WHAT IT REALLY MEANS WHEN YOU HAVE A TARGET ON YOUR BACK
You are moving mountains the enemy is occupying. Your obedience is shifting spiritual atmospheres, tearing down strongholds, and disrupting the enemy’s plans.
You are taking ground the enemy thought he owned. Every step you take is reclaiming territory for the Kingdom of God, advancing into areas the enemy has long held captive.
You are moving out of survival into the freedom of the Lord. You are breaking free from cycles of fear, lack, and striving, stepping into the abundant life Jesus promised.
You are a threat to the enemy’s plans. The enemy is targeting you because your obedience carries divine strategies that dismantle darkness.
You are undergoing promotion and elevation. This season of warfare is preparing you for greater authority and influence. God is refining you for new levels of leadership.
You are about to give birth to a new move of God. The intensity you feel is the spiritual labor leading to a release of new life, new vision, and new assignments.
The enemy is attacking your voice and confidence because it is powerful. Your words carry heaven’s authority, and the enemy fears what will happen when you speak out in boldness.
The mental warfare is designed to distract you from your assignment. Confusion, doubt, and fear are weapons the enemy uses to divert you from the path God has laid out for you.
You are on the verge of breakthrough. The enemy’s resistance is often greatest just before the fulfillment of God’s promises. Your breakthrough is imminent.
You are being prepared to lead others into freedom. Your battle is not just about you—it’s about the people you are called to deliver and lead into wholeness.
The battle is confirmation of your calling. The intensity of opposition reveals the significance of your assignment. You are marked by God for a great purpose.
The target on your back is evidence that the enemy sees you as a threat. You are being attacked not because you are failing, but because the enemy knows you carry the power to win.
The One who called you is faithful to finish what He started. God is with you in every battle. What He began in you, He will complete. He will see you through to victory.
You are increasing in anointing. The pressing you feel is producing new oil—fresh anointing that will empower you to carry greater spiritual authority.
You are about to enter a new season of visibility and influence. God is positioning you to be seen and heard in ways you have never experienced before. Your time to shine is near.
You are about to build what the enemy has tried to hold back provision on. The resistance against your resources is because what you are building will dismantle darkness. But provision is being released.
You are breaking through the ceilings of demonic holds. The limitations the enemy tried to place over you are being shattered. You are rising above the boundaries of fear, oppression, and control
You are walking in obedience that terrifies the enemy. Your steps of faith are advancing God’s kingdom and disrupting the enemy’s plans, causing him to panic.
You are breaking generational cycles and strongholds. You are confronting spiritual patterns that have held people captive for generations, becoming a pioneer of freedom.
You are walking into promises the enemy tried to steal. What the enemy delayed, God is restoring. You are about to claim promises that have been held back.
You are being transformed to carry new oil. The process you are in is producing fresh revelation, strength, and anointing for the next season.
The enemy is trying to exhaust you so you give up. Fatigue and weariness are his tactics, but God’s grace is sufficient—He will renew your strength.
Your mind is under attack because your thoughts shape your future and guide your steps. The enemy knows if he can influence your thinking, he can derail your destiny by leading you off course and creating Ishmaels, but God has given you the mind of Christ.
You are facing opposition because your prayers are effective. The enemy fears your intercession because it releases heaven’s will on earth and shifts spiritual atmospheres.
You are stepping into a new level of identity and authority. The attacks on your identity are attempts to keep you from fully stepping into who God has called you to be.
The attack is proof of your influence in the spiritual realm. Your life carries spiritual weight, and the enemy’s resistance is proof that you are making an impact.
God is using the pressure to reveal what cannot stay. The battle is exposing lies and fears that God is purging from your life to make room for His fullness.
You are aligning with God’s timing, which the enemy hates. You are stepping into divine timing, and no force in hell can stop what God has ordained for you.
The warfare will serve as a testimony to others. What you overcome will become a testimony that strengthens and guides others through their own battles.
