Hey, my lovelies, how are you doing? Hope you had a great week and are looking forward to the weekend. Even though it might not feel like a weekend, take time out to rest, recharge and treat yourself! You deserve it. I want to welcome you to part two of the Journey to purpose whoop! Part one was really heavy, I learnt a lot from it myself and I got so much feedback from you guys, thank you for the support. Now we are going to dive right in. Just a recap from part one; we looked at why we found ourselves in the ploughing (wilderness or silent) season and there were three points that we focused on:
- God is calling you to himself
- God wants to nourish you
- God wants to plant a divine vision in you
Amazing! Now that we know why we are in this season; we can then look at how to respond to it. Now if you are reading this for the first time and you have not read part one, I will encourage you to head over to part one and feast on that before you start with this one -that way you are fully equipped.
In this post, I will be sharing on how you can respond to the ploughing season. It is very important to respond rightly, and I will show you why shortly. I want us to draw some lessons from the Israelites journey to the promised land. When God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, the journey to the promised land was only supposed to take 40 days. However, the journey took a good 40 years! Because of their attitude and how they responded to that process. I will encourage you to go and read the book of Exodus in the bible for further studying. We will look at a few things that they did that prolonged their days in the wilderness. Even though the children of Israel where happy that God finally delivered them from Egypt, they constantly walked in disobedience; they grumbled, complained, sinned, and were ungrateful, that is why it took them years!
Ways to respond to the ploughing season
- Obedience
What does God want you to do in this season? What is that thing He has placed in your heart? Is He asking you to just spend uninterrupted time with Him to fellowship and study His word? Whatever it is He has told you to do or there is a prompting in your heart; just do it! Just OBEY! It could be as simple as coming off social media for a while because he wants to work on your heart, maybe you compare yourself to others and He wants to heal that insecurity. Praise God! So, whatever it is, whatever instruction the Lord gives to you just obey. When you are faithful in the little things through obedience God trusts you with much more. Don’t be like the Israelite’s, when God gave them an instruction most times most of them did the opposite of what God said not to do. God instructed Moses that the people shouldn’t keep manner for the next day, they should just gather what they need. However, the people didn’t listen.
Exodus 16:19
‘Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.” 20 But they did not listen to Moses…’
2. Gratitude
When you obey God and are faithful in what he wants you to do per time, you will see that clarity starts to come to you and He starts to reveal the next steps to you. you will begin to see clearly and hear clearly. So beloved just obey!
One thing that was consistent with the children of Israel was being ungrateful. Even though God did mighty things in their midst, miracle upon miracle yet they still complained and quickly forgot what God did for them. Gratitude is important, always be grateful for what God has done for you. There is always something to be grateful for. Take time to remember the miracles God did for you, the victories He won for you! Amen. Count your blessings and name them one by one. The bible always tells us to give thanks in everything:
1st Thessalonians 5:18
‘give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus’
Don’t complain, every time you find yourself in a place of complaining or grumbling just meditate on the goodness of God! Even if at that present moment you can’t see His hand. He is calling you to see His heart, He is calling you to see His person, to build a relationship that is not based on what He can do for you but who He is to you. Hallelujah!
3. Comparison
This is a major one for me because I have been there! avoid comparison, don’t compare yourself to others! your life is not their life. You are unique, you are an individual, God created you to be different, embrace that difference! When you start comparing yourself to others you will start getting distracted, you might lose focus on what God is trying to do in your life. You might have to take some deliberate actions towards this, for example, you might have to cut down on social media or come off it for a while; until you come to a place where you no longer compare yourself with others. Comparison can lead you to start an expression in the flesh that God didn’t plant! So be healed of comparison! You don’t want to lose focus. Instead of comparing yourself to others, why don’t you study them? especially if you see yourself in them or they resemble the vision and call on your life. Read about their journey, draw lessons from it, etc. Most times we are comparing our ploughing season to someone’s harvest season. I have an entire post on this topic, if you are struggling with comparison, I encourage you to check it out HERE
4. Don’t look back
When you are going through this journey there is always a tendency to look back, we have this famous phrase we like to use “the good old days”. In the good old days when I was still working as this and that when I was still single when I didn’t have kids etc. Yet, some of these things are things you prayed to God for. Don’t be like the children of Israel who kept saying it was better in Egypt, meanwhile, they forgot that they prayed for deliverance and waited for years to be taken to their promised land. This is a tool of distraction! don’t entertain it, fix your eyes on where God is taking you. If you keep looking back, you will miss out on what God is doing. I just love the scripture in:
Isaiah 43:19
‘See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.’
This scripture makes me leap for joy each time I read it! It is so assuring especially in this season. Don’t lose sight of what God is doing, He is doing a new thing! Praise God! So be encouraged and don’t give in! embrace this season with all your heart. Ask God what he is trying to show you or teach you? Open your heart to Him and let the Master do His work.
Love always Lisa Maxwell
Writers Essence 