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2025: Here I Am

Genesis 22:1 (AMP) Now after these things, God tested [the faith and commitment of] Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.”

We are eight days into the new year. A lot of times we like to hold onto scriptures about the new. For instance this one, Isaiah 43:19 (AMP) “Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.“I love this scripture and even have it on our vision board for the church. However, we can get so caught up in expecting the promise that we forget about the God of the promise. We hold onto the promise. God in Genesis 22 was asking Abraham to let go of the promise. Would He serve God more than hold onto the promise? Ultimately, God did not ask Abraham to sacrifice what he was willing.

God, here I am. My arms are wide open. I am in the process of reading the Bible from beginning to end and have started with Genesis 1 on January 1. I read five chapters a day and this week I have seen “Here I Am” as the words of readiness. Jacob was visited by God in visions and with both responses he said, “Here I am” (Genesis 31:11, 46:2). Both times God instructed Jacob to move. Move from a land he had spent decades in. When he moved it was not like we have it today. He was moving people, possessions and live stock. It was caravans moving, not a moving van.

Isaiah 6:8-10 (AMP) Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on listening, but do not understand; Keep on looking, but do not comprehend.’ “Make the heart of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.”

I was asked this question this week, what should we be praying for the church? That God becomes real to us. That we stop going through the motions and desire a real relationship with God. You can listen and not hear. You can look and not see. This will happen until you surrender your ideas. We have the luxury of doing so much research that we have not need to sit and listen for His voice. We have access to so many books and teaching online, that we do not need to read the Bible for ourselves. We read the Bible through the lens of experience and not really listen for His voice. We depend on scripture taken out of context and wonder why God is not doing what I want. It is not until we surrender that we will be rooted and grounded in Christ. This is where love starts. We cannot love each other when we are only worried about ourselves. Serving only those we want to serve is really self-serving. Only reading what we like is self-serving.

“Here I am” is a heart position to be all in. It is a response to God that you are sensitive to His call. It is a willingness to listen and to obey His commands. “And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should also [unselfishly] love his brother and seek the best for him” (1 John 4:21). Seeking the best for others requires a lot of dying to self. That lines up with what Christ said we would have to do to be His disciples (Matthew 16:24-26).

So that new thing He is doing in me, has a lot to do with my surrender. God doing a new thing requires me changing. My husband works for a large car manufacturer. Every year they shut down at Christmas, and the processes change for the new car that will be made for the following year. Before the shut down occurred a training was done for the processes coming up. People got to leave their normal work stations and attend a class to learn what would be expected of them when they returned. Some paid attention, and some did not want to learn the new way (they figured they could use the old skills for this new build). That is not working too well for them. Just because you are in it a long time does not mean you will not face the consequences of not learning the new.

Mark 2:22 (AMP) No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the [fermenting] wine will [expand and] burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the wineskins. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

Galatians 5:25 (AMP) If we [claim to] live by the [Holy] Spirit, we must also walk by the Spirit [with personal integrity, godly character, and moral courage—our conduct empowered by the Holy Spirit].

Who is in control? It cannot be some of God and some of me. It has to be all of Him. That means I have to let go of the way I think it should go. That means I have to surrender even when I do not “feel” ready. That means I have to run when He says to run. That means I have to climb that hill even though I do not feel like it. To get in shape you have to submit to a good eating and fitness regiment. If you plan it, you get to take the breaks whenever you want. If you have someone else that you are accountable to, those breaks are not a part of the plan, and you have to submit to get the results. The “I will get there eventually” mentality has created slothfulness in the body of Christ. We have not taken the Word as real. We miss meals on the Word, but would not miss meals when it comes to our stomachs. Mark Batterson wrote, “If you are not hungry for God, you are full of yourself.” That is a heart check statement right there. Am I more hungry for God than the food on my plate? Can you put everything else aside and say “God, here I am.”

Abba, Father, we stand in awe of You. You are Holy. You are Marvelous. You are Righteous. Let this year be about getting our First Love back. Let us accept Your Son for all of who He is. That He came to make us Whole. That His Peace makes us Full. When we fall in love with You and we truly put You first, we will see everything else in it’s rightful place. When Your voice is first, all the other voices will fall away. When Your Word is first place in our lives, then all other distractions will disappear. When Your principles come first, then the promises of Your Word find their way into our lives. Let us get back to You first. Let us say “Here I am.” We repent for putting ourselves before Your Word, before Your voice, before Your leading. Let us open up Your Word and hunger for it like it is the best meal we have ever eaten. Thank You for Your forgiveness and that your Mercy is new every morning. We choose joy today. We choose hope today. We choose forgiveness today. We choose love today. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Gracefully Broken

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What Joseph taught me about forgiveness

Have you ever heard the statement, “It is always the closest to you that hurts you the most”? I never understood it, until I had to live through it. This past week I spent time in Genesis and I got to the story of Joseph. As I was reading I wept, because I knew what he was going through. Yes, Joseph probably should have kept his mouth closed when he told his brothers that they would one day bow down to him. However, when God gives us a revelation sometimes we are just so excited we cannot help but blurt it out!

