I know for many around me at the moment, that the beginning of this year 2025 has started off for them facing huge giants opposing them
· Major surgery
· Finding a job in their field or being deported
· Feeling like they are drowning in a big black pit and can’t get out
· Plus more
and although these are very real and daunting ordeals, I don’t believe that is how GOD sees this year for them!
GOD actually has an aerial view on our circumstances and in a way the picture below is probably a better perspective of His view for us!
This year is explained in a powerful way by Ps Samuel Rodriguez here - https://www.instagram.com/p/DE_LWbzM0r8/
If Jesus is your everything then you will have your #BESTYEAREVER
I am often overwhelmed, either suddenly in a moment or it creeps up on me uninvited to then overtake and consume me like a huge wave from the ocean! I need to constantly remind myself that even in those times Jesus Christ is there walking along side me to help me out, if I would just ask…
I guess making ourselves vulnerable enough to have the courage to ask is a bit of a stumbling block but we need to resolve for ourselves that if Jesus is actually our best friend and we have personally invited him to be in and part of our lives ongoing then allowing him the ability to help us out is all He desires for us.
Am I prepared for the outcome though?
We can pray for the Lord to help us, get us out of a sticky situation or change circumstances but we need to understand, as Ps Samuel Rodriguez said – ‘if Jesus is your everything’ - that if we are allowing Him the room to intervein then we need to understand He may have a better plan moving forward that we are not aware of or even considering.
God will work behind the scenes to address our needs,
but we need to continue through the circumstance to be THANKFUL for the outcome, whatever that may look like.
Below is an excerpt chapter from ‘Door of Hope’ that I wrote back a few years ago when I too was facing adversaries!
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Challenge – To “Shine”
Some years back, I was sitting down watching the movie “Stardust.” A clip from it shows a young man defending a girl; actually, she is a “star” that has fallen from the heavens. A witch chases her, and after all the trauma of things going wrong, the girl tells the young man to hold on tight to her and close his eyes, and when he asks why, she says “because I’m going to do what stars do the best SHINE.” then there is this mighty transformation of light that radiates the room and
makes the witch shatter into a million pieces, and when the worst is over, the star dims her light, and all is well with the world again.
Philippians 2:14-16 (NIV)
14 Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe 16as you hold out[a] the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labour for nothing
Imagine heaven looking down and seeing us as a church, shining like that amid this dark world. Wow!
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is
that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness
that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children
do. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own
lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the
same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.”
Quote by Marianne Williamson
I recently heard it preached one Sunday about “Fear or Faith.” Marianne, in the quote above, has indicated that our deepest fear is that we are more powerful through Christ than we are willing to admit to ourselves and that if we are eager to liberate ourselves from our fear – this will automatically release others.
In 1 Samuel 17 - David comes before Goliath with NO Fear!
20 Early in the morning David left the flock with a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. 21 Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. 22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and greeted his brothers. 23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24 When the Israelites saw the man, they all ran from him in great fear.
25 Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father’s family from taxes in Israel.”
26 David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
David is just a bystander at this show of defiance from the Philistines, but on hearing their taunts only the once, straight away what wells up in David is an attitude that “they can’t say that about my God’s army.”
27 They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”
28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”
So is this attitude that David is showing just defiance or conceit as David’s brother Eliab has pronounced? Because in the next breath, David says;
29 “Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before.
31 What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him. 32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”
Oh my, is this stupidity on David’s part in facing the Philistine Army or what? In David’s willingness to say “I will go – send me” How many of us have ‘really’ meant it when we have sung that song in worship? When we have exceptionally
experienced His presence - our whole heart is so overflowing with a desire to do all we can hope for Christ? I am speaking to myself here as well because I have done that, or as David has shown, can we step up to the mark with this
exceptional faith to believe for all that the word of God says we can have – without Fear!
33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you.”
So David’s experience in knowing how his God has delivered him in the past gives fuel to his passion and conviction that His God will come through!
38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So, he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.
41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”
Now here comes the best part because David is not standing here in front of Goliath with a sick feeling in his stomach about what he has to do (like a lot of us would about having to explain our Christian faith in front of others). I don’t
believe he is regretting being here in this set of circumstances either (as most of us would). I don’t think that David would even want out at this stage! David started at the very beginning with knowledge in his heart that His God reigns and no one, not even this particular enemy can stand because of it. David chose to be used by His God to see truth brought about and Honour given to the ‘Most High King.’
45 David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD”s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
48 As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.
50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.
51 David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.
When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.
David standing on that battlefield not only spoke the prophetic over what was going to take place that day but knew in his heart that His God was going to come through for him—bringing glory and honour on the name of the God of
Israel. Wow, what a heart for God and an impressive display of Faith without Fear!
We today have that same ability not only to shine as Christ has asked of us – like the star I mentioned before but to move in all the conviction and liberation we have in Christ Jesus. By taking hold of all that the word of God has empowered us with from our fear, our ability to step out in faith automatically liberates others to do the same.
The amount of times circumstances have come up in my own life to make a choice, and I have so wanted to balk at it – literally! But you know, when I have stood up to those things - then God does come through and “the rubber ‘really’
does hit the road” as it were. When those times happen, and it comes from your mouth, you know in your head, “this is not me,” but God. Our Father has stepped in that split second moment to reveal what is needed, and the awesomeness in that moment of God’s Holy Spirit power welling up on the inside of you to stand tall is quite contagious.
God desires greatness for us all, and I believe that those things will be accomplished to an even higher degree if we individually step out, with our best foot forward against anything the enemy tries to throw at us. As David said;
“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head…. and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD”s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
I pray today that we would all be willing to make that decision. Not just “Lord here I am, send me” but to defy anything the enemy is going to throw at us in this new decade and have the faith to believe in what God has put on the inside of you that the word of God says the enemy trembles at!
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Believing that you, and everyone around you will have your #BESTYEAREVER in 2025
Amen!
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