When God Broke Our Camp...part 2

(Read part one, here)

"In all their human frailty leaned against the gargantuan task, that new generation simply believed, broke camp, and advanced. Even without the leader who’d raised his staff to the Red Sea, rousing an east wind that made walls out of waters.

Fast forward thousands of years. Same God, looking for the same thing: people with bona fide faith who will swallow their fear and step out there into the unknown to make His praise glorious.
Every generation of Christ-followers is commissioned to advance the work of His kingdom across this globe, not to dispossess but to disciple, until a great multitude from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages can cry out with a loud voice,
Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! (Revelation 7:9-10)
Many of the generations behind us stepped up to the challenge and did the work of the gospel, even if it killed them. We read about them. We marvel over them. We quote them. But we’re the ones dotting the landscape now. This is our tenure. They had nothing that we do not have. We have the same Savior, the same commissioning, the same Scriptures, and the same indwelling Spirit. We’re on.
But if we really want to advance, it’s probably time to break some camps."

-Beth Moore, "Break Camp"

When we felt God lead us to break our camp and advance to a new place, we put one foot in front of the other until the job was done. We spent a few months questioning, uncertain if we had discerned His voice correctly, but then we just knew. We knew, that we knew, that we knew that we were where He wanted us.

How?

Because it became all about Jesus again.

I needed Him so desperately during those weeks and months where everything was unfamiliar. It was as though God stripped away all of the people who had rallied for me for so long and asked me to just to be with Him. No one watching, no one expecting, no one needing anything from me, but the Lord God Himself, standing hopeful beside me, desirous of my company.

He became my purpose again. He became our purpose together for the first time.

We saw Him show up in conversations too numerous to count, in prayers to desperate to contain, and in moments to supernatural to deny. We saw His Spirit alive and at work in so many others, and it thrilled us.

Those were not easy days, just being with our God in a new land... no job to do, no tasks to complete. My hands grew restless and my heart swelled with anticipation of new marching orders, something to replace my idleness. But God was not deterred by my restless spirit, He whispered slow and constant the same sweet words, over and over, "Rest in me, Be still and know that I am your God".

In time life's familiar pace has resumed and God is carving out new work for our hands, but the undeniable sense that we are in the promised land has not worn off. We see evidence of His hand of blessing every day and know that His purposes are being fulfilled in the unknown places we have been asked to enter.

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.

So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
 
My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,

When I remember you upon my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

For you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

Psalm 63:1-8