Hold your ground. The intensity of the warfare is not a sign of defeat but a sign of impending victory. What you carry is worth fighting for, and what God has promised you will come to pass. Stay faithful—breakthrough, provision, and freedom are on the horizon. So as you see the bullseye hovering over you begin to praise God because you are moving and shaking and evicting darkness. KEEP GOING!
RELATED prophetic WORDS:
RELATED prophetic WORDS:
By Nate Johnston
•
June 6, 2025
I have some encouragement for the pioneers. Over the last few weeks, I’ve kept hearing this language - that we are at thresholds of faith. What is a threshold? A threshold is defined as: the point of entering or beginning something new. So, what is a threshold of faith? A threshold of faith is a place you come to when you can no longer keep operating or living within the confines of your previous limitations. God is leading you into a significant breakthrough in that area to expand you and prepare you for what’s coming. Thresholds of faith at first feel like pressure. They feel emotionally triggering. They feel like the enemy is warring against your mind. It can feel even feel like a rollercoaster of soul highs and lows as God brings precious things to the surface to free you and lighten you. Why? Because God is pulling you higher, and the enemy is trying to keep you lower. God is calling you to fly like an eagle, while the enemy wants to keep you grounded with the turkeys. In this calling we go from glory to glory with God (2 Corinthians 3:18). So He’s always leading us into greater levels of truth about who we are and about our calling as sons and daughters, as leaders, and as fathers and mothers. There are always deeper dimensions of capacity, anointing, character, and fruit that we are meant to walk in. So we go through thresholds of faith not because something is wrong or because things are falling apart, but because we’ve asked Him for more. This pressure is the very thing we’ve been praying for. But we often forget - before breakthrough comes, God upgrades our internal operating system. If He brings us into breakthrough without transformation, we’ll crash and burn. The issue is that In this consumer-Christian culture we’ve inherited, we want our circumstances to change, but we often resist the internal transformation required. We avoid deliverance. We avoid healing. We avoid conviction. We avoid the refining fire. We want the goods without the fire. We want the promise without the pruning. But it doesn’t work like that. Right now, the Lord is trying to pull us higher, but there’s been a battle. There’s been tension. And there are moments where everything around you feels like it’s in ruins. Promises haven’t come to pass and God didn’t come through. That’s where the fight is because it feels too late, like it’s the eleventh hour and so how can you trust God again when your last promise didn’t come to pass? By faith even Sarah herself received the ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.” - Hebrews 11:11 Sarah’s breakthrough looked impossible. She was past the point of fruitfulness. But God was working internally. She had to shift her focus to His ability, not her own. She had to stop striving and simply trust His miracle-working power. That’s how you know you’re at a threshold - you feel barren. You feel like nothing is working. And yet, God is asking you to believe again. To dream again. To step forward into something you don’t even have faith for yet. He’s not asking for perfect faith. He’s asking for a yes. Thresholds often feel like the most broken, most vulnerable, most disqualified place you’ve ever been. And that’s exactly where God chooses to expand you. Not when everything’s in order. Not when you feel strong. It’s when you feel empty, unworthy, and unprepared that He calls you into the new. As I was praying about this, I kept hearing the word “Jordan” and I instantly knew what the Lord was showing me. In the Bible, the Jordan River represents thresholds of calling, identity, and breakthrough. Joshua 3:17 – The Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. 2 Kings 2:8 – Elijah struck the Jordan before being taken up. 2 Kings 2:14 – Elisha crossed back with a double portion. Matthew 3:13 – Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, then led into the wilderness. Genesis 32:22 – Jacob crossed the brook Jabbok (connected to the Jordan), leaving behind his old identity and life. I believe we are at the Jordan right now with our foot about to step in. Oh not deeper waters! It’s scary. What if I can’t swim? What if I trip? That’s what we feel in this moment. I’ve felt it in my own life where God is stretching me and I know it’s for my benefit. But in the natural, it looks like warfare, mental attack, depletion and robbery, failure, closed doors, confusion, and feeling out of your depth. Why? Because God is revealing the places you’ve placed your trust, your identity in and is revealing where you leant on your hustle, your gifting, and your own strength. Those things can’t sustain you anymore. And at the same time, the enemy is trying to discourage you, to make you give up right at the point of the threshold. He wants you to break right before your breakthrough. But God is asking you: Will you trust Me in this moment? Will you believe even when it doesn’t look like it’s working? A few months ago, I was in that exact place surrounded by doubt and pressure. And I heard the Lord whisper “The only way to survive this season is to stay at My feet. Stay in My presence.” That’s the key to crossing the threshold. Not knowledge. Not connections. Not hustle. Just surrender. So I prophesy this over you now - Just as Caleb and Joshua lingered in the tent and came out with a different spirit, so will you. You will cross the threshold with new eyes, new ears, and a new heart. Even now, God is breaking off the old operating system. He is breaking off the pain and reproach of your past. “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” - Joshua 5:9 The shame, the failure, the false labels they are being cut away. You are being recommissioned. This threshold of faith is the breakthrough you’ve been praying for and it’s time to step over in Jesus name!
