Every Valley is Exalted -Every Mountain Made Low Isaiah 40

For a little over a year the Lord has been encouraging me to be more vulnerable around my brothers and sisters in Christ. At first I was thinking..."show people my weaknesses...yikes! I have been working for 25 years to hide my faults and you want me to show them off?" But this persisted for a long season so I decided it was time to trust that this really was a good thing for me or at the very least it would be a blessing to others.

So I've been out there allowing others to see my weaknesses. If someone asks me how I'm doing I don't give the standard, "I'm just fine...I'm blessed and highly favored..." I would tell them. "God is doing a good work but I have days where I'm just a mess." This would often open a door for others to share with me about how they feel overwhelmed and not able to walk out this thing we call the "Christian Life".

I was set free in my thinking recently by a video I watched by Bill Johnson that stated that it is not by accident that we cannot "do" the Christian life. It's actually impossible for us to do this thing we call being a Christian. It says in the Bible that we would do greater works than Jesus... hmm... that will make your brain cells wilt if you think on that for too long. It's impossible, right?

Well, it's not impossible if we are weak and He is strong through us.

Several weeks ago, I heard the Father say to go buy an accompaniment track from the Christian Book store. Then I called our worship leader and I was put on the schedule to sing in our worship service. There was a few weeks between the purchase of the CD and me actually singing... In the meantime...

We had some circumstance arise that were very difficult and disturbing. I will admit, it was a trial that caused me to feel fear in the pit of my gut. It's too personal to state the details but indeed it was the roar of the enemy to try to get me to retreat. I felt condemned in my heart that I had even caused this difficult thing to fall upon our family.

So the day comes that I'm going to sing. I will tell you that it was not a pretty picture. I had shed more tears that week than I thought were humanly possible. I could not sing the song in practice without choking up and weeping. The song the Father chose for me was "Call on Jesus" by Nicole C. Mullen. That morning before I sang, my husband and I had a terrible fight... I was irrational and acting like a wee baby in Christ rather than a strong woman of God that many see... or I've allow them to see...

So I'm sitting on the end of my bed, weeping and still in my p.j.s and I'm supposed to be walking out the door to sing. I tell my husband to please call the worship leader and make some excuse.... but just after he tried to call, I heard the Father say, "If you will go and sing, I will show everyone in the room what MY GRACE looks like..." So, I choose to believe what the Father tells me and I throw on some clothes and drive to church.

I stood before my church family, with a tear stained face, shaking like I had never shook before. I told them I was up there as a vulnerable sister. I told them I had cried all week due to a difficult situation and a mountain was laughing at me all the way to the Church building. I told them I wanted them to do something that morning. I told them that if they had a mountain laughing at them as well, that they were to write the name of that mountain on a little piece of paper and along with me stand with their foot on the paper as a sign of their faith.

I sang the lyrics,

"When I call on Jesus,
All things are possible
I can mount on wings like eagles' and soar
When I call on Jesus,
Mountains are gonna fall
'Cause He'll move heaven and earth to come rescue me when I call"

The presence of God was amazing! And I felt like a battle was won in the spiritual realm that day. The gates of hell did not prevail. The mountain was still standing at that point but certainly the foundation was cracked. Indeed, the molecules of that mountain were disturbed since only a few weeks later a VICTORY was brought to us.

I could do nothing to affect my circumstances. I could do nothing to cause the victory. It was out of my hands but that mountain fell. It crumbled and it was so obviously the work of God.

Zech 4 Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’
Says the LORD of hosts.
‘ Who are you, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain!
And he shall bring forth the capstone
With shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’”