Pray for the finances to come through
Pray for my body to heal.
Pray Paul finds a job.
Pray that God gives me the grace I need to do what He’s called me.
Pray that I have strength.
True to His word, God has always provided. His name is faithful, He can’t help but be that for His people. I know this. God spoke to me before we began our current “warring season” and He told me, “You guys are going to be pushed.” I saw this picture of us being backed into a corner by a sliding wall and at the last second, God said, “Here!” and showed us this trap door we could escape through. I knew it would be difficult, but I also knew He wouldn’t abandon us. Once the season began and numerous unexpected expenses left us scrambling, I went to the prayer house to worship my Provider.
He showed me another picture of Paul and I crawling through the desert, and every now and then we would see a twig in the ground. When we’d stop to question its existence, Jesus would ask me, “Do you believe this twig can grow enough fruit to feed you?” I’d nod expectantly in the secret place and the twig would grow into a fig tree. Jesus showed me that beneath this desert sand there were hundreds of fruit trees that could only be activated by saying “Yes, we believe, Jesus!” I didn’t know if that was for the season I was in or for another, but I wrote it in my journal. We may be in the desert, but God is going to provide.
In another trip to the prayer house, God showed me the most profound vision concerning my journey with Him. I want to share because it shifted something in my heart, and it called me to a new standard of existing. He took me into a garden of multiple fruit trees. He said to me, “You can have fruit from every tree in this garden, but that one.” He pointed to one and we went there. I asked him what it was, and He told me, “If you eat the fruit of this tree, you’ll know what will happen next in your life.” He didn’t tell me what the consequence would be, but He told me not to go there. He said He had something for me. If I was craving fruit from this tree, I could go to another, and He took me to this other tree a couple steps away. I asked Him what it was, and He spoke to me, “This is the fruit of trust.” His heart was bare before me, and He said to me something like, “Summer, you don’t know how it would please my heart for my daughter to trust me!”
That vision has stuck with me-every time I worry, I tell God, “I don’t want to know what’s going to happen next!” One day, I got discouraged and I asked Him how I could prophesy or even receive vision if I don’t know what’s going to happen next. He told me that my visions don't exist outside faith, and that knowing exactly what will happen next is a faithless existence. It changed the way I thought, and how I expected God to take care of me.
Even though I have still prayed for breakthrough, I’ve changed the logic. I’ve told others,
Don’t pray for my finances.
Don’t pray for my health.
Don’t pray that I will raise happy kids.
Pray that my faith will endure.
Pray that I will stand firm until the end.
Pray that I will eat the fruit of trust.
Pray that my faith will increase and increase and increase and increase until I am not even tempted to know what will happen next.
Pray for me, that even when circumstances look impossible, I will hold tight to the promise that my God will NOT forsake me.
Even if I pass on into Heaven, the very fact that I believe God's promises means that His plans still come to fruition. It means that even though Paul’s parents are gone, we take up the promises God had given them, and ask expectantly, “We receive what you had for them!” because God’s promises only wither beneath unbelief and performance. God cannot resist reckless faith. The most wonderful quality about our Father is that when we struggle in our faith, if we're pursuing to grow in it anyway, He fashions our lives in a way that grows us in our pursuit. [Welcome to my life.]
If you don’t believe this, read Hebrews 11. It changes me time and time again. Here is a MAJOR paraphrase, and I don't mind if you skip over it, I just wanted to provide Biblical proof:
“Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.
By faith, we understand that God formed the universe at His command, that what we see comes from someone that cannot be seen. It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain…It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to Heaven without dying…It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood…it was by faith that Abraham obeyed God and left his homeland, believing God would provide an inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going, and even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived their by faith-for he was a foreigner and lived in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God [Amen!]
It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child….A whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead-a nation with so many people, that like the stars in the sky and the sand on the ocean, there is no way to count them.
All these people died still believing what God has promise him. They did not receive what was promised but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it….
It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice…Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, GOD COULD BRING HIM BACK TO LIFE [That blows me away!]….on and on and on it goes with stories of heroes of great faith.
Yesterday, our family has multiple breakthroughs. We had money for food, my husband’s mission trip to Israel, and still as the day crept on I remembered that next week we have bills due. In weeks ahead, we will have rent. Holy Spirit spoke to me, “Eat the fruit of trust, Summer.”
Trust Him. He is so faithful. Trust in His promises, trust what you can’t see, and in a God you can’t see. It activates those twigs to become fruit, it creates pools of water in dry places, and pushes back the enemy’s territory so God’s kids can reside there. It’s our land anyway, He’s just waiting for us to believe it.
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