Eyes on God or my circumstances

Small cat with big angry male lion shadow

The other day I had my eyes on our circumstance and was saying to God, “I don’t understand, hubby only has a little work (we have a small business) at the moment and not even any quotes. What is happening? We desperately need some money.” I immediately then went to, “Hang on, God has said He will be our provider. Therefore, what do I need to know at the moment? Who does God want to be for me at the moment?” I paused and reflected on that for several moments, getting my focus back on God and not my circumstances. Then I was able to thank Him for the provision that was coming. It didn’t mean that we could just sit back and wait for the money to come in. No. We still have to work but God can orchestrate the circumstances for work to come in.

What do you do when you find that your circumstances don’t match up with your identity and your prophetic words and your promises from God’s Word? How do you react? What’s your ‘go-to’ position/thinking?

If we truly believe and understand who God says we are and who he wants to be for us, then we will live a supernatural lifestyle, not a natural lifestyle. Our prophetic words that have been spoken over us are conditional on us becoming the person who has the identity and character that is needed to steward those prophetic words.

Identity is so important. Who we believe we are in relation to God and how we see ourselves tells us our identity. How we live that out in everyday life says a lot about our beliefs, our theology and our identity. How we see ourselves (our identity) is often reflected in how we pray. Can we decree and declare with confidence or do we approach God like a servant?

I believe that most, if not all of us, don’t actually fully see ourselves as God sees us. He believes in us far more than we tend to believe in ourselves. We need to know who we are in relation to God and let that permeate our own life and change how we act, how we react, and how we think.

Our actions and our doing must flow from our identity. If we see ourselves as God’s child, His beloved, a princess, then that influences every action I make from how I react to my children when they ask the same question for the umpteenth time when I have a 1001 things to do, to how I respond to the car driver who just cut me off in peak hour traffic, to my boss with their huge demands, to the neighbour’s barking dog at 2am.

Take a few moments to ask God how heaven sees you, how you are known in heaven? Ask God to highlight certain things to make it very clear for you. Then reflect on whether your actions and thoughts over the last few days line up with how you are known in heaven. Ask God to show you if there is any part of your identity that He wants to tweak or that He wants you to think differently about. Don’t rush these steps but go on an adventure with God, exploring your full identity in God. I find it worthwhile to journal as I am doing this so that I can go back over it later. It also helps me to stay focused and to really flesh out the hard parts with God. My focus when doing this is that I want to grow and become more God like so I need to allow God to show me the things/ parts/ beliefs/ attitudes/ thinking etc that I need to work on and also how to change them to be more God like. I also line up the things that the Bible says I am and go through and challenge myself as to whether they are my core beliefs too.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Have paper and crayons available and ask everyone to draw a picture of how God loves them. Share what your pictures mean. Then choose someone else to draw for and draw how God loves them.

2. Group Activation: Get into pairs. Ask God to highlight a slogan from a business to you that fits your partner and to show you how it relates to them. Share with your partner. Then ask God for a new slogan for your partner – one that describes who they are and who they are becoming. Share with your partner. Then pray for each other, declaring the new slogan over them.

3. Beginner Activation: Put some worship music on and spend some time enjoying being with God. Ask God to show/tell you how you are known in Heaven. Journal what you sense God saying/showing you. Reflect on your feelings associated with that and then how your behaviour and attitude reflects your heavenly identity.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you a person who needs some encouragement. Ask God to show you how He sees them and how they are known in Heaven. Contact this person and share what God has shown you about them with them.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to show you someone who is going to influence local history in a huge way in the coming year. Ask God to share with you how He sees them and their part in influencing local history. Share this with that person in an appropriate manner.

Prayer Trigger – Prayer Target

Silhouette of man and stars sky. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

At the beginning of last year, we experienced many problems with both our car and our computer. They were problems that I considered ‘out of the ordinary’, unusual. These problems were causing us a lot of inconvenience and money. Around that time I had been listening to a teaching from Arthur Burk (www.theslg.com) about a missionary couple who had shifted to an inner city rough area and who were experiencing a lot of graffiti on their wall and dog poo on their grass. They had decided that daily when they went out to clean up both the graffiti and the dog poo, they wouldn’t complain but would use that time to pray for the local gangs in the area. Within a fortnight, both issues had stopped – no more graffiti, no more dog poo. He said it was like the devil had put a huge barrier of demons around their bit of grass to keep dogs away. In fact, dogs wouldn’t go near their bit of grass anymore.

