Order Renewed
By Margaret D. Mitchell
Week of March 13, 2022
A little over two weeks ago, I had a dream in which I saw flashes of various mechanical and electronic system panels that were spinning out of control. First, God showed me these systems individually. Then He showed me that they were not (dys)functioning independently of one another but were connected. As I felt the system’s overwhelming disorder, suddenly, He made me aware of a simple control switch. He gave me the understanding that all the chaos would stop if I would just flip the switch. And so, I did. That's when I woke up.
This is what I believe to be the interpretation of this dream...
The control switch represents God's light of truth, which in this case, is that He has given us all power and authority over that which battles for power over us. As we trust God in new territory, our faith is built and our minds are renewed in Christ. As we abide in Him, we are renewed in His strength to overcome that which tries to overcome us. When we choose to walk out God's truth in faith believing, we come into His new order, where He works out our salvation for our good and His glory (Revelation 21:5, 2 Corinthians 5:17).
An important strategy here is to hold onto His directives and be determined to operate with Him and His ways. If we have inched away from Him and found that life feels out of control, it's not too late to realign.
Sometimes, coming up higher means going back and picking up where we left off in a particular divine assignment to unstop the wells, so God's stream can flow through us again in the way and at the level He intended.
Since all of our divine assignments flow together like streams into a river, when we shift our attention from the eternal to the temporal, we will sense a decline in momentum and value as our efforts prove life-draining. This is a time when the enemy of our lives likes to take advantage of our weakness, especially by provoking us to discount our actions to believe it's just a little thing.
God's truth is that, when we remain in His specific directives for our specific divine assignments, we will find them to be life-giving because God is our life source and He is with us in them. He isn't in draining distractions that lead to a bad attitude. But rather where He first instructed us to be, which is working alongside Him to build His Kingdom.
This is very similar to remaining in the place of God's glory during tribulation, where attacks can feel fierce, and pain is a distraction that battles to provoke us to retaliate against others and God's deep restoration of us.
In the Bible, we don't have to look any further than Ecclesiastes 1, where King Solomon's pessimistic tone and analogies of life reveal his perceived loss of purpose. His tormented heart and attitude were greatly influenced by the distraction of his 700 ungodly wives (1 Kings 11:3). 1 Kings 11:4 AMPC reveals that "For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect (complete and whole) with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father."
King Solomon proved out that broken-heartedness can happen even during "good" times, when God is building all around us and that placing our attention on distractions leads to a bad attitude and destruction of life.
Like King Solomon, we are called to actively build with God in specific ways. And when our eyes depart from the heart of God in this, the enemy will take our time and energy as we hand it over. These little fox distractions can cause harm in the form of delay, which can result in us feeling stuck and disappointed. Ultimately, this kind of false surrender can cause us to feel exhausted with no redemptive victory to show for our flesh-driven efforts, only vanity. And unless we repent, we can miss God's rewards.
Therefore, we must be careful to set our focus on The One True God and keep our hearts attuned to His, lest we fall to foolishness.
If you have gotten off-track, even a little bit, pray with me if you will…
Dear Lord,
Thank You that Your mercy is new every morning. I repent of believing the lie that distractions, that cause me to turn from You, are like work breaks. I renounce this lie and humbly ask You to restore a good attitude in me. I declare Your truth that keeping my eyes on You and continuing to work alongside You will bring the breakthrough that You and I desire to be fulfilled. Help me to seek You, Your will, purpose, and plan for my life instead of searching for new things outside of Your schedule. Help my heart to perceive the value of what You have already given to me. Help me to run in sync with You and not run from You. You alone are my best escape, not any vain imagination. So, help me to live out Your true vision for my life in it fullness. Thank You for this breakthrough of truth and understanding and for restoring Your order in my life.
In Jesus’ Mighty Name,
Amen.
Margaret D. Mitchell is the Founder of God's Love at Work, a marketplace outreach purposed to share God's greatest power source - the love of Christ.
Originally published Sunday, 13 March 2022.
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