Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
During the last season many of us found ourselves trapped in low places. Our nation was in a low place, our church was in a low place and our families had some low places. I had nowhere to escape. I had nowhere to run. Having done all I knew to do, I just took my stand.
What I was unaware of was that slowly and insidiously my confidence was being eroded. It was like malware running in the background of my heart that was quietly infecting my thoughts and feelings about myself.
As we began to come through that time I noticed an upgraded anointing and authority resting on some. At first it was exciting, I was rejoicing for them and I thought I would surely receive my own, but as the weeks moved on I began to wonder about me.
I began to feel diminished, not upgraded. I began to feel like a failure for the first time in over ten years. I began to wonder if I had not handled the past season very well. I played over and over in my mind all my mistakes and second-guessed a lot of decisions I had made. I began to wonder about my future and became unsure about what would happen to me.
I had to start resisting the temptation to resent those whom God had upgraded. Sometimes when others are being blessed and you are not, it is like salt being rubbed in a wound.
I decided to have a conversation with Becky, who has an amazing counseling gift, and it was like a dam broke in me. All these raw emotions came pouring out of me with many tears. She listened, made a few observations and pointed out the lie I had believed. We prayed together and that was it. I felt at peace.
That happened on a Saturday morning. The next day we went to church and for the first time in a long time I walked in the door and did not feel like a failure. Arthur Burt told us, “All fear is built on a lie, remove the lie and the fear will die.” The lie I believed was gone and the feeling of failure died.
But that was not all. I felt something rising inside of me; it was hope, an amazing, supernatural hope. It was a revelation of hope. Many times in life our highest revelations come from being in the lowest places. I touched the hope of the Lord in the most real way. I cannot explain it, really.
The Bible tells us hope anchors our soul in the heavenly realm (Heb. 6:19). Just as anchoring a ship so it will not drift unnecessarily from its position our souls must be anchored in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 2:6). Hope keeps us from drifting, due to contrary circumstances, disappointments, temptations, thoughts, etc. Without hope we are doomed to drift through life being subject to every wind and circumstance that comes our way.
I look back at Angel Stewart and the revelation of “Cherishing Hope” she received in the midst of one of the worst tragedies a wife could imagine. I have marveled at how that revelation has carried her forward in life and in Christ. She and her children are a testimony to the supernatural power of hope.
A few weeks after Becky prayed for me I had a dream in which I saw two very powerful demonic spirits attacking me. One was in the form of a python, a very large python that had wrapped itself around me. Becky cut its head off and then cut it off of me. The other spirit appeared as a leopard. It was very cunning and cruel. Becky wounded it in the head and it died. I was in a spiritual battle that took spiritual weapons to win (2 Cor. 10:3-5). The enemy knew if he could destroy my hope he could destroy me, but he didn’t and I now have a greater hope than ever.
Many Blessings, BW