Awake!

I recently attended a Women’s Meeting at our church. This meeting was all about empowering women to recognize their role in Kingdom work.

I usually don’t attend any meetings because I always need to stay at home to look after my daughter who is a special need child. But this time I decided to attend it. I really wanted, maybe needed to connect back to the women’s fellowship. And I am glad I did!

Our guest Speaker Dulcie Philip who is from Chennai, India was ministering to us.  She shared a message from Isaiah 54:1-2

A captive daughter of Zion

“Awake, awake, Zion,
 clothe yourself with strength!
Put on your garments of splendor,
    Jerusalem, the holy city.
The uncircumcised and defiled
    will not enter you again.
2 Shake off your dust;
    rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem.
Free yourself from the chains on your neck,
    Daughter Zion, now a captive.”

She encouraged us to know our identity, freedom and worth in Christ. She challenged us to dare to step into our God-given destiny by rising up despite the circumstances, to recognize our calling, and function fully into it. She further shared her life experiences and how God helped her come out of her confinements and thrive into her God-given purpose.

As she was sharing the message, I felt as if it was for me. Her words began an awakening in my spirit. God purposed for me to attend the meeting to hear His word, His prompting and His encouragement for me to awake and arise from my bondages, to put on new garments of His strength, to receive His fresh anointing, a new perspective and a new beginning. I realised it was not the circumstances which made me captive; it was my mindset, my thinking, my imaginings and anticipations.

I pictured myself as a captive daughter of Zion who is chained with fears, disappointments, heartaches, uncertainties, doubts, people’s opinions about her, feelings of worthlessness and emptiness. God is asking me to break off the chains that are binding my soul and be free and be enthroned with His power which is in me.

God wants me to be ministered to before He uses me to minister to others.

He wants His truths to go deeper into my heart and get rooted in.

He wants me to grasp the true meaning of freedom….freedom in Him.

He wants me to awake from my imaginary world I built up over many years.

He wants me to arise to my new identity in Him.

He wants me to shackle off myself to flourish into my destiny.

Here’s a poem I have written almost six years ago and now I truly understand its real meaning

“I am chained, I am chained waiting to be free

Free to be myself, free to be just me

I am chained, I am chained waiting to be free….

The dreams of my heart were to touch others’ lives

Lives of the suffering, the broken and the lost

I wished to enlighten their lives with my life

To restore, to rescue, to save them for Christ

But I am chained, I am chained waiting to be free….

The vision of my life seems to be fading

The passion of my heart seems to be dying

Will anyone hear the cry of my heart?

Will anyone run to set me apart?

Will anyone unchain the dreams that are bound?

Will anyone heal the unmended wound?

In the midst of my anguish, in the midst of my pain

I heard a voice that lovingly says

“My daughter, my daughter

You are born to be free

You are called for a purpose to set others free

Your dreams will be unchained

If you delight in me

Your scars will be mended if you trust only in me

With new joy in your heart, you will rise like before

As you wait for the one, who cares for you more

He is your Father, the almighty God

One who promised to never leave your hand”

Yes, I will be unchained, I will be unchained

As I wait upon thee

Free to be myself, free to be just me.”

I want to encourage you today that the freedom you so long to have is only found in the Lord. He alone knows you, your chains, the weight you carry on your heart, the tears you shed in the dark, the dreams you are tending, the limitations you are bound in. He wants to set you free and want you to arise and be enthroned with His power. Will you listen to His voice?