My daughter, Breanne, loves animals. She always has. She has two birds, two cats, two rabbits, about 16 chickens and three dogs. She has a birthday coming up in a week or so, what do you think she wants for her birthday? Two miniature donkeys. That’s all she has talked about for a few weeks. They paid a deposit on the donkeys, they will be her birthday present from her husband.
In preparing for the donkeys arrival, there has been much to do. She has had to put up a fence and get a building ready to house them in the winter months. Before she could do the fence, they had to clear the property. They have had to cut out trees, shrubbery, haul off rocks and much more work than she anticipated. Day after day they have worked on this project and she has become quite weary from all the work.
This morning she was helping me with a project and she said ‘I guess what I should have said when I said I wanted donkeys was that I wanted callouses, a sore back and achy hands.’
When she said that statement it jumped in my spirit. I said to her ‘oh, thank you, you just gave me a motivation.’
You see, we do the same thing spiritually speaking. Several years ago I had a few people come to me who had seen the presence of God in my life. A couple of those people said ‘I want to know the God you know, I want His presence in my life continually.’ I shared with them how the presence of God had come to be in my life to that degree.
I shared with them how I had walked through trials and challenges and had to press into God like never before. I shared with them how I spent literally hours worshipping God. I shared with them how I spent night after night reading the word of God until I fell asleep. I told them that it didn’t just happen, I labored diligently to enter into that place in God.
When we say we want to walk in patience, I can guarantee you that you will have things come up in your life that require great patience. When we say we want to see miracles, signs and wonders, I can guarantee you that you will go through a season of preparation before arriving at miracles, signs and wonders. If you say you want to walk in love, you will find yourself in situations, just like I did last week, where you may fail the test over and over again until you learn to walk in love.
What I am saying is this; there is always a time of preparation and challenge before you enter into the place you desire to be in God. For Breanne, the callouses, the achy hands, the weariness came BEFORE the donkeys arrived, literally it all came before the gift arrived. She had to make room and preparation for the gift.
We must do the same thing. If we desire to have unshakable faith, we must have the word of God continually before our eyes, continually going into our ears and continually coming out our mouth.
If we desire the presence of God to be tangible in our life, so tangible that others want it, we must cultivate that presence. We must spend time, hours, months and sometimes years cultivating the presence of God in our own personal life before it becomes tangible to others. At least that is my experience.
I think about Randy Clark who has a great healing ministry. He said he prayed for hundreds of people before he saw someone healed. Now he sees healings on a daily basis. The only difference in him and others is that he didn’t give up when he wasn’t seeing the results he wanted to see. He kept praying, knowing healing was for us and for this day. Eventually he broke through into a place where healing now takes place daily in his ministry and he teaches others to walk in the same healing anointing.
You must do the same thing. Whatever you desire of God, prepare for it. Ask God to show you how to cultivate exactly what you desire spiritually and then work to cultivate it. Prepare, I can promise you it will be worth the time and effort. Make room for the gift within you by preparing yourself to walk in it. Don’t stop, keep doing what God shows you to do until you breakthrough into your place of destiny! And then….enjoy that place in God.
