“Look Back? Celebrate? But Move Forward!”

By Lou Yeboah

“ I am doing a new thing, says the Lord. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. [Isaiah 43:19]. It is right before you. Can you not see it?” I am breaking down strongholds, transforming dark places into light places, so look back, celebrate, but move forward! You cannot be content to sit back and do business as usual. You cannot rest on past victories or be paralyzed by past defeats. You are to move forward in faith personally and corporately. Forward from the past to the future. Forward from indulgence to commitment. Forward from me to we. Forward from brokenness to wholeness. Forward from comfortable to awakened.  What’s your “Tell”? Your Song? Your Story? It’s the same one as Joshua and the Israelites – but with some additions. Prophets have been added, like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Kings have joined the story, like David and Solomon. And of course, there’s Me, Jesus, the very center of your identity. So look back, celebrate, but move forward! Because you are people of story. And your stories give your lives context and purpose. Your stories connect you to something beyond the present moment. Your stories bind you to the ancestors and give you glimpses of destinies still beyond the horizon.

I hear the story of the hunter – and Yes, there is good in that story. Yes, there is virtue in that story. Yes, there is hope and wonder and deep gospel truth in that story AND the lion still has a story to tell. Right here, right now, make your own declaration that you will strive to be a people of hunters no more. That you will never stop resisting and working to overthrow the systems that provide for the thriving of some through the oppression of others. That you will never stop working to end the hunt forever.  Commit to telling the stories and praying the prayers and singing the songs of the lion. To promise that they will never be forgotten. And to work for the day when the hunt finally is over. Let this celebration be one of new normals, greater territory, higher heights and deeper depths for us by looking back, celebrating, but moving forward.

I tell you, we cannot underestimate the seriousness of these times right now. Our nation is being torn apart by political Armageddon, civil unrest, social violence, an international pandemic, and economic meltdown.  I am not a prophetess, but I see patterns in God’s Word, adding:  We cannot let the world shut us up, shut us down, shut us out, or shut us in. God created, called, and commissioned us to take our place in this divine intersection. All the days of our life “were written in [his] book before one of them came to be” [Psalm 139:16]. Yes, we have a rendezvous with destiny, and we are God’s people for the moment. Like Esther of old, “We have come to [the kingdom] for such a time as this” [Esther 4:14]—before adding, “Like Israel in the wake of a national, political, and social crisis, we will need men and women like the sons of Issachar “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” [1 Chronicles 12:32].” Therefore, let as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 

From Adam to Jesus, from Jesus to us, imagine the decisions that were made. Decisions that effected the entire human race, decisions of life and death, condemnation and reconciliation, the very fabric of life hung in the balance. And here we sit trying to make up our mind whether to move or not. We read and we study and we marvel at the old and new testament saints of what they did, but didn’t Jesus declare that we could do the same as he and even greater works shall we do. Well, we aren’t going to do anything sitting in Haran. All God is waiting on is us. Our blessings are just in reach, lets get out of Haran, lets get out of Cherith, lets look up, pack up cause we about to move up, to a brighter day a more secure future, in the land where God wants us to be. Look back, celebrate, but move forward!

Celebrating Black History Month!