By Nate Johnston
•
June 3, 2025
One of the greatest epidemics of the church is breaking right now. And as we start this week, I want to pray over you and prophesy into your life especially if you’ve been isolated by the enemy or been in a season of feeling very disconnected from other believers and from people. If you’ve seen attack and warfare on your relationships, marriages, your kids, and those around you… If you’ve gone through season-after-season of wrong alignments, unhealthy coverings, Sauls instead of fathers & mothers, all while being surrounded by wolves... Or if you’ve just been rejected over and over again, and it’s sent you into isolation. I believe the Lord is speaking to us all in this season. I believe we are seeing a spiritual movement both on a micro and a macro level right now to shift this tide. We’re seeing the Lord expose an assignment that has been allowed and tolerated in the body of Christ for too long. That assignment is isolation. It’s a tactic of the Jezebel spirit, one that has hidden easily within the institutional church paradigm and its thrived within the current culture of the church. But the Lord is weeding it out, exposing it, and bringing us back into the revelation of family and belonging. That truth is counteracting and unloosing the bonds of this demonic principality because people are no longer interested in a nice sermon if they have to go home and be alone in the week. This spirit has worked overtime on us. It’s a principality that hasn’t just broken apart the body of Christ into factions and denominations. It’s also stopped the most powerful voices, those carrying truth, and authority from rising into their place. It’s created a cancel culture within the church. An isolation culture. It’s created antisocial behavioral norms within the church, and we’ve accepted it for too long. But I prophesy today - That is all shifting. I prophesy it’s shifting over your life most importantly. As I was praying into this, I asked the Lord why Jezebel seems so invested in creating this kind of division and isolation. And He said that Jezebel recognizes the power and anointing that comes when the church walks in unity. That’s the macro. The Jezebel spirit knows that when believers support one another, when we link arms, there is an anointing that is unleashed. Because if it can isolate - it can assassinate. Let me say that again - If Jezebel can isolate, it can assassinate. Why do you think so many people can attend church on a Sunday and still feel utterly alone? Why is it accepted that we go to events and meetings and conferences, but still lack genuine connection? The church has often wrapped mission in religious activity, while relational connection, the very essence of family has been lost. It’s led us into pain and deep spiritual disconnection. And it’s time for this to shift. As I continued to pray, the Lord reminded me of the seasons in my own life where this spirit came after us again and again. I remembered being in churches where the nature of our calling led to sudden rejection, pushing us out of community. I remembered delivering a warning word to leaders, and immediately being outcast. I remembered being in a toxic work environment, where a Jezebel-influenced boss physically isolated me in a separate building so she could bully me. And I remembered the many times this happened in ministry spaces. It’s happened over and over again and we have all become used to it. We’ve learned to operate alone. And we’ve called it “normal” ministry life. We say the church is a family, but so many have lived as lone rangers even inside a church setting. But this is breaking now! Look at Elijah in 1 Kings 18. Jezebel threatens him. And he runs for his life. He hides in fear. He isolates. And even though God looks after him, there are a few things that take place in that moment that I believe the Lord is highlighting now as a blueprint for us. First, Elijah is fed. I see this in a few lights - one as the fresh manna from heaven and sustenance building him up again. Secondly, in light of the breaking bread of Acts 2 pointing to God leading him out of isolation. And