The Lord has been drawing us away to Himself for a time of intimacy, out of which will come birth. In the same way that women in the old days would go into a period of confinement before, during and after the birth of their baby, so the Lord is also taking His people into confinement so that they can be with Him as He births new things in them.
Out of this period of confinement will come an explosion of creativity, including new books, poetry, artworks and songs, as well as new businesses – as many find time and space to follow the dreams that the Lord placed in their hearts at a young age and which had become dulled by time and wrong priorities.
Across the world this period of confinement will revolutionise the Christian worship music ‘industry’, as God strips away reliance on mass gatherings and all the systems needed to support these events and He causes His people to find Him for themselves. Many worship leaders will be stripped back and shaken, as God goes to the heart of their motivations, stripping away all ego and status.
But out from this confinement will come sold-out-for-Jesus worshippers, those who have been refined in the fire and have emerged as pure gold. Our worship will be simple, passionate, Jesus-focused and pure. New worship leaders will emerge from obscurity, leading a new generation of young worshippers who have been birthed out of the confinement. In this time of new birthing, there is a wrestling and pain that we have to go through, as Christ Jesus goes to the very deep places in us and establishes His purposes.
Many of us will experience a painful stripping back of life as we know it, exposing our self-reliance and self-centredness. God calls us into Himself in ways we that have not experienced before.
There is a new wave of multi-sensory/experiential encounter with the Lord to be found in Him, even as we are forced into a more reflective, slower way of life. This will be like the charging of an ‘atomic battery’, which carries us into the future with new levels of power – a power that is steady, constant and lasts for a very long time.
Like Job in Scripture, in the depths of pain and solitude, we will come to a place where all doubt in Him is squashed and we are able to say,
I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand on the earth.
Job 19:25