Yet about 6-7 years ago I found myself in a desert. It was a desert financially (provision) where we were in ministry and living on support. It was coming to December and we had no money in our support account, I didn't know what to do but cry out to God. I was discouraged, frustrated, and honestly didn't see how we were going to get out of this situation. I had struggled to raise support and was personally out of resources to see the provision come in. As our family went away for a weekend, I spent much of the time seeking the Lord and listening to messages about breaking free in the area of finances. It was in the middle of this desert that Father challenged my orphan thinking and prompted me to trust Him by giving in famine.
I was going into the Nature Center at Rock Mountain National Park and after hearing the message about asking God for seed I found a quarter on the ground. My wife laughed and I really had very little faith that God would work but decided I didn't have anything to lose. I actually put the quarter in the offering plate at church. In the next 18 months-2 years we sowed seeds (many) of $100 on 6 different occasions. After understanding the Word of God about sowing and harvest, especially in famine we saw a harvest of $1,000 each of these times (all from different sources). I had prayed that God would make me a sower (to His Spirit), rather than being only focused on my own need. Abundance followed a deep desert, where we were lead out of the desert by partnering with Him in trust to follow His way. Our ministry since that time has always been funded, we have not been in lack but actually have had an abundance.
I share this because I am encouraging you in your desert and mine. I am currently in a desert season of intimacy with Father, where I am experiencing everything but the fullness of His love for which I have cried out. I started a ministry lead by His Spirit that is all about knowing the Father's Love and being filled as a son or daughter. Father clearly spoke to us about starting the ministry, even gave us confirmation through a prophetic voice, and Father gave His blessing by setting up 3 spiritual mentors to affirm us unprompted. Yet, I find lies of hopelessness, unbelief, lack of trust, and lack of faith in my soul are overwhelming me. As I search for a safe place of rest in Father's embrace, I seem to run into more anxiety, insecurity, poverty of spirit, sleeplessness, and overall sense of lack of love. In sharing the previous testimony I am encouraging myself in the Lord, that He is perfectly positioning me for breakthrough into a place of abundance, fullness, and rest. Faith sees differently than the circumstances that our soul reports. Faith sees in the Spirit and looks to the ways of God that I may know Him. Joshua and Caleb reported a faith-filled report about the Promise Land based on believing God's promise despite the giants, the other 10 spies gave reports of unbelief and no hope. In the same way our soul sometimes seems to give all the reports of unbelief and hopelessness, yet His Spirit in us through our spirit rises up to give a faith-filled report based on God being faithful to His Word.
How many of us as believers fail the test of the wilderness, which means walking by faith and dependence, by seeking counterfeit affections to relieve the pain of lack? I believe since Jesus overcame the wilderness and we are in Him that God has made a way for us to have victory in coming through the desert.
In His Fullness,
Bret
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