thirdly as the bread of deliverance. Next he’s reminded of the still-small-voice because fear had drowned it out. In isolation and fear, the voice of the Lord pulls us out because we are so bombarded by lies and it’s the enemies lies that keep us there. Right now the lies that sent you there need to be broken. Then what happens? Elijah wraps his mantle around his face and leaves the cave which is prophetically representative of choosing to pick up what we dropped when we went through the pain of slander and accusation that led us to isolation in the first place. It’s picking up our calling again. Oh but it’s also more. It’s choosing to allow your heart to let people in after a season of being wounded. I believe this is the invitation from the Lord right now. To leave the cave. To leave the place of isolation. I know it’s easier said than done. I know many of you are afraid, and rightfully so. You’ve been burned. You’ve been rejected. But there is a grace right now to break this assignment of isolation and assassination that has put your gifting on pause and your purpose on the back burner. This is a season of finding your tribe. Finding the people who will lift your arms. It’s time to step out of religious, controlled environments and into true community. Into spiritual family. There is a remnant rising for this moment and we are linking arms while creating safe spaces. Pastors and leaders from all walks of life are laying their brands in the dust and choosing connection over control. It’s the Acts 2 core calling us back to breaking bread. This is the priority now. We are better together. Healthier together. Even COVID was a prophetic image of the enemy’s plan to isolate. But we’re saying no more. We will not let this spirit mute our voices or steal our destinies. We need each other. So I prophesy over you: This moment right now marks the breaking of isolation. Loneliness is breaking off of you. It’s time to find your people I prophesy this week you will feel something stirring on this front. A stirring. A longing. Your heart beginning to feel again. And bondages will break in the process. You’ll feel the shift inside and see it on the outside as God brings this into being. I prophesy - New environments, new rooms, new tables places you never imagined will open to you. God can do it in a short time. But I also challenge you , you need to step out. Start walking toward the community God has prepared for you. Because isolation is over In Jesus’ name.
By Nate Johnston
•
June 6, 2025
I have some encouragement for the pioneers. Over the last few weeks, I’ve kept hearing this language - that we are at thresholds of faith. What is a threshold? A threshold is defined as: the point of entering or beginning something new. So, what is a threshold of faith? A threshold of faith is a place you come to when you can no longer keep operating or living within the confines of your previous limitations. God is leading you into a significant breakthrough in that area to expand you and prepare you for what’s coming. Thresholds of faith at first feel like pressure. They feel emotionally triggering. They feel like the enemy is warring against your mind. It can feel even feel like a rollercoaster of soul highs and lows as God brings precious things to the surface to free you and lighten you. Why? Because God is pulling you higher, and the enemy is trying to keep you lower. God is calling you to fly like an eagle, while the enemy wants to keep you grounded with the turkeys. In this calling we go from glory to glory with God (2 Corinthians 3:18). So He’s always leading us into greater levels of truth about who we are and about our calling as sons and daughters, as leaders, and as fathers and mothers. There are always deeper dimensions of capacity, anointing, character, and fruit that we are meant to walk in. So we go through thresholds of faith not because something is wrong or because things are falling apart, but because we’ve asked Him for more. This pressure is the very thing we’ve been praying for. But we often forget - before breakthrough comes, God upgrades our internal operating system. If He