Morning!
A couple of weeks ago Sandy testified about something the Spirit showed her concerning this phrase from Matthew: “occupy ’til I come.” She called me to tell me that the Lord had shown her something and she wanted to be on the list to come to the meeting when you did the Matthew reading so she could tell it. While on the phone, she told me about it. It brought to my mind something the Lord told me in October 2010. You had just given us a message on honoring the gift of God. It was very good, and afterwards, we all were prayed for. When you laid hands on me, the Lord had a message for me through you: “occupy ’til I come”. And I remember talking to the Lord about that and saying, “What does that mean???” other than what I thought it was, namely, occupy my place and continue doing the things I know to do in the Lord. When Sandy called and told me what the Lord told her: Occupying ’til I come means “Let me [God] occupy you”, it was an answer to a question I had asked 11 years ago! I thought I knew the answer and was doing what I thought was it, but when Jesus gives the answer, it’s more than what you think you know.
I have been looking through my papers of things that Jesus has told me through the years that I have written down and thinking to make a collage of them. Interestingly, when I opened the box last night, the index card sitting right on top was just that: 10/2/2010 while being prayed for, “I will heal you. Occupy. . . occupy [your place] until I come. I am coming”. I thought, wow, then and now! I had just been thinking about that, and there it was.
Shortly after that, I found where I had had a very touching visit from Jesus in which the Lord used Natalie Embry to relay a very tender and intimate message to me from him in March of 2005. A most precious visit from the Lord, I must say. As I was reading over it, it read: “I designed your path. You are mine” and other sweet words from Jesus. But I didn’t remember some of the things the Lord had said to me, and one of them was “in due time”, said a couple of times over. I never questioned that, nor did I ask what that meant. I was so smitten with what had happened and Jesus talking to me, I didn’t think or ask about what was coming in “due time”.
As I was reading those things last night back to back, I was seeing the footprints on the map of my life perfectly designed by Jesus. I didn’t know what was coming, and I couldn’t have planned it. In 2005, Jesus knew I was going to need to be focused on his things for the next few years in order to do my work as a helper. And, I didn’t know that during that time, Jesus was going to touch a young man in Nebraska and start him on a journey in Jesus. Then, fast-forward to October 2010, the Lord tells me “he’s coming” and basically, to be prepared (“Let me occupy you”). One year later, November 2011, Jesus sent Vince to Graham to be my husband, and that is when our story began.
It’s really sweet to look back on your life and see the footprints on the map. Reading what the Lord told me, the instructions he gave me, and how he planned the whole thing, I didn’t know what was coming, but he did. When you see things in the light after the fact, you wish you would have known the details 😉 so you would have done better or differently, ha! But here we are! We got here. There are so many more details in the story, but realizing that Jesus loves you and knows you personally and what you need and think and feel, is very special. I love the messages lately and the emphasis on realizing how much you are loved by God. To get that down deep in our heart takes time, but once you realize it and believe it, you can’t get away from it. It draws you. It’s the best love affair there is. And it makes everything else in this life sweeter.
Amy B