This feels like a very simple yet direct word for the pioneers out there this week, and I believe it will be a continual theme for the year. It feels as though the Lord is setting us on the right path right now. He has been shifting us off the wrong track and onto the right one, aligning us with the right conditions and out of the round-the-mountain-goose-chase many have been on. It almost feels like God is bringing us into an environment or season where things around us finally work or connect. It no longer feels like we are living in clutter or at least God is beginning the process of getting us out of it. We can no longer live bombarded by a constant, overwhelming number of influences and distractions on a daily basis. For the last four to seven years, our pioneering journey has felt noisy, filled with constant swirling chaos. It’s normal in that part of the pilgrimage. It’s settling sail with little to nothing to go on. It’s the season of trial and error - learning to hear His voice and lead as best as you can. That’s why 2024 felt difficult because at the end of that road it feels like it’s the culmination of some wins and advances but so many more painful outcomes to navigate, regrets, and even failures. But coming out of that, the Lord wants to establish us. He wants to set us up for victory in our pioneering efforts so that we are no longer expending so much energy defending ourselves or constantly being on the offensive due to a lack of wisdom in certain situations, circumstances, or decisions we have made. Over the past few years, we have been moving toward a new level of maturity. I believe 2024 was the year of realizing what was not going to work and what would. Now, in 2025, the Lord is bringing us into a place of settling and clarity in key areas, our people, our mission, and our calling. Many of us have gone through a season of redefining our calling. As pioneers, we tend to see needs, recognize things that must be done, and take action. However, not all of these tasks are what the Lord has called us to do. Many are simply things that need to be done by someone, but not necessarily by us. The Lord is teaching us to discern what is from Him and what is simply a distraction. This also applies to the people in our lives. As highly empathetic individuals, we naturally see the needs of those around us. We see hurting people, and we see those who want to run with us. Because we have experienced seasons of isolation, times of feeling like an outsider, there is a part of us that craves companionship. We don’t want to feel like a Lone Ranger right? As a result, we may gravitate toward people who validate or flatter us. We may also be drawn to those who are needy and require help. While these things are not inherently wrong, they can drain our energy and prevent us from fulfilling our main mission. This is something we must address. Right now, the Lord is calling us to establish boundaries. He is leading us to greater wisdom and discernment regarding who we align with, who we pour into, and who we allow into our lives. In our desire to avoid loneliness, we have sometimes allowed “bad apples” into our circles. But the Lord is dealing with these misalignments now. Another challenge pioneers face is our familiarity with mess. We have spent so long dealing with chaos that it has become normal to us. We have accepted clutter and disorder as part of our calling. Some of us have even come to associate progress with drama, as if things must be chaotic in order to be “The Lord” But I truly believe this next season of pioneering will be different. It will be a season of building from a place of peace and rest. The Lord is bringing the right people into our lives, and He is making our assignments clear. We are shifting from a pilgrimage phase of pioneering into a settling phase. This means we are coming to the end of searching for the right location or environment. Migrations are still happening but that will begin to change as God anchors people. Now, it is time to plant, establish, and build the things we have been talking about for the last seven years. At the beginning of this year, I felt a strong warning from the Lord: “Do you really want to go around the mountain again?” There are areas in our lives where the Lord has been calling us to maturity. Yet, it is easy to fall back into old patterns, opening the floodgates once again to unnecessary drama, noise, and distractions. The Lord is asking: “Do you really want to go around that mountain again? Do you really want to keep expending energy filtering out the noise just to hear My voice?” I know the answer is no. The wisdom of the Lord in this season is clear: We must filter better. We must discern better. We must step out of the cesspool of drama, noise, and constant demands. We must break free from the need to appease people and from our own need for affirmation from the wrong places. We must embrace the truth that less is more. We must work smarter, not harder. I believe the Lord wants me to pray today for pioneers, that a great level of discernment and wisdom would come upon your life in this next season. Write this down in a journal: People, Assignment, and Heart. The Lord is calling you to govern and steward these areas well. He is calling you to guard your heart well. He is calling you to steward your one true calling well. He is calling you to nurture the small community of people He has placed around you. As you do this, you have permission to block out everything else. Focus on His face. This will ensure that you are no longer caught in the enemy’s wild goose chase, constantly going around the same mountain, losing time, losing joy, and nearly losing your divine calling. It is time to move forward with a high altitude, spiritual and emotional aptitude, and a clarity and peace that only comes by getting off the broken carnival car of demonic distraction and coming back in step with Jesus. I prophesy, you will not go round the mountain in 2025 in Jesus name! 