brings us into breakthrough without transformation, we’ll crash and burn. The issue is that In this consumer-Christian culture we’ve inherited, we want our circumstances to change, but we often resist the internal transformation required. We avoid deliverance. We avoid healing. We avoid conviction. We avoid the refining fire. We want the goods without the fire. We want the promise without the pruning. But it doesn’t work like that. Right now, the Lord is trying to pull us higher, but there’s been a battle. There’s been tension. And there are moments where everything around you feels like it’s in ruins. Promises haven’t come to pass and God didn’t come through. That’s where the fight is because it feels too late, like it’s the eleventh hour and so how can you trust God again when your last promise didn’t come to pass? By faith even Sarah herself received the ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.” - Hebrews 11:11 Sarah’s breakthrough looked impossible. She was past the point of fruitfulness. But God was working internally. She had to shift her focus to His ability, not her own. She had to stop striving and simply trust His miracle-working power. That’s how you know you’re at a threshold - you feel barren. You feel like nothing is working. And yet, God is asking you to believe again. To dream again. To step forward into something you don’t even have faith for yet. He’s not asking for perfect faith. He’s asking for a yes. Thresholds often feel like the most broken, most vulnerable, most disqualified place you’ve ever been. And that’s exactly where God chooses to expand you. Not when everything’s in order. Not when you feel strong. It’s when you feel empty, unworthy, and unprepared that He calls you into the new. As I was praying about this, I kept hearing the word “Jordan” and I instantly knew what the Lord was showing me. In the Bible, the Jordan River represents thresholds of calling, identity, and breakthrough. Joshua 3:17 – The Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. 2 Kings 2:8 – Elijah struck the Jordan before being taken up. 2 Kings 2:14 – Elisha crossed back with a double portion. Matthew 3:13 – Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, then led into the wilderness. Genesis 32:22 – Jacob crossed the brook Jabbok (connected to the Jordan), leaving behind his old identity and life. I believe we are at the Jordan right now with our foot about to step in. Oh not deeper waters! It’s scary. What if I can’t swim? What if I trip? That’s what we feel in this moment. I’ve felt it in my own life where God is stretching me and I know it’s for my benefit. But in the natural, it looks like warfare, mental attack, depletion and robbery, failure, closed doors, confusion, and feeling out of your depth. Why? Because God is revealing the places you’ve placed your trust, your identity in and is revealing where you leant on your hustle, your gifting, and your own strength. Those things can’t sustain you anymore. And at the same time, the enemy is trying to discourage you, to make you give up right at the point of the threshold. He wants you to break right before your breakthrough. But God is asking you: Will you trust Me in this moment? Will you believe even when it doesn’t look like it’s working? A few months ago, I was in that exact place surrounded by doubt and pressure. And I heard the Lord whisper “The only way to survive this season is to stay at My feet. Stay in My presence.” That’s the key to crossing the threshold. Not knowledge. Not connections. Not hustle. Just surrender. So I prophesy this over you now - Just as Caleb and Joshua lingered in the tent and came out with a different spirit, so will you. You will cross the threshold with new eyes, new ears, and a new heart. Even now, God is breaking off the old operating system. He is breaking off the pain and reproach of your past. “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” - Joshua 5:9 The shame, the failure, the false labels they are being cut away. You are being recommissioned. This threshold of faith is the breakthrough you’ve been praying for and it’s time to step over in Jesus name!
