As the world began to melt down in the middle of last year, I woke up in the early hours of the morning with the Holy Spirit saying to me clearly “there is a cloud as small as a mans hand” (1 Kings 18).
This was the beginning of a journey for me. This word spoke of hope, the small cloud being the first indication of things changing. That had an incredibly stabilising effect on me. Our business circumstances were tight – our market place difficult, but the word completely changed the way I looked at things. I changed my expectations. Subconsciously I began thinking and seeing the future differently. I began speaking hope and expectation - the glass half full - into my situation. This was the Holy Spirit. Things didn’t immediately change for us, but the environment around me changed. As I intentionally spoke faith, God responded, meeting us at the point of our need.
I began to look to the heavens in a new way for signs.
Equally, like Elijah, I spent a lot of time ‘bent to the ground with my face between my knees’ (1 Kings 18:42). God responds to a heart cry. He moves as we move. As an adjunct to this, I was particularly impacted by verse 41 which talks of the sound of a heavy rain. Rain speaks of the anointing. I am moved and expectant that a fresh anointing is over us. A fresh move that will be ushered by a new sound –as those with musical gifting are set free from constraints to usher in the presence of God, they will function with freedom, they will ignite dance, art and other creative expressions and with it the prophetic word will emerge.
I have not been able to shake this passage from that day I first woke to it.
The second part of the revelation was the challenge issued by Elijah to the Israelites. Tired of their double mindedness, he asks in verse 21 “How long will you waiver between two opinions?” The Message translation says, “how long will you sit on the fence?”. If the Lord is God follow Him. If Baal is God follow Him.
For me, this is the essential question of the current economic climate.
In the midst of the Prophets of Baal (otherwise known as the media, and various commentators and talking heads making predictions of who knows what), God is asking His people – what are you listening to? Where does your help come from? Which God do you serve?
I have found this question challenging and at the same time refining.
Our responses are determining our direction and our destiny, not just for our business and families now, but for eternity.
Choose this day whom you will serve.
Barry Thom
