It's time...

The Lord gave me a question early this morning to ask you and it hits hard and straight. What is it really about? He then began to show me all of these examples. What are the random angry outbursts really about? What are the defense mechanisms that you put up for everyone really about? What is the sadness that exudes from you really about? What is the depression at the same time every year really about? What is the need to stay when you know you should be gone really about? What are the repeated cycles and patterns in your relationships really about?

He showed me a vision of a Victorian library with very old books on the shelves. It looked like it got a lot of use but I noticed with closer inspection that it had cobwebs. It seemed to me like a huge contradiction. Why would a room that gets a lot of use still have dust and cobwebs?  I didn’t really understand what He was showing me. However, as I continued to look around, He told me to pay closer attention to the whole scene.  He told me that some of you are like this library in the spirit. The books are the experiences and situations of your life. There are a lot of them, some of them very old and you go back to them on a regular basis and look at them, flip through them, and read them. The issue is that you don’t take the time to deal with them. You don’t invest in cleaning your space out and taking out what no longer fits there. You don’t take the books that no longer fit or tell the story that fits this season your life. You skip over the hard books that document the hardest struggles and the most painful chapters. You just let them sit on your shelves, taking up space and aging you.

I am uncomfortable in this type of writing and sharing but the Lord is saying that today is about truth. He reminded me of how Moses spoke to the Israelites at the end of his life about the Covenant. He wanted to make sure that they were ready to receive Joshua, their next leader. He gave them a lot of important instruction to prepare them. One of those was to not allow things or people to stay in their midst that would ruin the whole group. “Don’t let down your guard lest even now, today, someone—man or woman, clan or tribe—gets sidetracked from God, our God, and gets involved with the no-gods of the nations; lest some poisonous weed sprout and spread among you, a person who hears the words of the Covenant-oath but exempts himself, thinking, “I’ll live just the way I please, thank you,” and ends up ruining life for everybody.” (Deut. 29:18 MSG)

Today, God is calling you to your next level but you cannot leave anything that can eventually poison you or your purpose. Today, you have to go into your library and deal with the hard stuff. Today, you have to face your secret hurts and struggles. Today, you have to acknowledge that there are some places, some things, and some people that you need to be delivered from. Today, you have to speak to that spirit of grief and tell it that it can no longer cause you to live in depression years after your loss. Today you have to speak to that spirit of manipulation and tell it that it can no longer cause you to stay where you are not valued or loved. Today, you have to speak to that spirit of rejection and tell it that it can no longer cause you to miss the authority that you possess. Today, you have to speak to that spirit of religion and tell it that it can no longer keep you from experiencing the fullness of God. Today, you have to speak to that spirit of guilt and tell it that it can no longer keep you from living in your present. It is time.

The Lord desires to take you to your next level. He desires to see you living out your purpose with joy and zeal. He desires to see you loving your family and your life without the conditions of past hurts and struggles. In order to do that, you have to deal with the hard things. It is time to face what people may have done to you and even what you have allowed. It is time to take a hard look in the mirror and ask the Lord to show you what you need to be set free from and then do the work. I am tired of hearing people say that they are good when they clearly are not. I am tired of people saying that it doesn’t take all that when they clearly need more. I am tired of people thinking they are judge and jury when their crime is just as big. You see, everyone has to look at himself or herself and tell the truth. EVERYONE! I have to do it all the time. I wrote a whole book about getting to freedom because I had to do it. It’s time. Get in that library! Take those books down that don’t tell your story anymore. Throw away what doesn’t belong and update them with the books that speak of freedom, restoration, and truth.  It is time.

Amen