Over this last month, as I’ve been off social media, the Lord has been highlighting a profound yet simple instruction for 2025 and beyond. This is something He has spoken to me personally, but I know it applies to many others who have felt a deep reverence stepping into 2025. There has been a real fear of the Lord regarding what we are meant to do, what we are meant to be involved in, and how we are to advance His kingdom. It feels as though, especially over the last six months, the Lord has been shifting our appetites and affections, down to our appetites and desires. He has been prompting us to redefine and even question what we have been doing in the past and what we are called to do moving forward. It feels like the Lord is making a very loud statement to us - begin to build unusual! As pioneers, what we step into in 2025 must be a brand-new blueprint. It is as though we have come to the end of the last map. We had to write it, plot it, and walk into the unknown to discover it. But now, that map is complete. We have walked the path we were meant to walk. And now, stepping into 2025, the Lord is handing us a blank slate, a new parchment and a pen to begin charting a new course. This means stepping into something that has never been done before. It means forging a path that has not yet been paved. But it is impossible to step into the new while still clinging to the old instructions, methods, and mindsets of our last pioneering journey. What needs to happen now is a grand departure. That is why your affections have changed. That is why your appetites have shifted. That is why you have felt an unusual discontent watching what others are doing. It is not that those things are wrong; rather, the Lord places that discontent in us when He is calling us to detour from familiar paths and step into our own unique journey. In 2014, Christy and I felt this pull deeply. At the time, we were involved in a church where I was serving as a worship pastor and we both began to sense that if we didn’t step into what God was calling us to, we would be forfeiting a decade of our lives. We knew that if we ignored the call, we would be stuck going around the same mountain, doing what everyone else was doing instead of what God had placed on our lives. The Lord was asking us, “Are you willing to feel uncomfortable for a season to step into the destiny upon your life?” I can tell you, it was a deeply uncomfortable season of leaving behind the familiar. We had to burn the oxen and the plow and be okay with being misunderstood. Yet now, ten years later, we are reaping the fruit of that obedience. We chose the unfamiliar, the unpopular. We took hold of the blank parchment and began to etch out the revelation of the Lord, taking daily steps of obedience. That journey has now formed a map for many others to follow. And I believe we are at that same moment again. I know many pioneers reading this are asking, “What is my next step? Why do I feel lost? Why does nothing seem to be coming together? Why do I feel the pull to leave this, to walk away from that, to not do what others expect me to do?” It is because the Lord has called you for seasons, not to be a lone ranger, not to be isolated, but to walk in the grace He has given you for the unusual. You are called to step into the unfamiliar, to embrace the unknown, to pioneer a new language and build an infrastructure that no one else is building. Right now, God is redirecting many. It reminds me of the Macedonian call, when they were set to go in one direction, but God gave them a dream and redirected them elsewhere. In the same way, God is now releasing mass revelation to His pioneers. He is sounding a clarion call: “You cannot follow the same path as before” There is a temptation to fall into complacency because it is comfortable. It is easy to think, “God, I’ve paid my dues. I can settle into ease now.” But the Lord is saying, “I have not called you to ease. Ground does not break beneath your feet through comfort. I have placed a sledgehammer in your hands to break the hardest of ground. And as you break that ground, what has been hidden and concealed will begin to erupt.” Wells need to be uncapped and YOU are called to do this in cities and regions that are blocked. We are in a season where the nations are ripe, but the ground must be tilled to prepare for the harvest. So, pioneers, my word for you today is this: Lean into the unusual. Do not do what everyone else is doing. Do not fall into the trap of continuing with the same religious or ministry endeavors simply because they are familiar. Step into the unusual. There is a grace and anointing upon the unusual. There is a grace and anointing upon that which is organic and grassroots in this season. You do not need the masses. You do not need widespread approval from people. You simply need the yes of the Lord. Step into what may not make sense to others, because in heaven, it makes perfect sense. This is your call. 

