Chi & The Branch

Worship song: Fill me up by Tasha Cobbs

Verse: She named this son Judah.

Leah named him this because she said, “Now I will praise the LORD.”

Genesis 29:31-35

It is that time of the year again where everyone begins to reflect on their achievements and look on the New Year with mixed feelings of anticipation and joy. You start to write a list of prayers answered and a second list of things you had hoped to achieve the year before and suddenly you are dismayed. But how healthy is this list, somewhere on it are there some ungodly soul ties that you are not finished with? Does this need that you have poured out to God align with the needs that God has for you? Does this need bring Him glory? I dare you to let go and listen!

Leah’s pain of rejection pervaded my mind this week. God sees that she is unloved by her husband Jacob and so He opens her womb and when she gives birth to her first child, she cries ‘now my husband will love me’, she gives birth to her second saying ‘I am not loved’ clearly still seeking after Jacob’s affection. Finally, she gives birth to her third and she says, ‘well now I will praise the Lord.’ Third time is the charm! Sometimes, we have to fall fifty times over just to TRULY get it. Her storehouse was so ripe with a desire to receive love from her husband she missed the antidote she really needed, Jesus. Not her idol Jacob, but Jesus. So this time round, when you come to write your list of promises you would like to see fulfilled in the New Year. Step back, pray and as hard as it is, ask the Holy Spirit to lean on the crevices of your soul and I trust that by His Grace the need that emerges will be pure and required in your life.

I turn to the other list now, the list of things you hoped would happen and didn’t. I am talking to you and talking to me too. Consider the challenges you have faced and the miracle of God’s protection over your life. Consider the tools He has given you, the experiences He has deployed in order for you to obtain that need at His appointed time, if it truly is His! There was a session in Biology on vaccines in the eighth grade and I distinctively remember my teacher educating me on the formulation of the vaccine, created by using the weakened and harmless form of the disease. Once injected, our body then triggers a natural immune response to fight the disease with antigens. So occasionally, you have to be injected with the thing that nearly killed you to understand how to survive it in the first place – the antidote. If you have never been challenged, if you have never had any obstacles, how then will you know how to adapt to survive it? Know this, if you have faced any challenges in getting the source of the thing you needed this year, you are in good company. Count it all joy! I am glad you fought; I am glad He wrestled with you! I am glad you are here reading this dialogue! I am glad God is not done with you yet!

Prayer – Thank you Jesus for this year Lord! Everything is worthy of your praise. I am so glad that I can walk in faith strong-armed to accept the good and the bad. I look on all things that you have planned for me positively in my future. Equip me with principles to remain positive about the expectations you have for my life. Purify my heart Jesus so that I may not look on anything with disappointment or be resentful over matters that have not come to pass. Align my needs God to yours, yours alone that I might be fully satisfied for your glory. Glory Hallelujah! Amen!

HAPPY NEW YEAR PEOPLE !!!!!