(This is an excerpt from the Letters to the Pioneers found at www.letterstothepioneers.com)
Dear Pioneers,
I wrote this last May as the first chapter to the book but not realizing its significance not just for back then but especially for 2024 and beyond.
Many stepped into this year feeling this letter to a T, the deep sense of holiness around what God was doing, the caution not to just continue with the “run sheet” so to speak.
We just can’t. This is a holy moment and we don’t want to miss it.
I can’t even tell you how many times this month I have surrendered every one of my plans and activities to the Lord. I just don’t want it if it’s not Him.
It’s a deep longing inside me for more of Him above all else and an undeniable DISCONTENT for anything else.
It’s the uncomfortable RAW moment that feels awkward but it is there to reveal the new ROAR waiting to burst out of you.
Have you felt it?
This discontent is a gift from the Lord to you because He doesn’t want you to stay stuck in an old pattern and rhythm that produces no fruit.
It’s a sign of the Lord leading you out of the season of deep grief and Sheol and into fruitfulness.
I pray this speaks to you and leads you on the low road that leads to the mountain of the Lord in 2024;
To those feeling a deep discontent,
It starts with discontent. It starts with a sudden discomfort, dissatisfaction, frustration, and feeling like something is off or missing. It starts with a deep crying out to deep, a longing for more.
It starts with a grief that sits in the very recess of your soul that is telling you that something is out of alignment and you need to pay attention to whatever it is or you’ll keep feeling this sorrow overtake you.
It's the epiphany of the vast unknown that needs to be explored and the incredible discontent that you have with your current surroundings.
It's the realization that unless you move, shift, break out of where you are, you'll no longer be fulfilling the call of God upon your life in the way that you are meant to.
DAVIDS DISCONTENT
I believe David lived with the same discontent. A boy whose sole job was to shepherd sheep in the wilderness. A boy that was overlooked, unseen, invisible, and outside the system. When Samuel came to the house of Jesse to look for a king, he was so overlooked that even his father said, these, all my sons, and David was not one of them, yet God saw him. When david was anointed by Samuel it’s like he was suddenly commissioned with a holy discontent that would lead him out of his season of minding sheep and into a season of stepping into the greater calling upon his life.
I believe this discontent is what caused David to see Goliath not as a problem or an obstacle or a mountain in front of him, but an opportunity.
David saw Goliath as his responsibility to take care of because he was driven by a discontent that was not his own, but the Lords. He knew that this Goliath had his name on it and unless he took this Goliath down, he just wouldn't be fulfilling the call that was upon his life and would be falling into disobedience.
He knew this giant was made for him and him alone even though by outward appearances he was unqualified, not equipped, too small, and didn’t have the right armor. Yet against all odds this discontent was what drove him into his destiny and secure the victory for his people.
So many times we've felt this over the years, and I believe many men and women of God, leaders, pastors around the world have felt the same discontent too. But we have seen it as a sin saying “There's something wrong with me. I must be ungrateful. There must be something wrong with my heart. I better ask for forgiveness. I better repent!”
But what if God placed that upon your life to shift you out of the stagnancy you've been in and used it to lead you into something you did not even know you were created for?
This discontent is not the fruit of a heart that is complacent, but a life that is surrendered.
This discontent is the sign and the symptom of a person who has said yes to the Lord, and God has said, “okay, here is your next assignment, but it's going to be uncomfortable. Here is your next assignment, but you are gonna move against the grain. Here is your next assignment, but you're gonna have to forsake all to follow it. It's gonna cost you everything”
THE TEARING OF DIFFERENT CLOTHS
It could be said that this discontent feels like a tearing away. It feels like God is literally detaching you from every place of comfort or area you placed your trust in that was shakeable or sinking sand.
It's a sovereign act of the Lord to begin to close doors and lead you out of things that would only cause you to be stuck or stagnant and tethered to the old move and the old thing. And right now, God is shaking up the church and he's making us feel a discontent for what no longer carries his glory.
He's making us feel a dissatisfaction to keep eating the old manna of yesterday. We can't keep reheating the old moves frozen meals. We can't keep snacking on the party food of the kingdom of God when we're called to hunt and find the meat - the new thing that God is doing.
We can't keep licking the last drops of the old wine when we're called to tap into the new and usher it into the earth.
Ever heard the phrase “You are made from a different cloth?” Pioneer that is you. You are literally fashioned in heaven with a dna and language for a time yet to come.
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” Matthew 9:16-17
Recognise in this moment that you are not a rebel. You are not against the church. You just don't fit that mold. You don't fit the old thing because you're called usher in the new.
You are no longer fed by something that no longer carries the fullness of glory because you are called to tap into the unlimited flow of a new spring bursting up.
THE TEARING AWAY OF THE FAMILIAR
Pioneers, this is is a time that you are feeling the tearing taking place right now in assignments, in relationships, and alignments, where God is literally causing you to feel the tearing of wine skins and bringing you into a season of having to choose to keep going along with the old, or to lean into the new and being a part prototype for it. It a call to stay fruitless or be the first fruits of the new thing.
It a call to move away from the familiar and tried path and to lean into the unfamiliar and that which has not be walked or road tested. It’s a road few say yes to easily. But this is the hour.