As we begin the week, I have a word for you. God is resetting our circuit boards and rewiring areas of our lives that aren’t visible on the exterior or sometimes even apparent. Do you feel it? It’s been happening for months now. He is working behind the scenes, doing a deep work right now to get us back on track and declutter many, many years of loose wiring and heavy burdens in our lives. This is where our journeys lead us through unexpected roads, terrain, and difficulties that scatter us and these challenges bring in external influences and distractions that slowly rob us. Think, for instance, about a jug with a pinhole in it. Over time, the jug leaks water until it’s depleted. If it’s not refilled constantly, it requires more and more input to sustain it. I believe many people have been like that leaky jug, slowly losing themselves over time. Right now, the Lord is repairing those small holes, those small fractures and areas of our lives. This work has been ongoing for many months. I even wrote about this in October, November, and December, but I felt led to encourage you again: God is at work. However, if we misdiagnose this process as the enemy’s doing, asking, “Why am I feeling this way? Why are these things coming to the surface? Why does it feel like I have so many issues right now?” We will miss it. God is healing you. He is setting you free. God really wants you whole in this season. This reminds me of how, as a father, when my kids get hurt playing a sport, I want to see them patched up and healed before they head back out onto the field. It feels the same way with God. He wants you completely restored and ready, with the capacity to embrace the amazing things He has for you in this season. But if you’re still running with the mindsets of the last season - empty, soul-sick, or hope-deferred, it will create issues down the road. This morning, I woke up in our new house here in California and discovered a fuse issue. The bottom part of the house wasn’t receiving power. Instantly, I went to the circuit board and flipped the switch for the circuit that wasn’t working and nothing happened. I tried again, but it just kept flipping back. Normally, this is the fix for a tripped fuse. That’s when I realized I needed to reset the entire house. Once I reset the main circuit, the power came back for the whole house, fixing the issue. This reminded me of how God sometimes needs to do a hard reset of our internal wiring, our hearts, and our souls . Every area of our lives needs resetting so we can function properly and the power can turn back on. What does the power represent? It represents the power of God and the Holy Spirit working mightily in our hearts and lives. This process requires us to lean in and surrender to the rewiring. Here are three areas I feel the lord asking us to do this in right now; Our Assignments: God is asking us to surrender the work we are doing for Him. It feels like a holy moment, a new chapter, where He is asking: “What’s in your hands? Are you going to keep doing what you’ve always done, reaping the same results? Or are you willing to surrender it to me, empty your hands, and let me place in them what is needed for this season?” This is a time to step back and evaluate if what we are doing is truly aligned with His plan or if we’re holding on to outdated assignments. Surrender your work, your ministry, and your efforts to Him so He can give you the clarity and provision you need. Our Relationships: God says, “Give me your relationships, your connections, and the people you’re running with. Empty yourself and allow me to put the right people and alignments in your life.” Some relationships may no longer be fruitful for the season you are stepping into. Trust God to realign your community and partnerships, placing the right people in your path. Be willing to let go of unhealthy ties or connections that are holding you back, and allow Him to bring new relationships that will propel you forward. Our Dreams: What dreams, desires, or expectations are you clinging to? Are you willing to release them to God? Enter the secret place, lay them before Him, and allow Him to give you what is truly necessary for this season. Some of the dreams we hold onto may be good but not God’s best for us or the right timing. Others may need refining or replacing. Surrender your ambitions and plans to the Lord, and let Him give you fresh vision and purpose. God is also restoring childlike joy and adventure in this season. As I voice-record this, I see a picture of a child laughing with their father. This child is filled with joy and delight, eagerly participating in the father’s work. I believe God wants to restore that childlike faith and joy to us, something the enemy has robbed from many of us. In recent years, so many pioneers have lost their joy, fire, and fight. They’ve been running on empty. Now, in 2025, God is beginning to fill us with fresh vision. But even with fresh vision, without the power supply to sustain it, it won’t come to fruition. God can give us building plans, but without the power to execute them, they will fail. Right now, God is recalibrating us back to our original factory settings. This morning, I was led to the story of Peter, who denied Jesus three times. After Jesus died, Peter went back to his fishing boat. In a powerful moment of restoration, Peter, still carrying the weight of guilt, ran to the shore when he realized it was Jesus. Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me?” and instructed him to feed His sheep. This moment not only overwrote Peter’s denial but also brought deep soul and heart healing, restoring him to his original mission. Can you see how this is happening right now both personally and also corporately in the church? It’s the Lord loudly pleading “Come back to your first love! Be made whole!” As I say this, I feel led to declare: Dry bones, come alive! You migh t feel like those dry bones in the valley, scattered, lifeless, and forgotten. But hear the word of the Lord: The breath of God is coming upon you. He is breathing life into your weary soul and raising you up to stand as a mighty army. Just as Ezekiel prophesied to the dry bones and they came together, bone to bone, God is knitting you back together. He’s covering you with tendons, flesh, and skin and filling you with His Spirit. You will no longer live in the valley of despair or feel abandoned in the shadow of death. The Lord is calling you out of darkness, out of hopelessness, and into the fullness of life. You may feel like you’ve been lying in a grave, hidden, forgotten, and lifeless, but the Lord is saying, “Come out! I am not done with you.” He is restoring your strength, renewing your vision, and filling you with a fresh wind of His Spirit. This is a moment of awakening. The things that felt dead, the dreams that seemed lost, and the purposes that seemed unreachable are being revived. The Lord is calling you to rise up. No longer will you carry the weight of shame, guilt, or defeat. No longer will the enemy hold you captive in the graveyard of past seasons. The Lord is saying, “Stand to your feet! Mighty ones, it’s time to live again.” He is placing His Spirit within you, empowering you for the days ahead. Get ready for new assignments, fresh alignments, and the fulfillment of God’s promises. The dry bones are coming alive. This is your season of restoration, renewal, and revival in Jesus name!