By Nate Johnston
•
June 3, 2025
One of the greatest epidemics of the church is breaking right now. And as we start this week, I want to pray over you and prophesy into your life especially if you’ve been isolated by the enemy or been in a season of feeling very disconnected from other believers and from people. If you’ve seen attack and warfare on your relationships, marriages, your kids, and those around you… If you’ve gone through season-after-season of wrong alignments, unhealthy coverings, Sauls instead of fathers & mothers, all while being surrounded by wolves... Or if you’ve just been rejected over and over again, and it’s sent you into isolation. I believe the Lord is speaking to us all in this season. I believe we are seeing a spiritual movement both on a micro and a macro level right now to shift this tide. We’re seeing the Lord expose an assignment that has been allowed and tolerated in the body of Christ for too long. That assignment is isolation. It’s a tactic of the Jezebel spirit, one that has hidden easily within the institutional church paradigm and its thrived within the current culture of the church. But the Lord is weeding it out, exposing it, and bringing us back into the revelation of family and belonging. That truth is counteracting and unloosing the bonds of this demonic principality because people are no longer interested in a nice sermon if they have to go home and be alone in the week. This spirit has worked overtime on us. It’s a principality that hasn’t just broken apart the body of Christ into factions and denominations. It’s also stopped the most powerful voices, those carrying truth, and authority from rising into their place. It’s created a cancel culture within the church. An isolation culture. It’s created antisocial behavioral norms within the church, and we’ve accepted it for too long. But I prophesy today - That is all shifting. I prophesy it’s shifting over your life most importantly. As I was praying into this, I asked the Lord why Jezebel seems so invested in creating this kind of division and isolation. And He said that Jezebel recognizes the power and anointing that comes when the church walks in unity. That’s the macro. The Jezebel spirit knows that when believers support one another, when we link arms, there is an anointing that is unleashed. Because if it can isolate - it can assassinate. Let me say that again - If Jezebel can isolate, it can assassinate. Why do you think so many people can attend church on a Sunday and still feel utterly alone? Why is it accepted that we go to events and meetings and conferences, but still lack genuine connection? The church has often wrapped mission in religious activity, while relational connection, the very essence of family has been lost. It’s led us into pain and deep spiritual disconnection. And it’s time for this to shift. As I continued to pray, the Lord reminded me of the seasons in my own life where this spirit came after us again and again. I remembered being in churches where the nature of our calling led to sudden rejection, pushing us out of community. I remembered delivering a warning word to leaders, and immediately being outcast. I remembered being in a toxic work environment, where a Jezebel-influenced boss physically isolated me in a separate building so she could bully me. And I remembered the many times this happened in ministry spaces. It’s happened over and over again and we have all become used to it. We’ve learned to operate alone. And we’ve called it “normal” ministry life. We say the church is a family, but so many have lived as lone rangers even inside a church setting. But this is breaking now! Look at Elijah in 1 Kings 18. Jezebel threatens him. And he runs for his life. He hides in fear. He isolates. And even though God looks after him, there are a few things that take place in that moment that I believe the Lord is highlighting now as a blueprint for us. First, Elijah is fed. I see this in a few lights - one as the fresh manna from heaven and sustenance building him up again. Secondly, in light of the breaking bread of Acts 2 pointing to God leading him out of isolation. And thirdly as the bread of deliverance. Next he’s reminded of the still-small-voice because fear had drowned it out. In isolation and fear, the voice of the Lord pulls us out because we are so bombarded by lies and it’s the enemies lies that keep us there. Right now the lies that sent you there need to be broken. Then what happens? Elijah wraps his mantle around his face and leaves the cave which is prophetically representative of choosing to pick up what we dropped when we went through the pain of slander and accusation that led us to isolation in the first place. It’s picking up our calling again. Oh but it’s also more. It’s choosing to allow your heart to let people in after a season of being wounded. I believe this is the invitation from the Lord right now. To leave the cave. To leave the place of isolation. I know it’s easier said than done. I know many of you are afraid, and rightfully so. You’ve been burned. You’ve been rejected. But there is a grace right now to break this assignment of isolation and assassination that has put your gifting on pause and your purpose on the back burner. This is a season of finding your tribe. Finding the people who will lift your arms. It’s time to step out of religious, controlled environments and into true community. Into spiritual family. There is a remnant rising for this moment and we are linking arms while creating safe spaces. Pastors and leaders from all walks of life are laying their brands in the dust and choosing connection over control. It’s the Acts 2 core calling us back to breaking bread. This is the priority now. We are better together. Healthier together. Even COVID was a prophetic image of the enemy’s plan to isolate. But we’re saying no more. We will not let this spirit mute our voices or steal our destinies. We need each other. So I prophesy over you: This moment right now marks the breaking of isolation. Loneliness is breaking off of you. It’s time to find your people I prophesy this week you will feel something stirring on this front. A stirring. A longing. Your heart beginning to feel again. And bondages will break in the process. You’ll feel the shift inside and see it on the outside as God brings this into being. I prophesy - New environments, new rooms, new tables places you never imagined will open to you. God can do it in a short time. But I also challenge you , you need to step out. Start walking toward the community God has prepared for you. Because isolation is over In Jesus’ name.