I found this very interesting. I realise that I have minimal concept of what actually occurs in the spiritual world when I pray but I definitely know stuff happens. Thus, I began to change the way that I handled our car and our computer issues.

Whenever something went wrong with the car or the computer, I would pray a one sentence prayer for help with fixing it but then I would always pray for the local drug lord and all the brothel owners in our area to have an encounter with God’s love. I didn’t want to pray any ‘controlling’ prayers, but I wanted them seriously to have an encounter with God’s love since when you encounter that, you find it hard to stay the same. I would always seem to find that within a short period of time, the car or the computer issue would be fixed.

I called this my prayer trigger, prayer target. The problem was the trigger, the target was the local brothel owners and drug lord.

I have not heard of any dramatic outcome in this area, except that people are being evangelised and becoming Christians in the normal local drug hangout area. I do know that our car and our computer issues decreased significantly. Above all, I know that my prayers for the local drug lord and brothel owners are not wasted & that I wouldn’t have normally thought to pray for them to encounter God’s love.

Co-incidence? Not sure. (I always declare that there is no co-incidence with God). I do know that I have a prayer target (local drug lord and brothel owners to encounter God’s love) that I can immediately turn to when there seems to be a nagging issue that is out of the ordinary and costing time and causing frustration. I don’t have to spend time thinking about it. I naturally just pray for them now whenever something is frustrating me or has hit my prayer trigger.

What is your prayer trigger? Prayer target?

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Begin with a time of prayer and worship. Then ask everyone to imagine they are with Jesus. That Jesus has walked into the room and has stopped in front of them with a huge smile on His face. Jesus is bending down on his knees to be at their face level. He is looking into their eyes, wanting to answer any question they have. Encourage them to ask Jesus how He sees them and how He sees their parents. Encourage them to ask Jesus a question they have on their heart that they would like to know the answer to. Have paper and crayons/pencils handy so that they can then write down or draw what they sense/hear/see Jesus communicating.

2. Group Activation: Get into small groups of 4-5 people. Share how the Bible says that we prophesy in part (1 Corinthians 13:9). Each group to select a person outside their small group to give a prophetic word to. Let every participant have 5 minutes to wait on God and hear/see/sense what He is telling them about that particular person. Then have every member of that group share within their group what they received. As a group pull all parts together and then deliver a unified prophetic word to the selected person. Then debrief about the process and about prophesying in part and needing others for a fuller picture.

3. Beginner Activation: Put on some worship music and spend time with God imagining you are with Him and He has His hands over your head. Imagine that from His hands flows a waterfall. It is flowing over you, refreshing you, giving you life. Enjoy the splashing, the colours, the feel, the cleansing. Ask God to refresh your spiritual eyes and ears. Ask God how He sees you, what He wants to tell you, what He wants you to know, what He wants to refresh inside of you. Ask Him any question you want. Draw close to Him. Then ask God is there someone else who needs to hear something from Him also. Ask God who it is and what He would like you to tell them.

4. Intermediate Activation: Think back over the last week. Is there anyone who caused you any angst this last week or frustrated you at all? Now focus your thoughts and affection on God. Give God that person and ask God to bless that person. Spend some time with God thanking Him for that person and asking God how He sees that person and how He wants to bless that person. Pray for that person. Write down what you hear/see/sense God saying and communicate it to that person in a relevant and timely manner.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God asking Him what His heart is for Donald Trump or his wife Melania and how God sees him/her. Write it down in an encouraging, edifying and comforting style. Phrase it using “I sense” not “I believe God is saying…” or “God says…”. Pray through it and then mail it to them at c/o: Attention Donald Trump, C/O The Trump Organization, 725 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10022.