Throughout many seasons in my life, I have faced times, where I felt like I couldn’t endure it anymore. It was as if someone had strapped me to one of those tables where they used to torture people by strapping them down and stretching them far beyond their physical limits. I often felt like that in my soul, as if I was enduring emotional things beyond my ability to handle.
Often when I was enduring these kinds of things I would ask, (in the back of my head), who I had angered or irritated so badly that I deserved to be treated so poorly. As if I had somehow lost the grace that God had placed upon my life. What I didn’t realize, was what kind of immense training God was putting me through with the stretching process.Â
As the Lord began to reveal to me what He was doing in me, I began to understand what I was dealing with. I hadn’t angered the Lord, fallen from grace, or irritated God to the point where He had left me, but GOD WAS ACTUALLY EXPANDING MY HEART TO ENCOMPASS MORE. MORE OF HIS SPIRIT, HIS LOVE, AND HIS POWER.Â
ENLARGE THE PLACE OF YOUR TENT, AND LET THE CURTAINS OF YOUR HABITATIONS BE STRETCHED OUT; SPARE NOT; LENGTHEN YOUR CORDS AND STRENGTHEN YOUR STAKES, For you will spread abroad to the right hand and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.” Isaiah 54:2-3
Expanding the stakes of your tent can be, not only exhausting but also frustrating because we often fail to see what the stretching is really there for. It’s not there to condemn us, it’s not there because we blew it, it’s not misdirection and it’s not offense; but it was put there to stretch us out so that we can ENCOMPASS MORE.Â
For we who live are constantly [experiencing] being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, THAT THE [RESURRECTION] LIFE OF JESUS ALSO MAY BE EVIDENCED THROUGH OUR FLESH WHICH IS LIABLE TO DEATH.” 2 Corinthians 4:11
More of His Power, more of His Anointing, more of His Peace and more of His Love; as these things continuously fill our lives we will experience the stretching process more and more until we will begin to see those areas of vacancy, (from the stretching), being BACK FILLED BY THE RESURRECTION POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST.Â
If you’re feeling the stretching going on, and it feels as though you’re going to snap, hold your course just a little longer, YOUR VICTORY IS CLOSE. God is going to use these situations for your EXPANSION AND PROMOTION. Expect Him to fill all the vacancies as His Spirit Wills.
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Featured Image by Terje Ansgar Eriksen from Pixabay
