Dear People who Keep Company with God,

Two weeks ago, the leaders of our church went on our annual leadership retreat at A Place for the Heart in Sophie, NC. We do this getaway to build relationships and hear what the Father is saying concerning our church body. This year, I was surprised as God's agenda was our hearts. At the conclusion of the retreat this verse stood out to me as to what God is doing with us now: "Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD until He comes to rain righteousness on you." Hosea 10:12.

Previously, I shared that I believe we are in the midst of a shift of spiritual seasons. One of the first things we should expect in a new spiritual season is God dealing with our hearts. Fallow ground is ground that has been worked but has lain dormant for a while and has a crusty outer shell on it.  The fallow ground speaks of our heart. We have had our hearts worked on the last two years, but as natural ground must have times of rest to remain productive, the Lord also gives our hearts times of divine Selah's. The heart like the ground becomes fallow during this time.

One of the things I believe God is calling us into in this season is to cultivate a heart for the harvest. Not long after I came to Mooresville to pastor our church the Lord clearly spoke to me one morning and said, "I did not send you here just to pastor this church, I sent you here for My harvest." We are now seeing this develop in our vision for "The Father's House". I had a discussion with Dan Duke, a revivalist and missionary in Brazil, concerning spiritual seasons and he told me something that has stuck in my mind. "In the agricultural world all the seasons point toward and are for the purpose of the harvest. Each individual season has its own purpose in and of itself, but the greater purpose is for the harvest." I believe this is what Jesus was telling His disciples right after He had the encounter with the Samaritan woman. "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest."  John 4:35. I do not know if this season we are now entering is the season of harvest, but it certainly is pointing us to the harvest.

After we returned from the retreat I was asking the Lord what all this practically meant, and that night Becky had a dream. In the dream we were at a meeting in The Father's House. There were as many black people in the room as white and the Holy Spirit was healing our relationship. Andy was leading worship and a large group of blacks came up and began to sing as a choir with the worship team and individual ones would sing out. It was very powerful and the response of the Spirit was uncontrollable weeping in the people.

When Jesus told the disciples they needed to look up to see the harvest, He was in essence telling them they were going to have to look beyond what they were accustomed to and comfortable with to see His harvest. It was women and Samaritan's on that particular day, but on another day God had to remind Peter on a rooftop in a trance to look up and he would see the harvest of the gentile people (see Acts 10:9-28).

On that roof top I believe Peter began to fully understand what Jesus meant when He said, "Lift up your eyes".  "Opening his mouth, Peter said:"I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, 35 but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him." Acts 10:34-35. "Nation" in the Greek New Testament language means ethos, it is where we get our word ethnic. It is the different ethnic groups of the world that the Lord has assigned to us to bring into the home of His heart. "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations (ethos)." Mark 11:17.

Many Blessings, BW