My days are consumed with learning to be a wife again. I am reminded that this is one of God's highest callings. Making two people into one flesh is always going to require more "flesh-death," more compromise, more laying down of one's own needs and wants and embracing another's. But within that process lies God's greatest victories!
This morning I received a prophetic word from Pastor Matutis in Berlin, Germany. Through him the Lord spoke, "Learn to filter out the negative. Recognize My way of handling your challenges. My wonders are hidden within your problem. My victories are hidden within your fights. My Word has the answer to all your questions. I am rounding things off and harmonizing them. Do not force anything. Do not let it stress you out. My hand moves the brush, putting the right color combination in your life. I am placing you in front of situations and challenges and helping you with the outcome."I felt this word was speaking about the timing of my marriage. John and I are not having fights or facing great challenges in our home life. We are, like all newlyweds, learning how to please one another and set aside our own wants. But the greater message of this word from the Lord was, in my estimation, His instruction for how we are all to navigate through the treacherous days ahead of us. Watching the news on TV can be entirely negative and fill us with fear. The verses of Habakkuk 3 are being fulfilled before our very eyes: "He stood and shook the earth, He looked and nations trembled. The ancient mountains crumbled and the age-old hills collapsed (Japan). His ways are eternal! I saw the tents of Cush (Libya/Ethiopia) in distress, the dwellings of Midian (Yemen, Arab peoples) in anguish. In wrath You strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations."
Yes, the earth is shaking, the sea roaring and the nations trembling! But then Habakkuk 3:13 gives us the great, good news: "You came out to deliver your people, to save your Anointed One. You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot!"
The world stage is being set for the Anti-Messiah to step up with a "solution for world peace" and the desperate nations will follow him and worship him. But we know who wins in the end! And so we filter out the negative that we hear and see - we do not stress out - we allow the Creator to move His brush in our lives, putting the right color combinations together! How blessed I am that He put John and Kelly together - (we call ourselves "Jelly!") We will continue to die to ourselves, learning to serve one another, and together to serve our King, the Anointed One, whose Kingdom has no end!
