05 Feb THE PATH THROUGH THE SEA
For weeks now, since the beginning of this year, I keep seeing a path opening a way through the sea. I know God is giving me a picture symbolizing what He is doing, as He moves forward with His plan. But if God wants us to collaborate with Him, what does that collaboration look like? What is God making a path through the sea a picture of?
Epiphany. Revelation.
Has He ever taken you forward spiritually by any other way? Hasn’t every advance you have ever made been the outworking of His revelation in your soul?
What is an epiphany? Webster’s dictionary defines it as “a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking; an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure“. An epiphany is God speaking revelation into you, with the immediate effect of breaking the hold of something dead, setting you free. Epiphany comes from hearing God’s voice, whether you recognize it or not. Something shifts in you and you are seized by what you see.
Our collaboration with Him will quicken, in the moment we see the role of epiphany opening the way before us. We must pray for epiphany, seeking and believing it for ourselves. We are to walk in epiphany, celebrating it in everyone where we see it at work. No matter where a person is or what they believe, epiphany is God at work in them.
I believe we are coming into a time, when as a nation we are going to experience a striking shift of illumination. Challenging events are going to come and speak revelation to us–revelation that will lay the seabed bare. “Pray that the wind will blow.” We are not to fear the storm, but look to The One who steers the storm. He is The One dividing the sea of our culture, causing it to mount up into walls of water on both sides. He is making a way for us through it. Between those walls runs a valley of decision.
We think of ourselves as Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, woke or awake, globalists or patriots. Trumpers or never-Trumpers. But I don’t think God sees us with those distinctions. My experience is that He sees us as having received or not having received the love of the truth. They “perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10)
Nothing can stop the God of epiphany from doing His work in us, unless we have not received the love of the truth. The love of the truth is what God speaks to in us. For the last three years we have been subjected to test after test coming to reveal what we love. We have been subjected to voices that have not told us the truth. We are in a time when Truth has never been more hotly contested nor more subtly betrayed..
There was a time when I was so thoroughly hostile to Christianity, that I had nothing but disdain and contempt for Christians. God did not argue with me. He was with me and for me in more ways than I can number. But He used every bit of my journey to bring me to the day when I was driven to ask Him, “What am I missing?” And I saw the word JESUS written in gold letters upon the air. Twice! Jesus? Revulsion rose in me–”NO!! Christians can’t be right!” And then I heard God call me by my name, “Valerie, do you want to live your life outside the truth?” In a moment I saw how utterly worthless, empty, void, hopeless and lost my life would be lived outside the truth. It was an epiphany that instantaneously broke the hold of what had been holding me. I had no idea the level of my deception. I didn’t need to know, in that moment. No one had to convince me that my thinking was wrong. God has proved more than able to right me, since then, loving me into the truth every step of the way. In that moment, all that mattered was the love of the truth that He saw in me. He had spoken to it, and when He did, epiphany had filled my soul.
How will we collaborate with God, walking in what He is working out in this year? We are to pray for epiphany. Believe in epiphany. Walk into Starbucks or Costco, and praise God with all the fulness of our being, looking joyfully into the yes of those for whom you are praying for epiphany. Seek epiphany for ourselves, spending time thinking about what you are experiencing, remaining open to what He might say that will change everything.. We are to walk in epiphany. And we are to celebrate epiphany in everyone where we see it at work. Epiphany is God’s voice speaking in us to break the grip of what holds us. Epiphany opens the way out of a tough painful, even threatening situation into a glorious new freedom. What God is about to do in us is going to be amazing.
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I had to choose between a powerful picture of Moses standing alone between mountains of water rising on each side, or this picture of a cohort walking the path together through the sea. I chose the cohort, because my strength comes not just from my relationship with God, but from walking together with you..