Tag: expectation

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It’s that time when I ask the Lord for a prophetic word to focus on for the year. There has been a recurring theme over the last few weeks of a new thing and newness; this has been echoed in a Bible verse that I have received many times, Isaiah 43:18-19:

18 Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

I sense that 2025 is a year to let go of the past and embrace the new things that the Lord is bringing to our attention. The time of dismantling that has taken place over the last 5 years is over; it’s been a period of preparation and training for what’s to come. There are new projects, adventures, places and people coming to us. A time of opportunity and creating something new. Not rebuilding things from the past, but building from scratch; something fresh and much needed for a generation who have walked through a tough season. We will be anointed with a creativity that connects with those who are ready to hear the gospel, that speaks truth and love, and brings lasting change. 

These new opportunities will spring up from nowhere, but we will need to be focused on God so that we see what he is doing. A deeper relationship with the Lord is needed, so that we aren’t sidetracked by distractions. It’s easy to go off course when everything seems exciting and different. 

In verse 18 of the Isaiah passage, we are reminded to forget the former things. If we cannot let go of the past, we will struggle to walk into our future. There may be things holding us back that we aren’t aware of, so it’s important to ask the Lord what needs to be left in the past. By letting go of things that are no longer fruitful, there is room for God to work in our lives and situations so that he can bring the new. 

And finally, verse 19 reminds us that the Lord creates a way where we cannot see a way forward. He creates a path through the mess and rubble of our lives to bring us the new things he has planned for us. No situation is too hard for him to bring change. This means that we need to be open to what the Lord has for us and open to the change. It may come in ways that we don’t expect, it may not look the way we think it should, but it will bring the newness we desire and lead us into greater things. So this year, step into the new…

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A Prophetic Word For 2024: Let Loose 

Every December I ask the Lord for a word or theme for the coming year; something that will focus my thoughts and prayers as I cross over into the new. This year the Lord gave me a prophetic word not just for me but for many others too. As always do prayerfully weigh up this word and test it.  

Many of us have had a difficult season over the last few years; we have watched the death of dreams and hopes, lost relationships, and let go of career, business and job aspirations and taken unplanned detours. For me, this has been a ten year journey of transition between the old and new seasons, walking an unknown path and leaving behind things that I hoped for. However, the Lord often asks us to surrender to his will and let go of things that are no longer fruitful so that he can prepare us for the new season ahead, and ultimately new, greater fruitfulness. We have found ourselves in constrictive situations where our callings have been limited for a season, but this been part of the preparation. The last season has felt like death as we have been deeply pruned, we have laid low in the grave waiting for our resurrection.  

In September last year, I felt the Lord say that the season of death was coming to an end and that I would be “let loose” from the pruning and preparation. Let loose is quite an old-fashioned way of saying set free or released. It reminded me of the story of Lazarus in John 11 where Jesus brings raises him from the dead, “Loose him, and let him go” (verse 44); in other words, step out of the grave clothes and live again. I believe this is a powerful call to many of us to rise out of our dead situations and live again.  

I have been waiting for many years to see God move in certain areas of my life, and I believe that the season of God’s wonder working power is here. Just as Jesus said “Lazarus come out”, he is also speaking resurrection life to us. For Mary and Martha, their life with their brother had become a dead dream, but Jesus brought that dream back to life. I believe that Jesus is releasing resurrection power to bring dead dreams and hopes back to life for his glory. Everything in our lives can be transformed by a miracle that reveals who God is to those around us.  

God is calling us out of the tomb, and to thrive as he resurrects our dreams and hopes. He is letting us loose to do the things that he has called us to do. Now is the time to be free, now is the time to be LET LOOSE.  

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I’ve been pondering on a word for the coming season and something that has come up again and again is the word JOY! We’ve all been through a difficult couple of years and now I sense that it is time to live with good expectation for the coming year. The things that have been stalled, damaged or robbed from us will be restored by the Lord. It’s a season of JOY! We are now in the first season of a new era. I asked the Lord to confirm this word and earlier today as I walked into Primark, the first thing I saw was this ornament. It was the last one on the shelf and it had no price: it was priceless! In the end the manager sold it to me for 50p! In reality, JOY is priceless and that’s want the Lord wants to give us this year; his priceless JOY.

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Helen sunDo you remember when Mike and the Mechanics sang Over My Shoulder? I used to sing along to that song in bedroom, standing on my bed, yelling into a hairbrush. I was eighteen at the time. Twenty one years on, nothing has changed, except now I repeat the same performance with my eight year daughter. One the sad things about the song is that it is full of regret and hankering after the past. I was driving to work the other day when this song came on the radio and it got me thinking the consequences of looking back when we should be concentrating on the future. At the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife looked back and she turned into a pillar of salt. She was told not to, but a fleeting moment of curiosity ended her life. I don’t do regret, it’s a lens that distorts the reality of the future. It leads to nothing and makes us focus on our failures.

If we constantly have our eyes on the rear view mirror, we repeat the cycle of who we were and not what we could become. Time allows to move forward but never back. We are given a gift of moving  forward and it’s up to us to choose how we react. We can meet the future with hope and expectation or with fear and sadness.  Even when we pass through seasons that are not what we want, every day moves us closer to something much better… even when we don’t feel that way. When Alanis Morissette sang “the only way out is through”, she hit the nail on the head. Sometimes we have to grit our teeth and believe that there are better things on the other side of the season.

A few months ago I hit a wall with the whole music thing. Everything I had built up came crashing down and try as I might I could not rebuild it. Truth be told, I was too knackered and broken to fix it. Years of being a freelancer, performer, teacher, composer and everything else had worn me down. I kept looking in the rear view mirror and what I had lost and wondering whether there was any point continuing in music. But the law of life is that as something dies, something else is born and new shoots begin to sprout. Things are already moving on and I’m getting back some of the music opportunities that I lost a long time ago. I have opportunity to reinvent my music and in turn myself. Life constantly evolves and we should take every opportunity to grow and develop.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s don’t look back over your shoulder, face the future and reinvent yourself. Reinvent yourself…