Come Before you Go

 

Come Before you Go

No feeling compares to that moment when the father entrusts you with something from his heart. I can only imagine how exciting it was for the disciples when Jesus spoke the words of the great commission. And then the men who put it to paper by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So many great moments, in the word, like Moses receiving his call in fire. Or when Jesus called out for men to come and follow him. Two words that change the course of History… “Come” and “Go”… “Come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men”,” Go out into all the world and make disciples”. We are entrusted with such a gift. We are not meant for inaction but to be activated in the precious calling of our God.

One year ago, God started to speak a Calling to me. He gave me little things at first. A promise that if I would seek him , I would find him, I began to come to him, to drink the living water, to put my feet in the river of life one toe at a time, to then bathe in the anointing. Then he gave me instruction and I asked him to make me hungry, and as I started to hunger for more, he gave me purpose in motherhood and showed me that he placed me over my children in charge of a great calling to raise them up with the understanding of his great love for them and for the world.

Sometimes we see ourselves through the light of this world and we see a small tiny fleck of worth. But God wants to tear off the worldly veil and unmask the eyes of his beloved children, so that they never walk this earth without a calling, without a purpose. My desire is to be a part of this unveiling, to be a part of the activation of his saints. A great harvest is coming, a time of truth will reign in the hearts of those who are ready to receive boundless treasures from heaven. The Lord says so much of a harvest is in store that he is giving us a basket to carry this precious harvest because our hands will not be able to carry it alone. The father has been waiting for a people who will humble themselves, deny all selfish ambition and put all that ambition into desiring his will, take up their cross and follow him!

The cross is a torture devise so when I think of taking up a cross I always thought, “wow so much work ahead, so much pain and struggle to follow Christ.” But Christ says in Mathew 11:30 that his yoke is easy to bear, his burden is light. I believe that although we carry a cross that we are not carrying it alone. A yoke is what ties oxen together, to be yoked to Christ means that we are no longer carrying this burden or this cross alone. The truth is this; we had a cross long before we had Christ. He is saying instead of letting it become our stationary unmoving foundation and eventual death that we can pick it up! With this revelation, this verse is more of an activation to march across the land not a death march to the end of everything.

The two verses of bearing a cross and the one about his yoke seem at odds if we look at the cross as our death instead of our life. What is so amazing about His words about the yoke is that You don’t yoke up oxen to sit in one place. We are moving forward and with a purpose; to till the ground beneath us, to carry the load behind us. With purpose we can see that every drop of sweat is worth the effort but the load is not ours alone to bear. When he calls for us to yoke ourselves to him; He is saying “We are called, We are important, We are chosen!” and in the midst of this world where we carry around things of little value and purpose, with no sense of direction He is saying, “Come and follow me, I will make you more than just fisherman.” He is saying “Come drink of a new water, a living water, where you will never thirst again” He is saying, “Take up this Cross and follow me (Come) for my burden is not heavy.” He is calling us into the supernatural, he is calling us to look beyond the misconceptions of this world. To look with eyes that see and to hear with ears that hear and to love with hearts that are tuned directly to the heart of God.

The prayer of my heart is for purpose, for a life of depth, and to be anointed and full of the Oil of his sweet Spirit. My cry to God did not go unanswered. So now I stand in the road, I come to call out to those who are sitting in the road looking at their cross and unable to move, those who have tried on their own to carry it and those who are at the point of deep thirst for something more, for something of great depth. And I say “Come to Him, find Him and you will find rest, you will find truth. Come, so that you can go! Come so that you can go! There is a call on your life for something greater than this dirt you sit in as you stare at your cross and the long road ahead. He wants you to come, so that he can release you into the world in a brand new way, for a brand new day! Come so that you can go. Dive into his word, soak in his sweet presence with a heart of worship. I know it’s hard to come before you go. I promise if you are faithful to Come, He will be faithful to say “Go” when the time of your surrendered heart is ready. Come so that you can GO!

Matthew 11:28-30

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and the burden I give you is light.”

In a time of worship before God he gave me a picture of what prayer is. Before God had showed me this, I always felt like prayer was such a heavy burden. Like wading through mucky, muddy, swamp water I always felt like it was a lot of work, a lot of struggle to pray. Then God showed me a picture of a woman in labor. She was having contractions and God said, “Prayer is like a woman in labor.” I smiled, “I do feel like prayer is hard like labor.” And he said “No, prayer is not the contraction, it’s not the pain, or the struggle, the struggle is there no matter what. Prayer is the push, that glorious relieving moment when you get to push.” I found amazing revelation in this word because I always laugh at movies when the woman is screaming and crying as if the push is the worst part of labor but any woman who has had a baby can tell you that the push is the best part, it is the time when you finally get a break through, when you finally get to be free of those awful contractions. The struggles in our lives and the burdens we feel for ourselves or others, it’s a part of life whether we choose to push or not, the contractions still come. The pain of the contraction is not without purpose but it is just a push away from life! And prayer is the push that brings life into the world. It is that all powerful moment when you realize that the God of the universe is listening to your words, collecting your tears and holding your hand in this, the final hour before life comes and all the struggle has been worth the break though. But let us not mistake that whether we chose to push or just to writher in our pain, the struggle is there. We associate God with our pain with very little understanding that the pain was there before we invited God in and it will still be there if we chose to keep him out, but if we go to him in prayer and really push into his presence we will see life.

We Need to Come before we Go.

Matthew 11:28-30 “Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and the burden I give you is light.”  

The burden is not the yoke, the yoke is the way through the burden.