When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, there is lifting up. (Job 22:29a KJV)
The year is slowly drawing to a close and many of us are likely to be taking stock; looking back to the beginning of the year and what we set out to achieve and looking at the present moment and appraising how far and how well we have done.
For some of us, 2013 has obviously been nothing short of fantastic; for others, it has been seemingly slow, with very little to rejoice over. But the truth is, no matter how great the year has been, there is something greater still on the horizon. And no matter how far beneath our expectations we perceive the year to have fallen, there is something infinitely better about to burst forth.
So this is not the time to put our feet up and rest on our accomplishments or the time to throw in the towel and hope next year turns out better. No! It is the time to double down; to lengthen our cords and strengthen our stakes. God has something yet in store for you, and He has declared November to be our month of Supernaturally Lifting. Now, this has startling implications.
The word ‘lifting’ has some interesting connotations. It means to direct or to carry from a lower to a higher position or to raise a person in condition, rank or esteem. In other words, there is a promise of being carried from a lower position to a higher one and being raised in rank and esteem, with your name on it.
What makes this all the more interesting is the remarkable distinction between natural lifting and supernatural lifting. No matter how much I promise to elevate your situation, I can only do so in accordance with my abilities. Natural lifting is subject to human limitations. But supernatural lifting defies boundaries.
Supernatural lifting is David rising from the backwaters of the desert to the throne of Israel, without the slightest link to royalty. It is Joseph, a prisoner languishing on in a foreign jail, rising to the position of Prime Minister. It is Daniel, a castrated prisoner of war, elevated to the most trusted voice in the land. Supernatural lifting is the remarkable testimony of Strive Masiyiwa, Zimbabwe’s richest man.
In 1993, Strive Masiyiwa decided to launch out on a new business venture he had previously conceived – building Zimbabwe’s first privately owned mobile telecommunications company.
But Masiyiwa’s quest immediately hit a brick wall. The Zimbabwean government held a monopoly on telecommunications and strongly resisted his move, threatening to prosecute him if he continued with his venture.
Caught between abandoning his vision and the impossible task of challenging the government in court, Masiyiwa was in a hard place. After a church service one Sunday morning, a woman walked up to him and said, ‘What are you up to, my husband never slept last night, the Lord kept waking him up and saying ‘go tell Strive do it.’
And so without any backing or solid societal standing as it were, Masiyiwa took the autocratic government of Robert Mugabe to court, in a modern-day David versus Goliath stand-off. A few years later, Masiyiwa’s company, Econet, was the biggest network in Zimbabwe, and Masiyiwa, the richest man in the country.
Less than five years later, he got the nudge to take his company to Botswana. When he got there to start the process he was asked, “Are you the little man that caused Mugabe all that trouble?” He was told it was too late for him to be granted a license. But rather than give in, he went to his hotel room, laid his documents on the floor and said ‘Lord, do something, you brought me here.’ Today, his company is the second-largest network in Botswana.
God is set to lift you beyond your natural preconditions this month. The greatest disservice we can do to ourselves is to confine our expectations to what we perceive we can achieve by our own capacities. God can and will raise us from a lower to a higher position. We only need to believe and expect nothing less.
Our theme scripture for the month says, When they say there is a casting down, then you shall say there is a lifting up (Job 22:29). In other words, when they (people and circumstances) insist we do not have what it takes to rise above our present station in life, we shall maintain that there is an upward transition of our lives and concerns, in Jesus’ name. Our responsibility is to believe and to say. We must say, time and again, what God has declared concerning us, and we must wait, in prayer and meditation on the Word of God, to hear where and how He will lead us.
I welcome you again to November, our month of Supernatural Lifting. I eagerly look forward to hearing your testimonies. Your expectations will not be cut short. Keep confessing the Word. There is something looming on the horizon for you. You will be supernaturally lifted, in Jesus’ name.
Our memory verse for the month is Ephesians 1:15-21. Endeavour to commit it to heart, and to keep it on your lips.
If you require counselling or want us to prayerfully agree with you, feel free to send me a mail at pastortaiwo@tfolc.org.
I also encourage you to visit our websites www.tfolc.org, www.discoveryforwomen.net,
www.thewomanleader.org, www.ruthandboaz.org, http://homeaffairs.tfolc.org, and
www.discoveryformen.org for more articles and resources.
God bless you.
Pastor Taiwo Odukoya