I’ve been thinking a lot about um what I sense God is doing in this season of culture, in this season of our communities and our families.
And I feel based off of what I’ve been witnessing in prayers that God is getting ready to shift.
He’s getting ready to reveal himself in a fresh wind, a fresh wave of God’s glory, a fresh movement of the spirit of God.
I sense it happening. I sense it happening for a generation where they said that they were leaving away from church.
I don’t believe they were leaving away from church.
I believe that they were going to have genuine encounters with the Lord so that they could become disciples.
And witnesses, I see a generation passing on wisdom for the next generation.
I see it coming together like never before.
And I’ve been praying about how we partner with God when God is doing something new and my studying took me to judges.
I’m gonna be in judges seven. This is not unfamiliar. It’s the story of Gideon.
But as I was praying, I believed that God showed me something worth sharing with you.
My subject is becoming a partner but we’ll see what God does.
I’m gonna be in judges seven verse nine.
Of course, my notes disappeared because that’s what the devil does when the devil does what the devil does.
That ain’t no problem came ready to fight judges seven and nine.
It happened on the same night that the Lord said to him.
This hymn is Gideon and Gideon’s gone through a process in judges six.
And now when we find him in the text in judges seven and nine, and as he’s gone through this process, the moment we see him standing in is the moment when he is going to realize what God always knew about Him from the very beginning, Gideon didn’t know it about himself but God knew it.
And this is the moment where Gideon and God have finally gotten on the same page about who he is and what he’s called to do in the earth, the partnership is realized it’s solidified and it says, and it happened on the same night that the Lord said to him that him is Gideon a rise, go down against the camp for I have delivered it into your hand.
But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Pura, your servant and you shall hear what they say and afterward your hand shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.
Then he went down with pure his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp.
Now the MidNite and the Akis, all the people of the East were lying in the valley as numerous as Locust and their camels were without number as the sand by the sea shore and multitude.
And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion.
He said, I have had a dream. To my surprise.
A loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian.
It came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned and the tent collapsed.
Then his companion answered and said, this is nothing else but the sword of Gideon, the son of Jo Ash and men of Israel into his hand.
God has delivered Midian and the whole camp.
And so it was when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation that he worships mm no victory dance.
No, I told you so he worshiped and when he gets finished worshiping, he moves down back into the camp.
He worshiped, he returned to the camp of Israel and he said a rise for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.
And he divided the 300 men into three co companies.
And he put a trumpet in every man’s hand with empty pictures and torches inside the pictures.
And he said to them, look at me and do likewise watch.
And when I come to the edge of the camp, you shall do as I do when I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp and say the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.
Oh God, help me. Spirit of the living God fall in this place is only you can do Lord.
You know exactly who was in this room small and insignificant.
As they sometimes feel God, you call them holy. You call them worthy of partnership.
God, you have a vision for their lives that only you know and only we are trying to seek out.
So God, I pray that this would be a moment of intimate encounter. First, God, let us see.
You, let us behold your presence.
And as we behold you, God help us to understand why you preserved us, why you kept us, why you protected us and help us God to show up in this season of our lives, of our generation, of our ministry of in our family and our marriage.
Not as one who knows it all, not as one who has seen it all, but as one who partners with you.
I think you got that. It’s already done.
May this be a partnership on display in Jesus name? Amen.
And then y’all turn to your neighbor and say something real churchy while I try and find my notes real churchy.
Just God is good. All the time, just say something real.
If you wanna catch the Holy Ghost, now would be the time to go on and grab that holy ghost for me.
If you want Terry, what happened to a testimony service? We used to have?
Maybe we, oh I found my notes testimony over. We hear about it on Facebook.
Look at your testimony and gone down the road.
Um We had this moment at woman that were loose where my dad unbeknownst to me, um plan this passing of the baton wasn’t.
Thank you. I didn’t really know what to do with that.
To be honest, I felt dragged. I didn’t know what to expect.
Um It was a lot happening in that moment.
I wanna stay on the subject but I just want y’all know it’s a lot happening in that moment because first of all, huh?
And secondly, what? And I don’t understand how we have a torch. The jacket is slung over my shoulders, Abra.
He told me when I go watch this video, it was a lot of emotion.
Then he walked off the stage. I ain’t been able to talk to y’all about this.
Did y’all see Bishop Jakes walk off the stage of thou loose like drop, don’t drop the mic and then walked off the stage.
He grabbed my mother’s hand and left me. Abandoned me. Where is Doctor Natasha? I got abandoned at stage.
Have abandonment issues right now because of what happened at woman thou aren’t loose then after woman that are loose.
Now y’all wanna post y’all story. Tell me how proud you are. That’s too much. It’s too less of that.
Less of that. No, don’t do that. Don’t do that because I’m trying to, don’t do that.
Stop. Hey girl, stop. People kept asking me over and over again.
What are you gonna do now? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?
And I was like, child, I don’t know. You know, I’m gonna like not watch this wig.