By Nate Johnston
•
May 27, 2025
Let go. Don’t get stuck because you can’t move on without the closure of answers to why things landed the way they did. Why things fell apart and why you were left holding the broken fragments of a dream you felt God led you to. Why you were attacked so relentlessly and lost so much. Why you were shipwrecked, slandered, and feel like you have only gone backwards not forwards. I know it’s cost you everything and you don’t see what it produced yet, but unless you turn the page it won’t allow God to connect the dots and reshuffle the pages that right now feel out of order. For isn’t he the orchestrator of your life? He knows what those dark nights produced even when you didn’t. He knows what those seasons were for even though right now all you see when you look behind is dead ends and wild goose chases. But unless you turn the page you’ll never get to see the rest of the story and see Him connect all the seasons like poetry. Yes, even the hard and most painful moments He has a way of turning around if you’ll let Him. So how do you do that today? Give up. It’s where you choose to close the chapter by giving Him the pieces and questions. It’s a faith thing and the deepest surrender when it feels unjust and you don’t understand. And I know many reading this feel bottled up with grief, but today refuse to keep rehearsing or trying to do this in your own strength. The floor is the only way forward and there’s a brand new chapter waiting to unfold. It’s a call to trust. To believe that even what you can’t understand has been seen, measured, and held by a God who doesn’t waste pain. But you have been living in a chapter that ended a long time ago. The ink dried, the door closed, but your heart stayed behind trying to rewrite what already happened. Let that go. The new is already here waiting for you to choose it over the tired tape of the past you have been watching. It’s here to show you that there’s so much more ahead for you than you knew. It’s waiting to breathe life into your lungs and bring clarity and vision after the fog. So turn the page, not because you understand but because you are choosing to trust the one who’s writing it. And watch what He does with the blank space.
By Nate Johnston
•
May 27, 2025
As we start this week, I have a word for many out there: Don’t miss your burning bush season. Or maybe I should say, don’t overlook your burning bush season. Don’t miss it. We often look at seasons where things don’t add up or make sense and diagnose them as seasons of waiting, seasons we’re just trying to survive until we get to the next destination, the next stop. We don’t always see the richness of what God is depositing in each season. In the last few days, I keep hearing this: Don’t miss your burning bush season. Remember the story of Moses? He was tending his father-in-law’s sheep in the wilderness when he saw the burning bush. He was simply doing his job, satisfied in it when suddenly, there was an encounter with God. And God pulled him out out of the wilderness, out of that environment, out of that situation, out of the guilt and shame of his past. God pulled him out and gave him an assignment. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law… and the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.” - Exodus 3:1–2 “God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’ And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’” - Exodus 3:4 He was simply doing his job, when suddenly, there was an encounter with God. And God pulled him out of the wilderness, out of that environment, out of that situation, out of the guilt and shame of his past. God pulled him out and gave him an assignment. “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” - Exodus 3:10 And I believe we are in a moment right now that, to many, feels like a standstill. It feels like a hiatus after a long season of pioneering for the Lord, one that has strangely led to this place of wilderness. As I’ve been sharing for a while, we’ve been in a Hosea 2 season, where the Lord has been leading the Church back into the wilderness. That wilderness has been necessary for you. You’ve needed respite. You’ve needed refreshing. You’ve needed to break away from the hustle so God could reset you and bring you back to encounter, which is the ultimate reset. That’s what truly resets you. You’ve taken on so many mantles and jackets—Saul’s armor—for years. You don’t know which way is up anymore, or what your assignment is, who you’re called to, or who you’re not called to. You don’t know where your alignments are meant to be. You’ve