Tarrying in Dormancy

As we journey into a new year, many of you are wondering, “What’s in store for my life?” and “What is God doing during these highly unusual times?” Here’s a word to offer perspective and hope. As you read this, you will get the fullest encouragement remembering that tarry means “to wait or abide in a place; to linger in expectation.”   “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5   Many plants have to go into dormancy depending on the season and their growth slows. Just so He showed me that many of us are in a dormancy period. We aren’t spiritually dead. We did nothing wrong. He did not pass over us to bless someone else. He said that we can’t always be bearing massive amount of fruit and that there was an ebb and flow of fruit bearing. The flowers will come back again. This is a time of tarrying.   He said for now, it’s important to do what is before us daily and to live in the now rather than tomorrow. The most powerful thing we can do is to focus on today even if it seems so very prosaic. No matter how hard we try, we can’t make the prophesied glories of the future happen today. Incredible glories of His presence await us as an absolute certainty! No amount of wishing and praying can speed that up no matter how badly we want that. A better way to embrace what appears to be a predicament is to relax and tarry with no worries.   We’ve been through a lot of pain and angst and the balance of justice will soon tip in our favor. More favor is coming and that is an absolute certainty. It’s important to grasp that reality in faith even if we don’t see it today.   Live in faith for a glorious future of the great move of His Spirit and live in faith today by embracing what you have set before you now. Today is where life is.   What He is saying is that where we are at now is normal. Dormancy is normal. For plants, when they go into dormancy, they are building up their strength preparing for Spring. We are being built up in our spirits being prepared to contain an incredible season of fruit bearing that we have ever seen in our lives.   Tarry before Him in intimate interaction and openness. Drink of His presence daily even in the simplest everyday things. Invite Him to participate in everything you do. Invite Him to observe and give Him permission to go deep and to help your unbelief and to do deep inner healing.   “If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples. As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love.” John 15:7-9

The Christmas Miracle

Suzanne and I got to babysit our 5-month-old granddaughter, Iris, for the past three days. Oh, the simple joys of waking up a little one from her many naps to see her beaming face with her little legs kicking in gleeful delight! To be honest, we forgot how much energy and attention a little one this age requires—but the bonding moments of bottle-feeding her while she gripped my thumb in one of her tiny hands and my pinkie in the other, or of rocking her to sleep and feeling her little heart beating against mine, made all the effort seem insignificant in comparison!   Friends, this is the miracle of Christmas—that Elohim would come to us in the person of Jesus because love would go to any lengths to bond with us and to capture our gaze of affection in return—our hearts beating side by side in the eternal enjoyment of our union! And even though Jesus would grow from an infant to a man who would take on the sin of the world, in the end, this to him was insignificant in comparison to the joy of being with us forever!   We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus who birthed faith within us and who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this: Because his heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be his, he endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God! Hebrews 12:2-3 (TPT)   Merry Christmas with Love,   Brent & Suzanne Lokker

Stepping Into Wholeness

From Susan: We heard from a few women from the Blazing Fire Family last Saturday night regarding how God is leading them into new places of wholeness.  As each one shared it was clear that they are discovering just how much Jesus wants to be involved in every moment of our lives as He leads us into the abundant life He has promised.  Whether we are dealing with fear, hurt, shame, doubt or rejection, it is His great joy to show us He understands and is the ever present doorway into freedom. I am inspired by how Sarah has learned to lean into the voice of God.  She is discovering how He really is there in the moments where she needs Him most.. No need is too small! ................................................ From Sarah: The Lord directs the steps of the righteous. He delights in every detail of their lives.   Psalm 37:23 NLT I’ve been going to a farmer’s market in Oakland almost every Sunday for the last fifteen years. The parking is tight there and I used to feel hopelessness rising after a couple of turns around the lot.  But over the years, I realized that I can always find a parking space eventually.  Only a handful of times in all that time did I have to park on the street.  Now, no matter how discouraging it looks, I feel relaxed knowing that a space will turn up.   Learning to trust God is a little bit like that.  In the past, whenever I faced a challenge,  I was nervous :  Will God come through?  Will He really do what He said?  Then again and again, God proved himself reliable and trustworthy.  If He said He will help, he did,  If he said it will be ok, it was.  Sometimes it took days and other times, months, but he was always true to his word. I have been building a history with God and his relentless kindness.   Even now, however, a thought can come:  What if God stops helping me?   I don’t doubt his love.  But sometimes, I think he might say “ Sarah,  you are far enough along in your growth to take care of the ‘little’ stuff by yourself.  I will just help you with the  ‘big’ stuff.”   But the Holy Spirit intervenes and says “No, that is not how I am.  I delight in every detail of your life.  I will always help you with big AND little stuff.”  I ask “Lord, why do you want to do this?”  He replies “Because you were created to do your life with me. This is our great joy, our union together.” .................................................. And Theresa encourages us that forgiveness is a process.  As we relinquish our pain, He gives us freedom and our hearts expand as “His love breaks open the way, and He brings us into a beautiful, broad place” from Psalm 18:19.  TPT.  That beautiful, broad place is our true self, the self He has always wanted you to live from. Forgiveness by Theresa Christian   A step towards healing A journey of hope Even though it is not easy Even though it is so painful Making the time to… Walk towards freedom, towards restoration Only from the safe place of your Father’s arms Listening to His heart Yielding to the pain Gently…. allowing your heart to feel, for it is real Purposefully moving forward “I hold nothing against you” A gift awaits you from surrender

