Friday, October 4, 2013

For What You Believe

Esther 4:14

14"For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

Queen Esther or Hadassah (Jewish name) is my absolute FAVORITE woman of the Bible! I have read it over and over and even bought the re-enacted film, "One Night with the King," which I have played over and over. I did not understand that God was using THIS entire Book of the Old Testament to teach and prepare me for what  to me, seemed like my  most difficult task. Queen Esther is the reason the Jews celebrate the festival of Purim every year. For it was Queen Esther's courage and willingness to die for what she believed that revealed the plans of the wicked and saved God's people from the sword. God used her to correct an act of disobedience committed by King Saul nearly 500 years before. It is also the reason why God's people lived on and the lineage of David continued so that our Savior, Jesus Christ, would be born. In this scripture, Queen Esther's guardian, her cousin, Mordecai, who raised her after she was orphaned, wrote to her as she did fear approaching the King, her husband, on behalf of the Jews. To go unsummoned before the King in Persia meant death. Not only that but no one in the palace knew she was a Jew. Mordecai had given Hadassah a new name, Esther, to hide her identity so that she would live when all the women had been taken in the search for the king's new bride. But when Mordecai put it to Esther so bluntly that if she kept silent her line would perish and that God brought her to the level of authority she was in that He could use her for good, Esther, was willing to confront the king, even if it meant death.

I had no idea when God told me to write my second book, Shh Don't Tell on abuse that it would really become a cause. I had no idea that a major advocacy group in our Nation's Capitol would even consider partnering with me as the director wrote to me, "we have a kindred cause." A representative of a government agency in DC said to me, "while we can not endorse anything, we do understand what you are doing and want to point you in the right direction." All I knew when I started was that I had to get another level of healing and it would mean deliverance and healing in others. The battlefield to get to this place was by no means short. When deliverance is involved, the battle is steep. God was so determined to get this book out of me that you all went without a daily message for 34 days. In that time the majority of the first section of the book was complete. With each step of writing, Shh Don't Tell, the enemy raised up three people, whom I thought were friends and subsequently two understood my cause way more than I can explain. Through the door of envy, they began taking the gift of intercessory prayer and the gift of discernment to see in the spirit realm what God was doing and to deliberately pray against whatever God was doing. And no, I am not exaggerating. For God brought two prophets and one with the gift of prophecy, all three ordained ministers who had not spoken to each other on the matter, to confirm what I perceived the Holy Spirit was saying to me. One of the three perpetrators was so bold as to jump on my home church's Bible Study call after realizing God had cut off information to them. The person really believed they would go unnoticed, by a PRAISE GOD for the prophet of our house, our assistant pastor, who called it out on the call. The Holy Spirit revealed who it was and the person gave themselves away as a confirmation later. The second of the three perpetrators began dabbling with the dark arts as a way to add insult and manipulated the third person who they knew was in a place of depression. I even endured ridicule from other who I thought would understand the cause but they spoke against me as well when they realized my attention was no longer on the common goal we once shared. When I made it clear my focus was on the assignment God said had to be completed they began to say things against me to someone close to them. The closer the book came to being finished the enemy threw more darts. God said I had to move. When one of the three discovered I moved, they started following me and even created an alias on facebook to gain access as they had been blocked. I even silenced a fellow author from announcing the book until it was confirmed it was in print. I endured criticism from one even closer to me because the sensitivity of abuse and it was like a bad rift. That's how bad it was. God said the task must be completed no matter what! See, at sixteen years old, shortly after my confession of Christ, I had a terrible nightmare. I was shown children all over the city on roof tops dying. And I heard a voice that scared me very badly saying, "You cannot save them all!" And the objective was made clear that attempts would be made to take me out. It took 20years and this project to understand the meaning of that dream. It meant I had to be willing to die publicly for what I believe. Now, I PRAISE GOD!! For clearly, I am in the kingdom of God for such a time as this.


What do you believe? What if God told you a task had to be done no matter what consequences and fight you had to go through? How courageous would you be for what you believe if you knew it could save lives?

P.S. Looking forward to seeing many of you tomorrow, Saturday, October 5th from 2-4pm at Caribou Coffee House at 1800 M Street!

No comments:

Post a Comment