It's a time where it'll be unpopular to move with the Holy Spirit, but you know that you will just not feel like you are being your authentic self unless you do,
It’s a time that you may feel that tearing taking place with some that you have been in alignment with, and you'll have to just lean into the Lord even deeper as you say yes to that process.
It’s a time where you'll have to lay down those assignments that you've been running with for a long time and step into the new and a time of surrendering to the new blueprints, themes, and plans that the Lord is revealing to you.
A NEW CYCLE OF PIONEERING
I believe we're in a new cycle of pioneering, which always starts with this great discontent and holy fear. It's like where you feel a red light or a caution, or a holdback or momentary stop sign. There's just this moment of reverential warning that you cannot move forward without him.
Like Moses said, “unless your glory goes before me, I will not go” In your spirit, you've just been sensing this reverential fear and this cry deep within you of, “Lord, unless your glory goes before me, I'm done with what I have been putting my hand to”
Like Elisha who knew he couldn’t go back after Elijah threw his mantle on him, you know that you just can’t go back to the old plow and old activity you were involved in.
You know that your name has to be changed and your role has changed and you have to let go of what you were doing to embrace whatever is coming.
THE CALL TO THE PURE THING
The discontent is a call to purity because pioneers have a calling to that which is genuine, untainted, and uncompromised. The Lord uses the pioneers to experience and encounter this first, so then they can lead the church out of stagnation and into that which is fresh, flowing, and pure.
Right now across the body of Christ, God is stirring up discontent in the hearts of pioneers and a remnant that have not bowed their knee to culture and not allowed themselves to fall prey to the appetites of this world.
God is right now stirring up discontent in those within the institution who who cannot be lulled to sleep like others around them nor are they impressed by the achievements and accolades of man that is valued in the western church. They just can’t be like others who have fallen into apathy and weariness in their faith.
They just can’t be sold for celebrity status or the praises of man.
God is stirring up a discontent in a people that would break the church free from her chains of bondages and lead her into her next chapter and her best days.
This is why you are feeling what you are feeling right now. This is why you've been feeling unsettled with the current state of the church. Why you can't seem to even sit through a service the way you once did.
Is why you've been frustrated with the buzz words and the cliches. You can't go back. You can't go back to the Christianity you once knew.
Pioneers, there’s nothing wrong with you. You are the bell ringers of a new day and new hour in the body of Christ.
THE GREAT DETOUR
God is right now leading you away from movements that are no longer moving. He's leading you away from messages that no longer carry the freedom they once did, and he's leading you away from the path that is going to cause you to fall asleep like the many others who have fallen asleep before their time.
He is putting a bad taste in your mouth for the ministry machine and the career Christianity model. He is breaking your longing to be seen and popular. He is instead giving you a voice and influence that transcends the status of man.
You are in a detour that is reshaping your affections and desires. You will find that you can no longer feel the synergy and peace you once did for Christian activities and projects you once held dear, but you’ll sense the pulling away to build that which has not be done before.
Right now God is also awakening those who have been in a season of decommissioning, a season of being on the sidelines, those that people counted as the fallen, the compromised, those who crashed and burned and shipwrecked. God is awakening them as he's remnant, as his pioneers. You'll feel as if overnight you woke up to a fresh wind and a fresh fire burning in your spirit, and the longing to break free at all costs for whatever lay ahead of you.
CANA & THE VOID
Pioneers, just as in the story of Jesus at Cana, where the wine that was used for the feast ran out. We are in that moment right now in the body of Christ. Can you see it around you?
Can you see the evidence of the drought that has been upon the church where people are scrambling for the last drops of an old way?
There’s been a desperation, a struggle, a fight, and a wrestle.
People desperately trying to grasp on to the memories of something powerful yet past. Movements that have become monuments and museums, void of anything living and a power that is no longer present.
We have traded the Holy Spirit for intellectualism. We've begun to be opinion fueled protestors Instead of powerfully postured revivalists carrying the torch of truth and justice. We have begun to rely on her own understanding.
This is all the signs of the void, the tearing and the crossover and you pioneers are called to usher in the new, to be the new, to lean into the new.
The Lord today is wanting to affirm that what you've been feeling Is not rebellion, but it is holy. This detour is him leading you on a new pilgrimage with him. This longing is a sign of being marked for a move that has not yet even begun.
It is a calling and a branding of a people that have been assigned to a to the future and right now been given the task of walking out a journey so others can follow in it.
THE VALLEY OF DECISION
Pioneers right now you are in a valley of decision and before you lay two choices. Will you choose to lean in to this discontent or will you run from it?
Will you surrender your heart to the Lord afresh?
Will you lay down your methods, your blueprints, everything you thought you knew? Will you lay them down today?
Will you say “yes, Jesus, I choose you over my denomination. I choose you over my theology. I choose you over the opinions of man, over the teachings of man. I choose you even above being accepted by my community, above the people I'm trying to stay connected to. Above my reputation”
Will you choose him above all else?
Will you stop fighting the discontent and begin to step into it so you can see the fruit of it?
We're in the void and the hallway of eras and this is the moment not to hide and to wait for it to pass, but to grasp it with both your hands and choose this moment to give your life, and to follow him wherever it leads.
Pioneers, this is your brand new day and first step on a new adventure with God. Will you say yes? Only time will tell.