had your hands in too many pies, your feet muddy from too many places. You’ve been slimed, slandered. You’ve walked through heartache, difficulty, betrayal. Yet, you’ve felt the compulsion to step into anything just to feel like you’re not lost. But no, the wilderness has been necessary to set you free. Here’s what you need to know: the wilderness can shift quickly because the wilderness leads to encounter, and encounter launches you into your new assignment. I say this over you and prophesy: you are in a very small window of time where the Lord is doing a massive work. The time isn’t long but the work is deep. Let me say that again: the time isn’t long, but the work is deep. God is going deep generationally. This isn’t a short cleanup process. God is going deep into your life, and He wants to set your feet on a new foundation. That’s right this season you’re in right now is a season of a brand-new slab being laid in your life. A new foundation. What is foundation? It’s where God gets you ready, gears you up for the new thing He’s going to build in your life, around you, and through you. Last year, we went to Australia, and the Lord gave me a dream: two towers crumbling to the ground. He said, “You’re at ground zero.” That’s what this is—a ground zero. A new slab has been laid in your life. God is going low and slow right now. He’s getting you ready because many of us have built for years without a foundation—without solid structure or deep roots. So God’s been setting that right for the new season, and for the Church. But we often misdiagnose seasons of fresh foundation as stagnancy, when they’re anything but. When the Lord sets your heart right, He aligns you to a rhythm and a synergy you didn’t know in the past season. He sharpens your discernment your ability to see and know what’s true. He leads you to the right people, right places, and right environments. I believe one key part of this new foundation is that God is leading many out of loneliness and isolation. He’s not just setting your feet upon the rock of salvation He’s breaking off orphan mentalities, the hustle, the striving and leading you into an Acts 2 infrastructure: community, family, people who hold your arms up so you can thrive. This foundation includes restoration God restoring the years the locusts have eaten. And He’s doing that right now. Now for the weighty part of this word: That moment with Moses at the burning bush was more significant than we often realize. It was like Elisha being mantled by Elijah a sudden shift into his true calling. In that moment, God told Moses: “ Go. Set my people free.” And Moses responded, “But God, I don’t know how to speak.” God replied, “When you go, I will give you the words. I will give you signs. I will give you the power.” “Moses said to the Lord, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent…’ And the Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths?… Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’” - Exodus 4:10–12 He didn’t just send Moses on an impossible mission. He backed him with the power of heaven. And I feel the word of the Lord right now for many who have been in this season of waiting: You have been fashioned and formed to be a voice for the Lord in this next season. To set the Church free. To set the bound free. God is raising up unconventional, unusual, untrained voices who carry His heart. And I prophesy, in the mighty name of Jesus: this is your burning bush season. You are stepping out of the wilderness and into the bold voice God has called you to be. Let me go one step further: This week look. Look for the signs in your life of breakout. Look for the moments. The encounters. Because that’s where God is waiting for you. You’re looking for external change, for doors to open. But you’re missing the door that’s already swung wide open: the door of encounter. The door to the secret place. The door that leads into the tent of meeting. That’s what I’m calling you to. That’s what God is commissioning you into - a season of intimacy and encounter. So let me prophesy over your - this week, your wilderness shifts. It shifts from waiting to encounter, from wandering aimlessly to walking in clarity. The fog lifts. The silence breaks. Heaven is speaking. Dreams come now! Insight floods your spirit like a rushing river. May the full healing of the wilderness come—so the rest, the restoration, the commissioning can follow. Lord, raise up your wild voices. Those untrained by man but marked by fire. Those who have met You in hidden places. Let them rise now, rooted, ready, and roaring in Jesus’ name. Amen.
