ESSENTIAL WORKERS NEEDED!

This last season has been hard with new normals, new rules and regulations. We walk out the door taking a mask, gloves, sanitizer, and often, anxiety. We are isolated from friends, family, church, and our elders in retirement communities who are physically and mentally dying without us. We work up the courage to venture out, but it seems so hard and heavy, like our shoes are stuck in the mud.

In the midst of experiencing all this, God gave me a dream that I was being threshed like wheat (or beaten down) on the threshing floor. It was very uncomfortable. But as I looked again, there was Jesus being threshed beside me. I wasn’t alone. The chaff, the empty husks, and the dirt, were flying off and I was getting purified. I left the threshing floor, clean and pure. Now I see myself as a beautiful bride with Jesus by my side; my heart stirring with joyful intimacy and new hope.

My venturing out became a little easier. God gave me ideas about how to pour into others; bringing flowers, cards and food to people. I partnered with a friend who made masks and delivered Ziploc bags with snacks and juice boxes, gloves and masks to those on the streets and into the food pantries around town. I became lighter. I prayed around the town asking for an increase in angels, of Holy Spirit, of God’s blessing to protect us and heal us. I prayed for many and witnessed so much healing. God‘s glory was spilling out. I just had to become a willing vessel of heaven; on earth as it is in heaven! That is the great commission. Go and spill it out. Pray it out. Walk it out. Speak it out. You are essential in this battle! Listen to Holy Spirit for His direction and marching orders and follow His lead.

Yes, you are an essential worker in this new era. Jesus is coming back and every dry bone of every believer is needed, to rise up with the Holy Spirit breath of life and fight, take the devil by the throat and crush him.  There is a war in the heavenlies and God is calling upon us to pray. Pray off the oppression, apprehension, even depression. Continue to pray that the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony hurls the accuser down. Revelations 12:11

It is time to celebrate Jesus' homecoming. This is the time to keep oil in your lamps in preparation; to pray and fast and repent of the complacency and lethargy. Ask Him to direct your path every day. “Let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Be seasoned with the essential ingredients of prayer and fasting so you can encourage your fellow brothers and sisters. You are an essential component with your unique gifts and abilities in this new season of preparation!

Encourage those (even a quick call or text) whom God places on your heart. Many are truly apprehensive living lives of loneliness, fear, perhaps even shame or guilt. Turn off the TV and don’t let the news of Covid, racism, politics, or the economy dictate your mood. Let God be your news! Jesus calls us to pray for our enemies and bless them. Your prayers are essential! Pray for our president, government, military, IRS (yes- ha ha), our nation, and our world. Pray for your household, family, friends, church, and pastors. You will come out of this threshing floor purified, lovely, wiser, full of grace and mercy for the broken and less fortunate. Give what you don’t have and you will receive all that you need.

His Spirit will direct you and if you are unsure of your relationship with Him, re-dedicate your life to Him right now.

“Lord I love You. I’m sorry for losing touch for so long. I confess I am a sinner. I confess I’ve been doing it my way for so long. I throw down my counterfeit gods and ask You to fill my heart, my body, my soul, and my spirit. Wash me clean, washing away the dirt of sin, and those words that have brought me death and killed my heart. I ask for Your eternal joy and love to fill me. Wash away every lie and strategy of the enemy.
Lord, let me feel Your presence. Let me stand before the throne of grace and see Your lovely face. Let Your arms sweep me up in Your forgiving embrace. I give it all up for You. I renounce every idol, every wrong thought, every unkind word.  I nail it all to the cross of Jesus. I am free from Satan‘s bondage and from this day forward, I will follow only You! Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory! We are in this together. I am not alone. We are in it to win it because it has already been won through You, Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, and Your shed blood. Take every part of me I am Yours.  Thank You! I love You.”

Wendy Bents Patterson

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