Refocus

So... I had a thought. If you can remember all the way back to the end of 2019, you can probably remember with me that there were a lot of prophecies, positive prophecies about 2020. 2020 was going to be our year of 20/20 vision, of clarity of sight. I think you’ll agree with me that this year, 2020, has been a year of murkiness! It’s been a year of people dealing with deception; it’s been a year that has defied every template we thought we could place on the year! What does that mean for the prophecies? Did they fail? Did everyone hear wrong? Should we give up trying to prophesy? No. It doesn’t mean the prophecies were wrong, but what a lot of people don’t understand about prophecy is that prophecies are often our invitation to fight for God’s will. We all may wish that prophecies were given as absolute promises of what is going to happen. It would be nice if a prophecy was given and then we could just sit back and wait for it to roll in on us and happen to us, but that’s not what prophecy is. As Paul explains to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:18-19, prophecies are given to us for doing warfare. Paul writes, “This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience....” Prophecies are actually given to us as a sort of heads up for what’s ahead. We can either thwart them through our own disobedience or get in line with God’s word and fight to see His word come to pass. Often times, when we receive a prophecy it will look like everything is going the opposite direction, like everything we see is contrary to that prophecy. That is our time to fight; that is our time to come into agreement with what God has said and stand in faith for it regardless of what we see. If we choose not to do this, Paul makes it clear in the last part of verse 19 what happens. He says, “By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith.” What a crystal clear picture of what happens to our faith when we receive a prophecy and expect it to just happen without any fight or battle. It makes a shipwreck of our faith! We run aground, we can’t go any further, we are dashed against the rocks as our disappointment turns into disillusionment and we begin to question the goodness and faithfulness of God. We can actually lose our faith when we choose not to fight for what God has promised us.Let’s determine in ourselves to stand together for what God has promised us for this year. With just a quarter of the year left, let’s stand for that clarity of sight, for the 20/20 vision for ourselves, for our families, for our nations and for the world.