That’s what I do know for sure because it’s anointed. And um I kept you all right.
I kept praying, you know, God, what am I supposed to do with this?
What am I supposed to do with this exposure? What am I supposed to do with this influence?
What am I supposed to do? And I heard God say you’re asking the wrong question.
God said, what you need to be asking is who do I need to become?
We often experience change and transition in our lives.
And if we’re honest, our immediate response is what am I supposed to do now?
Not just the passing of the baton. I mean, the passing of the job.
You didn’t get it. The passing of tragedy in our marriages and relationships.
We move to a new city, we change our friendship circle.
The ministry isn’t doing what we thought the ministry is supposed to do and we begin to ask ourselves, what am I supposed to do?
What am I supposed to do?
And I heard God say, if you’re only focused on doing, you will not recognize what it means to be in relationship with me doing is the natural byproduct of becoming with God.
You’ll start doing things. You never thought you could do not because you planned it, but because you started becoming someone and as I became the natural organic byproduct of me becoming was I started producing, if you align with who you are supposed to be in God, then producing becomes automatic.
And so often we want to do before we become.
And that’s why we are frustrated because you cannot hustle yourself into purpose.
You cannot do what you see someone else doing unless you become who that person became.
And if you’re gonna become who I became, you have to do the undoing that allowed me to become.
You see, I didn’t just become because it was easy. I had to do some undoing.
First, I had to shed some skin. I had to go through some heartbreaks.
I had to lose something along the way. Some people had to betray me before I could become.
Some people had to walk away before I could become the bank. Had to tell me no.
Before I could become, you wanna do what I do. But baby do you wanna become who I became?
Do you wanna go through what I went through that told me we’re not supposed to preach in here.
But if we could just take a minute at Wednesday night Bible study and thank God that he didn’t just let me be a doer.
He let me be a comer before I became a doer. I know you wanna do.
But if you’re gonna be sustained, you’re gonna have to become first.
I hear God say if you would become, you won’t have to worry about rumors.
If you would become, you won’t have to worry about who’s gonna tear you down.
If you would become, you would see that who I am making you as unshakeable, who I am making you as unbreakable, who I am making you as unswayed, who I am making you, who I am making you, who you are becoming.
It is more important than what you’re doing.
Who am I gonna have to become to raise this child?
Not, what am I gonna do with this child?
God, if you gave me this child, if you anointed me to be this child’s mother, then I am not lost.
I don’t know what I’m gonna do. What I know is who I am gonna become. God.
I’m not gonna lose them on my watch. God.
If you put me in this position, I’m not gonna try and do something different. I’m gonna become something different.
They’ll wonder how I did it. They’ll be focused on the results. They don’t know the results happened.
In me before they came through me.
They won’t understand that the work took place within I became, that’s how I got it.
I became, that’s how I saved it. I became, that’s why God breathed on it.
I became, what’s gonna blow the, what’s gonna grow?
The ministry you’re gonna become and then the ministry is gonna grow as you grow.
I don’t know who’s in this room, but I feel like there was ministry in this room.
I feel like there’s ministry in foreign places, there’s ministry in market place, there’s ministry in awkward places and it’s gonna happen not through the doing but through the becoming the becoming the, becoming the, becoming the, becoming the, becoming the becoming.
That’s what this season is. This is a season of becoming, I’m becoming someone who could stand in that position.
I’m becoming someone who could be someone’s wife. I’m becoming someone who could raise this child.
I thought I was going through hell. I was in a womb.
I was becoming, I thought the enemy was trying to take me out.
God was trying to show me how to walk through the fire and not get burned.
I was becoming, that’s how I got it done.
I’m in the city and I don’t have friends, but I’m becoming somebody in the process.
I don’t know what I’m gonna do on this new stage, but I do know I’m gonna become in the process, I’m becoming, I’m becoming, I’m becoming I’m becoming and I got an audience I’m becoming and I got some people connected to me, I’m becoming and I can’t go back, I’m becoming and I’m too far out I’m becoming and I can’t go backwards, I’m becoming and I don’t know what’s ahead.
I don’t know who’s in this room, but I hear God saying that you’re gonna keep on becoming, you’re gonna keep on evolving and when you get finished evolving, they’re gonna look at you and say it was only the grace of God.
There was no way that anybody with their background and their family and their connection became what they became.
And they wanna say, oh but the grace of God made it possible.
The grace made it possible.
Oh But for the grace of God, there shall I go to?
But the grace made me become something different. It’s not that I did everything the right way.
But for some reason, the gay said, no, you’re gonna become something different.
I know you didn’t see it in your family, but you’re gonna become something different.
I gave you vision so you could become, gave you prophecy. So you could become, I gave you that friend.
So you could become I gave you that.
So you could become, you’re in that church to become, you’re not here to be a spectator.
You’re not here to see what they got on.
You’re here to become God, who am I becoming in this season.
God what are you doing on the inside of me? It’s not, what am I gonna do?
So who am I, who am I gonna become?