I PROPHESY - YOU ARE ON A REDEMPTION TOUR!
I'm not sure if this is a prophetic word or an encouragement or both, but I felt such a stirring these last few weeks to share what I believe the Lord is doing right now in so many that have felt hope deferred and soul sick for a long period of time.
I'm talking about the those who've walked through hardship after hardship, breakdown after breakdown and train wreck after train wreck.
Maybe the word redemption to you at this point feels too good to be true and you feel even slightly critical of even it’s mention. If so, then this is for you - let’s watch God break off some deep disappointment.
I’m feel like I’m speaking to those who at the height of promises, dreams, and what they felt like was a birthing suddenly came into calamity, ruin, and failure.
Yes, I'm speaking to those who've had their hopes dashed and have been living in disappointment and survival mode for many years. I feel that to release this properly I need to be vulnerable and share a bit of our story with you.
THE INTERRUPTED PROMISE
Leading up to 2020, God gave us multiple dreams about major promises over our lives, and as you may know - we moved and we gave up everything to follow the Lord without a thought.
In March 2020, we arrived in the United States following a specific dream to come on a certain date. Our goal was to purchase a ministry home ready for our arrival later in the year when our visas were approved. But then Covid hit and we were stuck and we watched as each of those dreams suddenly folded before our eyes.
We lost the home we were supposed to purchase and were essentially strangers in the land we felt was home.
WATCHING SEEDS FALL TO THE GROUND
By the end of 2021, we had to finalise our visas so we went back to Australia with our tail between our legs, feeling like we'd failed and that we hadn't heard from the Lord.
Upon arriving, we were escorted by the Australian federal police to a quarantine facility in Sydney where we spent two weeks there just wondering what we'd done wrong and why all these promises hadn't come to pass. To make matters worse they almost didn’t let us leave because they lost one of our tests on the final day which meant they were wanting to keep us in there for another 14 days.
Thanks to Christy’s fiery “There’s no way we are staying in your scamdemic prison another day longer!” and the great help of the head of police for that area who came to our rescue, we were able to leave.
Then we spent most of 2022 watching the last fragments of all of these dreams fall like seeds to the ground and die. And what was worse it even felt like the Lord was even asking us, “Will you give them to me? Will you surrender the all of them to me?” And we did. But then the big one..God asked us to lay down our visas altogether. So we did.
We walked through grief, and deep sorrow as we gave them to the Lord and placed them in his lap, then let him refresh and refuel us, and He did. Grief began right turn to a deeper abandon, and then abandon into worship, and worship into freedom and delight again. Our slate was wiped clean. We had no chips or cards on the table - just our family and Jesus.
THE WINDS OF CHANGE & SUDDEN DOORS
Then something shifted. Suddenly God was beginning to resurrect some of these dreams rapidly, and by October it was like we were watching every one of those seeds being picked up and the Holy Spirit was blowing upon them afresh.
Somehow the season of surrender and laying down was doing more than we realised. We were suddenly dreaming afresh. Receiving downloads in a new way, and feeling a second wind.
Mind you, this is where the warfare really amped up. Everyone around us starting saying “Forfeit the USA!” Stay in Australia!” It was confusing to say the least. I had already given it up but I was waking up every night at 3am in cold sweats weeping over regarding United States. The war was real, but something had shifted.
Then it happened. God opened a suddenly door and we found ourselves holding the very promise that felt so far away and impossible a year earlier.
THE WORD THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
So we packed up, and in early January we flew to Sydney enroute to the US to officially begin our migration, but when we arrived many of the the hotels in that area we were staying were booked out.
The only hotel that was available happened to be the very hotel that we'd stayed in for quarantine. “No way” I thought, and showed Christy.
“Is this a joke? Is God trying to tease us with this? Why would we have to stay in this hotel the night before we fly back to America? Was this a sign that everything was going to crumble again? Was this a sign that we were going to see further hope deferred and watch these very dreams that God had suddenly resurrected fall to the ground yet again? Were we leading our family through another season of heartache and trauma?”
As we drove to the hotel, we stepped out into the lobby and had the eerie recollection of watching the nurses and federal police escort us out on our last day. I looked over at Christy and she looked over at me. Suddenly, I hear the voice of the Lord speak so clearly. “Nate, this is not what you think it is. I'm taking you on a redemption tour”
As we got into our hotel room, we prayed, and we took communion as a family. I could see it on my kids' faces, “What's happening? Why are we here again 13 months later?” But that night, we had the best sleep we had in what felt like years.
The next day as we went to the airport to fly out we still had a lot of the fears hanging over us, and were still walking through the process of what we had just endured these last few years.
But yet I had this word embedded deep in my heart, “you're on a redemption tour”
THE LAST ATTEMPT TO DERAIL US
Then as we cleared ticketing and security I started receiving messages and emails - somehow all our personal bank accounts had been hacked, our websites crashed, and we had no money to even eat before the flight. But we just laughed it off. We were on the road of redemption and the enemy was mad.
But upon arriving to the United States, we were let off the plane to stand in immigration for over four hours, which isn't uncommon, but strangely were led to an interrogation room where we were questioned about our status.
We werent told why we were there except that we may have to wait up to 12 hours to hear whether they were going to let us in or send us back to Australia. I started to feel that familiar feeling of, “I knew this was too good to be true, this redemption tour” when suddenly I remembered a word a friend gave me only a month earlier about how he saw two large angels standing with us that were gonna break open the way because the enemy was going to try stop us.
And then the Lord took me back to March 2020, when we arrived into San Francisco and I physically saw two angels with the scripture, Isaiah 45:1-3 written on the side of them as we entered through immigration and into the United States.
Wow. Those two angels had not left our side. They’d been there ever since. So Christy, I, and the kids, dropped to the floor and prayed, “Lord, break open the way!”
Instantly our names were called and they said, “we have no idea why we brought you in here, but you could have been in there for 12 hours!” They let us go and it was as if those two angels busted open that door and released us. We were home!
THE ROAD OF FULL CIRCLE CIRCUMSTANCES & DO-OVERS
Now we have been here in the United States for coming up five months, and I can attest to this - God has been faithful and we have indeed been on the road of redemption.
It’s as if He has intentionally led us to places and situations that were literal do overs from the season of barrenness and robbery.
We have found ourselves in full circle moments that had my head spinning of how God orchestrated it.
We have seen every single area of hope deferred begin to come alive and resurrected again.
We've seen every single dream that looked like it'd fallen to the ground restored, and we've seen the years that the Locust had eaten begin to be recovered.
But this isn’t just a cool story - I feel like what we have been going through is not just for us either.
I believe that what we have been going through is a prophetic picture of what the church has been walking through, what you have been walking through. The hope deferred, the disappointments, the dead seeds, the pain, the heartache, the loss, and the trauma.
But let me prophesy over you the same words that God spoke over me - you are on a redemption tour in Jesus mighty name!
I prophesy that the place that you've been stuck in and the experiences and the circumstances that have been dealt to you is not what you're going to end up with.
You are on a redemption tour and it begins now in Jesus mighty name.
I pray that in the area of health - redemption now!
I just decree in the name of Jesus over your finances, redemption!
Over your hopes and dreams and your destiny - Redemption!
Over your relationships, redemption!
Over your family, and marriages, redemption in the mighty name of Jesus!
I command every area that the enemy has eaten and stolen It must now come back and be restored to you.
And I decree this and prophesy this over you - robbery ends this week and redemption begins in the mighty name of jesus!
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten — the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm my great army that I sent among you.You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed” - Joel 2:25-26