"You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." (Psalm 139:16, NLT)
"Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were appointed for me, when as yet there was not one of them [even taking shape].
"How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!" (Psalm 139:16–17, AMP)
Books have been a big part of our lives for a long time. I've been writing consistently since I was sixteen and wrote my first book when I was eighteen. We've now written and published more than fourteen books and helped many others with theirs as well. There is something special about a new book and about each chapter that flows together to form one.
We've also lived lives full of A LOT of transition. We've been early pioneers, breaking into new ways and paths for the past twenty-five plus years. And that has involved a lot of new chapters, and contending for breakthrough from one chapter to another. Many of those transitions and breakthroughs were hard, full of the unknown and more waiting and persevering than we would have liked. But they were all more than worth it.
Breaking through into Your New Book
As we've waited on the Lord these past few months, we've gotten the sense that, for many right now, the current season of contending for breakthrough is not just about transitioning into a new chapter like many seasons before might have been. This transition is bigger. We are at a kairos time for many, when the micro and the macro are finally meeting and converging into God's best kind of purposes. We are at a time when we aren't just writing a new chapter of the book that we have been in; rather, we are starting to break through into a whole new book! The book God has written and appointed for us since the beginning. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
Many of you can feel the magnitude and intensity of what you have been contending for. But the magnitude of opposition you've faced during this time is only happening because of the magnitude of the promises that await.
It takes a different kind of contending and process to start a whole new book than it does just to start a new chapter. If some of your "chapter" transitions have been challenging but worth it, no wonder this one feels the way it does! But it will be even more worth it because God's word does not return void. And recognizing its nature, and that it is not just a new chapter but a new book, can help you know what you're contending for, and how to contend. It can also remind you that it might not look the way it has in the past. Trust God to make it even better!
The Prequel of Preparation
The book you've been living up until now is no less though. It hasn't been wasted. It has been vital! It is the book of preparation, and you have had to contend from season to season, breakthrough to breakthrough, for each new chapter of preparation that was being written for the sake of the book you are about to enter.
God gave you a vision and peak into what you were to wait and believe for, and you've been persevering, trusting, and waiting the best you can. But first you needed to be in the prequel of preparation, and now it's about to come, the book we have been long waiting for!
So, if the contending feels harder, if the enemy is trying to wear you down and out, remember what is still to come! Revisit the vision He showed you so many years ago. Look at it, speak it out, prepare for it, believe! And at the same time, surrender it back to Him. For when it comes to fruition, it likely won't look or happen exactly as you might expect. And that's a good thing, because when we give visions and dreams back to God, He always accomplishes them and gives them back (in His time) even better than we could've imagined!
"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us." (Ephesians 3:20)
The Promise
Remember how Abraham and Sarah dreamed so long of their promised child, Isaac? And yet, when the time had finally arrived, they were called to offer him back to the Lord. That's because God had a much greater macro fulfillment that Abraham and Sarah were a part of! God wanted to give more than just Isaac to Abraham and Sarah. God wanted to give them as many children as there are stars in the sky and sand on the seashore (Genesis 22:17).
So, it is important that we continue to submit our micro vision and purposes unto Him so that He can make them even better and more fruitful in His macro plan. This is where our purpose and promise become about so much more than us, and our lives and hopes and dreams get written and woven into the book God's been writing since the beginning of time, the book He's written you into, and the book He wrote into your heart when He conceived you. (Photo via PickPik)
"...Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." (Habakkuk 2:2–3)
The promise is yet for an appointed time. Wait for it, for it will surely come! That's the book we are entering. Notice at first it says that it tarries, and to wait for it. Then it finishes by saying that it will not tarry. There may have been many years (perhaps more than you expected) of tarrying. But now it's time for the new book He's been preparing you for. It's time to let God bring it about as the Creative Author that He is. It's time to believe for the part where it will tarry no more.
Possessing the Gates of Our Enemies
Keep contending. Keep standing firm. The Bible talks about possessing the gates of our enemies (Genesis 22:17), and that the gates of Hades will not prevail against us (Matthew 16:18). This means that we will face those gates of opposition. BUT, it is not just a defensive promise that we will be protected from being overtaken when things are hard. It is an offensive promise. It is the Lord reminding us that as we come to this new season and territory, as we face opposition of the gates of the enemy trying to keep us out, those gates will NOT prevail against us, or keep us from taking new ground with the Lord.
The enemy cannot stop the book the Lord has written about your life and promise. You just have to keep your eyes locked on the King and keep moving forward, realizing that this might not just be a new chapter; it may be the book you've been waiting for!
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Joey LeTourneau
The Occular Institute
Email:Â joey@occular.co
Websites: www.letourneaucreative.com |
occular.community
Joey and Destiny LeTourneau are parents of eight, and grandparents of one precious granddaughter. They are visionaries and pioneers who have lived and traveled all over the world, helping transform communities, cultures, and nations by empowering people to discover and live out their unique, God-given purpose, and work with both established and emerging leaders. They have written a number of books and lead an organization called Freedom U, with bases in various parts of the world. They work with The Occular Institute to create community transformation through economic innovation, and have a creative company where they bring prophetic Kingdom messages to life to empower the next generation and their families.
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