When I read this statement: And they hated him more than ever because of his dreams and the way he talked (Genesis 37:8b MSG), it reminded me of how it felt about not being invited for family events. My husband and I pastor a church…it is the most amazing thing we have ever done and we love it. We have family that attend our church, and we also have family that no longer attend our church. It does not matter to me where any of my family attend. It matters to me that they have a relationship with God and His people, that they are serving where God tells them to. I want them to love Jesus! However, it does still hurt not to be included. Yes, I have made mistakes. I did push, when I should have been more compassionate. Like Joseph, I was over zealous and it was not received!

If you do not know the story of Joseph I encourage you to read Genesis 37-50. I will paraphrase this for you, it is very long but an important story.

Joseph is one of twelve brothers. He is the son of Jacob and Rachel. Rachel being the wife that Jacob wanted, but was tricked into marrying her sister, Leah, first. Jacob ended up having children by four different women (sibling rivalry is to blame). Joseph was his favorite. Joseph had a special gift and could interpret dreams. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and one day decided to do away with him. They sold him into slavery and Joseph ends up in Egypt. Jacob thinks that Joseph is dead.

Life is pretty good for Joseph in Egypt until one day he was falsely accused of rape and is put in prison. However, Joseph was a model prisoner is put in charge there. One day he meets two other prisoners, he interprets their dreams and they come true. Then, Pharaoh has two dreams that deeply trouble him. One of the prisoners, that he interpreted dreams for, remembered Joseph! Of all the people Pharaoh surrounded himself with, only Joseph was able to interpret these troubling dreams. The wisdom that was revealed in those dreams earned Joseph a position so high that only Pharaoh was above him. Joseph received the revelation that seven years of abundance was going to be followed by seven years of famine, and he had the wisdom to prepare.

Joseph was in charge of rations during the time of famine. All were affected, including his family in Canaan. Jacob, Joseph’s father, heard there was food in Egypt and sent his son’s (all but the youngest, who was Joseph’s brother by the same mother) to buy food for the family. What do you think Joseph thought when he saw his brother’s after so many years? The part that I thought was amazing was that they did not even recognize him, but he knew them!

This is the part of the story that I wept (the first time). God, can I change? Could I reflect your compassion so much that the old me becomes unrecognizable? Joseph was thirty years old when he went to work for Pharaoh, that means he was near forty when he saw his brothers again.

Could I reflect your compassion so much that the old me becomes unrecognizable?

Initially, Joseph was not very compassionate. He spoke harshly to them, he accused them of being spies and threw them in jail. He was very inquisitive of their history, and they even divulged what they had done to Joseph (not knowing that was who they were talking to). Joseph sends them off with food, but keeps one brother in prison until they come back with all of Jacob’s sons. They return home and tell their dad that one of the brothers is in prison until they come back with the youngest too. Let me just say, they did not come back immediately. They waited until they were out of food again!

This time they show up with Joseph’s brother, Benjamin. He is doted on just the way Joseph had been done by his father. His brother’s are so very protective of him that Joseph sets up a little trap. He wants to see if they will save their own selves for Benjamin’s sake. They don’t by the way. They do not want to see their father broken again. Any one of them would take Benjamin’s place so that their father will not have to go through that heartbreak again.

All through this time Joseph kept the charade. He used an interpreter so that they would not know he spoke their language. He would leave the room at any given moment, looking like it was a power play when in reality he was sobbing uncontrollably in the next room. He was broken.

When it came time to reveal his true identity, he and his brothers embraced. Joseph cried so loudly that his servants went and told Pharaoh all that was transpiring. Joseph had gained so much favor that he was able to send for his father and all of his family (seventy in total) to live in a land that would provide during the famine. The moment Joseph saw his father, he threw himself on his neck and wept. He wept a long time. Every time that Joseph is recorded as weeping, I actually wept.

Jacob soon dies after they arrive in Goshen. Genesis 50:15-17 (MSG) After the funeral, Joseph’s brothers talked among themselves: “What if Joseph is carrying a grudge and decides to pay us back for all the wrong we did him?” So they sent Joseph a message, “Before his death, your father gave this command: Tell Joseph, ‘Forgive your brothers’ sin – all that wrongdoing. They did treat you very badly.’ Will you do it? Will you forgive the sins of the servants of your father’s God?” When Joseph received their message, he wept.

See in chapter 41, before the famine comes, we read that Joseph has two sons. The first he names Manassaeh (Forget), saying, “God made me forget all my hardships and my parental home.” He named his second son Ephraim (Double Prosperity) saying, “God has prospered me in the land of my sorrow.” I believe Joseph wept because they did not see that they did not have to make those statements. I wept.

When we lay our lives down and want to see the best for those that turn away from you, that is true forgiveness. Joseph responded to his brothers, “Easy now, you have nothing to fear; I’ll take care of you and your children.” He reassured them, speaking with them heart-to-heart. Oh, how I wept!

Father, allow me to walk in this type of forgiveness. Let me have the compassion to not hold onto the hurt, but want to do everything in my power to see that they are blessed, even more than they deserve!

Maybe, you find it easy to forgive and forget. I have to admit that I do struggle with it, but I do not want to be like that. It is a process. Joseph, like us, had to go through the process. We do not know his reason for weeping. We can weep out of sorrow, out of anger, in joy…there are a number of reasons. I weep desiring for a changed heart. A heart healed through forgiveness!