Recently I was in my study in worship when the Lord asked me a simple question “Will you give me that dream?” He asked me. I had been dreading this question for months knowing it was coming.
Since September last year it’s felt like a season of surrendering everything again and watching as unexpected doors closed and the plan changed dramatically. This dream was the last seed I had left and yet here I was holding onto it for dear life when the question came. “Will you give it to me?”
I didn’t want to being honest but I wouldn’t withhold anything from the Lord so I said yes. As I gave it to him whole heartedly a massive grief welled up and out of me like I was mourning a death. It was deep and gutrenchingly painful but I placed it on the altar - the last seed I had left. I spent the next hour on my face as I allowed God to minister to my heart and sever the tie and expectations i had with that dream.
It’s never easy letting go of everything you have been contending for and building for years. This is where many of us have been - a season of being emptied and giving God everything we have been carrying and building. But why?
THE LEDGER OF THE SEEDS
As I was on my face that night I went into a vision where I was holding a ledger and inside was written John 12.24;
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds”
I started flicking through the pages to see the different kinds of seeds that had fallen to the ground in the last few years but especially the last 8 months. This is what I read and what I discerned they represented;
- The seeds of planting/establishing/ & family - the seeds and dreams of being settled and established after a long season of transition. Surrendering these to the Lord has meant having to surrender to an unknown period of time of being in a holding pattern.
- The seeds of purpose/movements and ministries - the seeds of purpose, our ministries and movements we have been building for a long time. God has been asking us to hand them over to Him in this season.
- The seeds of promises unfulfilled - the seeds that haven’t come to fruition that we thought would have happened by now. God has asked us to place them and all our questions in His hands.
When I saw these first few headings I knew right away that these were the seeds that were painful to let go of or handover to the Lord yet were crucial to because of what was going to take place next - the resurrection, multiplication, and increase God was bringing to every single seed we handed Him.
But multiplication and Increase isn’t the only reason God leads us into these seasons - it’s a more strategic chess move than you know. It’s to cut the cords on areas that we have both been in bondage too or will be be on bondage to down the the track that would debilitate us.
THE CLEANING HOUSE & CLOSURE
Then I saw more headings written and I knew right away that these were the categories of seeds that God was sending to the ground never to come up again.
- The seeds of man - the seeds of our own ambition, desires, and will. The things we were trying to build and plant in our own strength and the empires that have been built without Him or have strayed from His design.
- The seeds of the enemies plans - the seeds the enemy subtly planted in our lives that would grow and strangle Gods plans and purposes. These are the seeds of diversion and distraction that were planted to attack us like an inside job when God was wanting to promote us.
- The seeds of wrong relationships and alignments - the ties we have to people, networks, and movements that are wrong for us. The ties we have to people who are secretly pitted against us that we can’t see.
- The seeds of false identity - I believe this is those who have built their life around a religious system or infrastructure of something that is not spirit led and keeping them in bondage. It’s a persona that requires lots of work and I keep and God is confronting that to draw out free you!
- Seeds of generational cycles and dysfunctions - the connection points that keep you tethered to dysfunctional cycles, habits, mindsets, and addictions. God doesn’t want you going around that mountain again.
- Seeds of hurt and trauma - these are the seeds that keep coming back like a dog for a stick. Seasons of pain and abuse have caused you to feel like a victim and God is burying those lies once and for all.
- Seeds of demonic torment - the seeds sown that have created entry points for the demonic to come and bully you daily. These seeds are falling to the ground in this season.
- Seeds of control and manipulation - this narcissistic tie has robbed you long enough by silencing you and keeping you bound like a puppet on a string.
- Seeds of complacency and lukewarm Christianity - the seeds of apathy that have taken the fire away from the church and turned your passion into a religious task.
That’s right, God is delivering us right now for our own benefit even if we don’t see it. We only see what’s been lost but many of us have been straddling the fence for far too long and it’s been wearing us out. This is Gods way of rescuing you even if it doesn’t look like it right now.
You’ll notice that everything that was man-made will stay in the ground, every but of striving, fighting for scraps, lofty ambition, and idea not co-birthed with the Holy Spirit. You’ll also notice that the relational attacks, slander, and constant barrage of chatter against you stays in the dust as God has used this season of deep surrender to clean house, sever ties to the wrong people, assassins, fake confidants, and those secretly opposing your mission.
Traps to avoid in a closure season;
- The temptation to run backwards to the avoid the discomfort of the new.
- Trying to hold on seeds that need to be given to the Lord.
- Taking this process on as judgement or failure.
- People from old seasons trying to reconnect or attach themselves to you.
- Old sources of control and manipulation trying to put their claws in you again.
- Opportunities to rehearse and revive the pain and rejection from a buried situation.
- Taking on the opinions and judgements of critics who are influenced by the accuser.
- Wallowing in hopelessness and defeat.
- Believing the enemy’s lies that it’s over for you and your best days are done.
IT’S NOT OVER - IT’S A NEW BEGINNING
You won’t believe the things God is going to resurrect in the days to come. Ministries, movements, plans, marriages, families, & legacies. It’s felt like a season of handing over the broken pieces of dreams and desires, promises, and destiny you have built your life around, but watch as God breathes new life into what you thought was dead and impossible to raise.
Soon you’ll see that while painful this season was the reset you needed to be able to step into the new day God is opening for you. It’s going to be unexpected for those still living in the grief of letting go of what they built, and what they felt failed. But it’s going to feel like they are being given a new map, compass, and directions as God revives the shipwrecks from the past season and blows fresh wind in your sails.
Your heart may be still numb and feeling hope deferred but soon you’ll start to feel God reviving the deep places of your soul and a fresh rivers of living water will flow out of you again. Have you felt like you went into the grave? Have you felt like it was over? The enemy thought he had you beat? Think again..
"Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel" Ezekiel 37:12
