In February of 2006 the Lord led Traci Alexander on her first 40-day prayer and fasting journey. Desiring to understand why many believers live defeated rather than victorious lives, she set out on a quest to discover the key to living the abiding and abundant life Jesus died to give His children (reference John 10:10). In response to her heartfelt cry the Lord called Traci to an intimate and personal pilgrimage. Unsure of what to expect, and uncertain of why forty days of fasting was the necessary path, she set out believing God one day at a time, and one meal at a time, with Bible open and journal and pen in hand. Within days the veil began to lift as the Lord revealed Himself in a deeply personal and intimate way through His Word as His child waited patiently upon Him. The process, however, was not without pain as the Lord began the work of stripping, cleansing and refining His child in preparation for His ultimate purpose for her life. All the distractions and once seemingly important pursuits melted away as the Lord tore down unnecessary layers that were restricting the heart from receiving the fullness of His love for His child. Each new day provided greater opportunity for intimate time with the Lord as the cravings and enticements of day to day pursuits were replaced with a hunger for the things of God. With each passing week vision became clearer and hearing more in tuned as the Lord revealed Himself through the pages of His Word. The final day of this intimate journey was bittersweet. Never wanting this time with the Lord to end, she realized this was the answer to the question that prompted this pilgrimage. This is the Lord's desire for all His children: an intimate, abiding, fully dependent relationship with Him as the utmost and highest priority and pursuit. The Lord revealed through His Word that the victories achieved in the Bible came through periods of consecration and fasting as God's people responded to His prompting to return to Him with all their hearts and trust Him with whole-hearted devotion to accomplish His will for their lives and deliver them from their enemies. The 40-day journey was a key to unlocking the door to this depth of intimacy and abiding love with the Lord. Forty days is the time frame the Lord uses to transform people and nations for His purposes and glory. The Lord revealed His purpose in Traci's personal journey as He called her to use her own personal journal as the framework for a 40-day devotional to lead other believers through their own period of personal consecration; providing them the spiritual nourishment of His Word and daily words of encouragement from someone who had walked the same path before. Following the pattern the Lord laid out in Deuteronomy 8:2-3, "Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD," Traci obediently responded to the Lord's call to write a meal-by-meal devotional to guide believers as they humbly submit to His call to sit at His table in prayer and feast upon His Word. Fasting is not meant to be done apart from the Word of God and prayer; the Lord graciously provided a resource to help believers take this step of faith and obedience; helping to ease the difficulty and challenges these 40 days would bring. When the transcript was complete the Lord revealed the vision for a website to reach the masses with His trumpet call: "Return to Me,' declares the LORD Almighty, 'and I will return to you." (Zechariah 1:3). His desire: to purify and prepare His Bride (the Church) by washing her with water through the Word (reference Ephesians 5:26), to encourage her not lose faith, but to remain faithful in prayer (reference Matthew 26:41, 45), and to wait expectantly for His return (reference Matthew 25:1-13). Equipped with a new vision and a call to "rebuild the temple" (reference Ephesians 2:19-22), the Lord's servant and secretary stepped out by faith and with obedience standing on Isaiah 58:12, believing God would restore the spiritual foundation of this nation and revive and restore the Church to complete the task of bringing in the "full number of the Gentiles" before His return with His long-standing remedy of the Word of God, Prayer, and Repentance (2 Chronicles 7:14). THE WEBSITE DESIGN The website design itself was a vision from the Lord. He revealed the beautiful image of a flaming shofar against the backdrop of a red sky at dawn - awakening His sleeping Bride to respond to His call to take up their positions as the "light of the world" with lamps burning brightly through the power of His Holy Spirit and wielding His mighty Sword of the Spirit as they achieved victory in building the Kingdom of God through a life of humble dependence and prayer. The Scriptural background for the logo design came from the life of Gideon (Judges 7) who was called by God out of the winepress, and was transformed from an unlikely hero into a mighty warrior because of His commitment of faith and humble trust in God. The story of Gideon provides an encouraging look into the life of a faithful and humble farmer chosen as an unlikely warrior for the Lord and equipped with the most unusual weapons. The true battles we face daily are spiritual in nature and the only way to face these dark forces is to allow ourselves to be equipped with the presence and power of God. It is by resting in the confidence of His power that we experience the courage to allow Him to use us for His glory. First Corinthians 1:27-29 shows us that God's ways are not our ways, "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him." The battle plan of God calls for us to grow in faith as He displays His power in our lives and results in Him receiving all the glory, honor and praise! Throughout Scripture, the beginning of a new season or new era was announced with a trumpet sound or a great light breaking forth: The Creation of the World (Genesis 1:3 We are in desperate need of a new beginning for the Church. We have lost connection with the Head, which is Christ Jesus (Colossians 2:19), because our hearts are not fully committed to Him. We must respond to the sound of the trumpet and return to the Lord with whole hearts and dedicated lives. We must turn from our wicked ways and be about our Father's business, speaking the truth in love and sealing the gap that has separated us from being wholly His (2 Chronicles 7:14; Ephesians 4:15-16). THE SHOFAR
|
mm |