At the beginning of the year, the Lord gave Christy and me a very simple instruction—to come up the mountain in 2024.
It felt right away like permission for a gap year of sorts, or to do what few would do and not rush in or get too busy right away, yet our hands were already full.
We were soon to discover that our already obvious grand departure from the status quo and the hustle of current church culture would look insignificant compared to what was to come.
We soon found ourselves in a time where our appetites changed even more drastically overnight.
We woke up with different longings that weren’t there the day before and were faced with new convictions we had to follow—no matter the cost.
It felt like a new pilgrimage, but it was actually a call to ascend to a higher altitude so he could RESET us for what was to come.
And it was a reset beyond resets.
Priorities changed. We were changing.
Some days were painful as we reevaluated some decisions we had made, paths we had taken, and dreams we had not yet seen come to pass.
“Let it all go,” He would say. “I’ve led you up the mountain so you could lose the monkey on your back!”
The monkey? “Yes, the monkey of ministry.”
Instantly I knew what He was referring to. We never felt like we belonged in the current system of networks and conference circuits. We aren’t against all of it, but it’s just not our scene.
We have always been carriers of something to come…and that just felt like a man-made building about to crumble.
Then the Lord said, “Up here, you can’t hold on to any of it. It all has to go!”
So we did. Then, one after another, we started seeing things we were involved in or helping with start to fall away.
Closure was happening on a grand scale.
Alignments were changing.
So many things began to die.
Leaven, idols, and anything else we didn’t know we were holding onto just got incinerated.
There were moments of grief not for the things that were dying but for the realization of how much weight and pressure we had allowed to mount upon us.
Things we thought were kingdoms that were just making us doormats and targets for the enemy.
Wow...the air was clear, and so were our eyes.
Then we could see.
After months of processing and throwing burdens and expectations down the mountain, we realized we could see something we hadn’t looked at in quite a while.
It was Tomorrow. The place we have been called to live from.
It was all clear, and nothing behind us seemed to matter anymore.
“That is what this has been for,” the Lord said.
Suddenly, everything that we had been missing in the tension and weariness of transition started to flood back…
Childlike joy. Wonder. Laughter. HOPE…
There were days we cried and laughed in the same sentence.
We felt the embers of revival kindling in us in a way we hadn’t known before.
Hope deferred was lifting, and we were reminded of why we were alive—to point to tomorrow, to see beyond the storm.
And as prophetic pioneers, it’s our lifeline.
When we are in the ditch, we lose our purpose, and so many have been lost and without purpose because they have felt blind for years.
Buried by circumstances and loss.
Immersed in a level of such pain and anguish over what had died and not come to pass that they have become numb and no longer able to see what is coming.
But I have a word from the Lord for you today…your view is about to change. A new day is dawning but do you see it?
Or can you see what has been robbed and lost?
If you come up a little higher, you will see it.
Higher than the sound of the new channels, the noise of culture, and the constant pressure demanding your time and focus.
Above the storm…
If you will commit to ascend the hill of the Lord in the next six months you will depart the place of sorrow and enter into a clarity and restored vision for the days come.
You will leave the PAST and enter the next chapter.
Because this isn’t the Father trying to punish you but to DELIVER YOU!
That’s why you have felt the greatest stripping away this year.
That’s why you, too, have felt the pulling away and extreme dissatisfaction with everything around you.
And this is why you have felt beyond LOST.
You aren’t, but you’ll have to ascend to get the next map.
You’ll have to let go to receive the new instructions.
And yes it’s costly to ascend the hill if you are in love with the chaos behind you or man’s methods and ways.
It’s costly if you are have made golden calves in your own image or built empires out of your own ideas and strength.
But If you are hungry and desperate and at rock bottom like most…the only way is UP.
And I know you feel the beckoning…
And as you do, the monkeys will begin to fall away and the snakes will no longer have access to you.
The ties to people and places will begin to sever themselves in the presence of the fear of the Lord.
And you will begin to see, and breathe, and come alive again.
But let me get a little more real and direct with you;
That hamster wheel is killing you.
That old activity is depleting you.
Those people are zapping you of life.
That old plow has got to go..
Striving to be seen and accepted by those people is stopping you from ascending and receiving the affirmation from the Father you need right now.
Those tables you keep wanting to be at, God is not even welcome at, and yet Jezebel is!
Those networks you want to be part of and those conferences you want to get your face on are full of compromise!
It’s time to get fully delivered of the last chapter and all its entanglements.
It’s time to empty your hands of man’s movements and wash them clean again...
It’s time to break away so you can break new ground with the Lord.
And that can only begin once you take your first step up the mountain and away from the noise.
Pioneers, the new dawning is calling you..
“Who, then, is allowed to ascend the mountain of Yahweh? And who has the privilege of entering God’s Holy Place? Those who are clean—whose works and ways are pure, whose hearts are true and sealed by the truth, those who never deceive, whose words are sure—will receive Yahweh’s blessing and righteousness given by the Savior God. They will stand before God, seeking the pleasure of God’s face, the God of Jacob. So wake up, you living gateways! Lift up your heads, your doorways of eternity! Welcome the King of Glory, for he is about to come through you. You ask, “Who is this King of Glory?” Yahweh, armed and ready for battle, Yahweh, invincible in every way! So wake up, you living gateways, and rejoice! Fling wide, you eternal doors! Here he comes; the King of Glory is ready to come in. You ask, “Who is this King of Glory?” He is Yahweh, armed and ready for battle, the Mighty One, the invincible commander of heaven’s hosts! Yes, he is the King of Glory!” —Psalms 24:3-10
