than likely misuse, abuse and destroy it.
Like Abraham, it seems like God is always taking me on a journey somewhere, a place only He knows in terms of how it will go and how it ends. But we will either be Terah who started the journey and stopped short, or we will be Abraham who followed through and became the father of an entire world of Faith, far beyond what natural birth - which at one point was all he wanted - can offer. Perhaps, if I trust God with the things I desire greatly, even things I am convinced will bring him glory, then God will inevitably surpass my desires; because it is his good pleasure to do so.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love - Ephesians 1:4
God chose us, that we might have the opportunity to choose him too. Choosing him is consecration - a decision to live a life higher than the world can offer or approve of. And as challenging as it can be - following a God who unveils his plans in bits and pieces unlike the instant gratification that culture and social media has inducted us into - it is God’s will and pleasure to bring us into a wealthy place; into a promise. The same cannot be said of the intentions of the world and its people. For we may be in the world, but we are not of the world (John 17:11, 14–15). If indeed this is the case then it must be evident in our lives, since Faith is a corresponding action and not mere confessions.
Abraham’s journey unfolded for me afresh over the last few weeks, how obedience triggered the opening of new expressions of his calling, and his blessings. I mean, the whole time God was blessing and decorating him before all who encountered him, even in a foreign land - but there was a goal much higher than that, and it took consecration (a complete devotion to obeying God’s voice) to unlock the fulness of what we now know as The Blessing.
“This is what the LORD says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld [anything, even your only son] from Me I swear by my own name.. - Genesis 22:16
I get goosebumps all over, reading that. What can I say, I am sensitive and I embrace it now. The Book of Hebrews tells us that a man makes a vow by swearing by something higher than himself. Since there is none higher than the Lord, He swore by Himself even though being God, no purpose of His can be withheld from Him (Job 42:2). More than anything, this was a grand show of great love. This love - intimacy, friendship and the most passionate protection - between Abraham and God was the outcome of answering a call and following through in consecration.
So Ephesians 1:4 says that God chose us that we might in turn choose him: deciding to be Holy - separate and consecrated - in love. Because only love can produce such an outcome: denying our self, for the love of him who first loved us. God’s first concern with mankind is not to be loved, it is to be believed: because belief produces love and love produces consecration and holiness.
And if indeed love believes all things (1 Corinthians 13:7), then what can separate me from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
“For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38).
This is that good Love. Leave a comment if you agree!
Grace-Grace.
This was powerfu. I love the relativIfy!