Faith to See the Impossible

Pastor Brent: My good friend Dennis Lafayette shared a powerful message about what faith looks like that my spirit is still feeding on! I highly recommend you watch it here:  Dennis' Message from Saturday Night Dennis, and his wife Kathy live a life of obedience that has led them to see thousands of people saved, healed and set free! Dennis also shared some of his financial miracle stories and how his choice to obey God even when he didn’t have the money at hand, led him to Rwanda to be part of transforming a nation, primarily helping an apostolic pastor there by the name of Jean. Be encouraged to take steps with the faith the Lord has given you when he nudges you to go somewhere, talk to someone, pray for healing, give a word of encouragement or other expressions of loving others in his name. Here’s more of the story that Dennis didn’t share on Saturday…   "We traveled to a village in the south of Rwanda, very close to the border with Burundi. When I stepped out of the car, I could feel the blood in the ground. Many had died here over the past 60 years. The people in this area knew suffering far beyond anything I had ever seen. Why was I here and what could I do to help them?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        There was a tent setup with several hundred people inside. When it was time for me to speak, I got up still not knowing what I could possible say that would somehow make a difference in their lives. I remember praying, 'Lord if you don’t show up, I’ve got nothing for these poor people'. My little bit of hope was soon infused by His Spirit as I began to speak. As I continued to speak, I slowly realized that I was bringing a message of hope to these devastated people. I was thinking, 'Lord, I hope you know what you’re doing'. The last thing I said to them in this meeting was, 'you will be a light on a hill to this nation'. I stood there in silence thinking 'Lord you have a great calling on these people, if they have any hope'. Soon, one after another began to jump to their feet and cheer and praise God. In a matter of moments, they were all on their feet cheering and praising God. I thought 'Lord, this is really going to happen!' Eight months later, the government began closing and tearing down churches built of mud and sticks—over 8,000 were closed around the nation. Jean and Christine, the native pastors I had come to help, had the foresight to build their church in this village out of stone, metal, and concrete. Then to everyone’s astonishment the government said if you want to see how to build a church you should go to this village and see this church. The very place where I prophesied hope was now becoming a light to the nation! Around this same time the government decided to build a new international airport, with runways long enough to land jumbo jets. Almost all of Rwanda is hills, except in this area which is very flat. The new airport is only 10 minutes from this village. The 26-mile dirt road is now paved and electricity has arrived in the village. Our school now has hundreds of students and we are building our national mission headquarters.  We didn’t have the resources, but simply the faith to believe God. This village is becoming light to an entire nation, providing hope for a better life and future that the Lord has planned for them. Hope gave rise to steps of obedience in faith that has become substance that you can see. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1  Today we have the opportunity to give hope away. Once hope is embraced, God gives the increase. We don’t know His measure, but we do know His amazing love and generosity. Just think about hope as the seeds of faith. Jesus said, “What seems impossible for you is never impossible for God” (Matthew 20:26). Go after the impossible and see what happens."

The Miracle Of Metamorphosis

These past two years have been quite likely the most difficult season of our lives. When the Covid virus pandemic first became a “thing” we couldn’t have imagined how much devastation, disruption, and heartache it would cause. We also couldn’t have imagined that two years into this, we’re still not at the end.   But God…   Through it all, God has been continuously, faithfully doing exactly what he promised. Whether you’ve been aware or not, God has been brilliantly and lovingly using the intensity of the pressure you’ve been experiencing to expose tattered places in your heart that haven’t been able to trust and distorted ways of thinking that aren’t consistent with who God says you are. Not just exposing but inviting you into a healed upgrade in the way you perceive yourself and others, and thus, the way you love as God loves.   Each of us crawled into this pandemic two years ago, inching along as a caterpillar, thinking this was our truest self. It wasn’t wrong or bad, just incomplete. The pandemic and all that’s transpired in these past two years entombed us in a way that made us feel helpless, uncertain, and isolated. Yet we were never alone.   The Spirit of the Risen Christ has been coursing through our veins and every cell of our bodies the entire time. Something utterly miraculous has been taking place. Akin to the Grinch whose heart grew three times that of a normal heart, we ask ourselves, “how does this happen?” But we really can’t say. It’s Christ in us, the hope of glory, who’s been transforming us into the very nature of the One in whose image we’ve always shared.   We’ve been in a chrysalis and if the truth be told, it’s not been fun. That caterpillar couldn’t possibly know what’s coming, only that it currently feels kind of like a death. Yet, the beauty is happening, and the wings are forming.   The wings…what once would take a day to travel will be covered in seconds. A freedom awaits that couldn’t be conceived of. The ability to find the currents of the wind of the Spirit and to soar with an entirely new perspective is burgeoning.   Friends, we’ve all been in a time that doesn’t make any sense to us, yet something beautiful has been transpiring in each one of us. While the transformation in our chrysalis is nothing short of miraculous, it can’t be preempted. It must run its course. If we try to break the butterfly out before its wings are fully formed, it will die. What does this mean for us? We don’t have to know exactly how this miraculous transformation is happening and where we are along the process. To know that it’s happening is enough. Amid the feelings of uncertainty, we can be still and know…know that God is God, Yahweh doing in us and through us and for us what we could never do for ourselves.   This is not just a new season we are approaching. We’re in a metamorphosis. God has been preparing us to embrace the full truth of his life in us as someone who is entirely different from the one who entered into the chrysalis of these past two years.   Beloved, we are God’s children right now; however, it is not yet apparent what we will become. But we do know that when it is finally made visible, we will be just like him, for we will see him as he truly is. 1 John 3:2 (TPT)