It is here that I need to back up and say, I did not get to write about my word for the Christmas season this past year. The season got away from me (A trip to Zambia will do that!) and even though I did feel the word, reveal or revelation was my word from God, I did not actually write about it (sad face). I feel it was in that word though, that God did reveal and well, ripped back open, past scars that needed to be felt again in a way to bring a fresh brokenness to my life, my marriage and ministry.
In our training with International Teams we have had to read a few good books and do some deep reflecting and searching in the reading and thus the writing on these books. In this, I have felt God asking me to go back, get a little more vulnerable than I have been and push into deeper self-examination. Through this I discovered I had been forgetting I had scars. Scars that have implications, meaning and hurt and pain associated with them.
I am not saying here that we should go back and live in our pasts or re-visit them in an unhealthy way, but there was a point for me that I knew I was not living in the reality of the presence of my past in a way that brought the beautiful reality of it’s existence. There is a story in it. The story that we overcame. Victory is ours.
In the training and through my word for the Christmas season God has brought us to a new place as we prepared for the new year. In the wrestling of why I needed to go back, why I needed to unearth the dark soil, God revealed it was to use it to plant new growth in my life. So grateful for God’s gift of words to me and the promptings that come out of that. As the week leading up to New Year’s Eve unfolded, Ben and I got dirty in the soil of our past to see the way in which God is growing new awareness and a certainty in what He has and is doing.
The word, VICTORY, came out of all of this as we sat on New Year’s Eve writing out our recommitments to each other, God and our calling, after sitting in the dirt the week before. Victory rather than any other word, because it invokes the idea of battle, scars, tough decisions and fighting. It speaks of following and leading, protecting and yet total abandonment. It is also a reminder that we fight not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. And it is in the Word of God that we stand firm and win. The Word, not the little words God gives me but The Word that brings total victory and freedom to a life that God is growing His will in. His will planted in the dark soil of unearthed brokenness.
“When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say: "Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them. For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.” Deuteronomy 20:1-4
Love this verse. How good it is to be in the “camp” of the Lord. To be in His will. Then we can have the assurance of His victory! Moving into 2016 today standing firm, ready to fight and accepting the victory God has given as we embark on moving to Zambia to join God in the battle there.
