Coming Out of the Cave

As I sit and write this very first post, I have a vision of myself walking out of a cave that was hidden on the backside of the wilderness. As I walk out of the cave, I can see the lush land ahead that contains a crystal clear stream, flowers, trees, and the greenest grass you have ever seen. Fields of wildflowers are blooming, and I know it is the land I am meant to live in for the rest of my life.  

The wilderness is a place so many of God’s people avoid and view in a negative light, but it is in the wilderness that we come to know Him. We learn how to hear His voice. We are refined and purified for the assignments He has for our lives. In Hebrew, the word wilderness, or desert, is midbar (H4057). It means the place where God speaks. We can never fulfill our destiny if we do not have a wilderness season.

If I am honest, I am not sure I want to come out of this place with the Lord. There is so much peace in being hidden and cultivating a deep relationship with the Lord. Sitting for hours listening to His voice and studying His Word is what my soul could be content with for the rest of my life. But the Holy Spirit is leading me out because we were never meant to live our whole lives in the wilderness. There comes a time when the Lord nudges us out of the cave and says, “It is time, My child, for the world needs what I have placed inside of you.” Am I ready for this transition? Maybe. Some days I fight it and would rather get back in my office and simply worship and look up Hebrew words. But I know it is the season of being called out.

The past two decades have been my wilderness. Scattered throughout those years, there have been seasons of stepping out of the cave. Still, because I was not truly ready to be out of the hiddenness, the Spirit kept pulling me back to come away with Him again to be purified and refined to a deeper level. What did that tangibly look like? It looked like leaving a church in 2012 where I had been leading women’s ministry and navigating years without a church where it was just the Lord and me. It looked like leaving a church staff to focus on my family in the spring of 2018. It looked like being called to a new congregation and submitting to a new pastor to be mentored and equipped for my calling and purpose in the fall of 2018. It looked like in 2021, dissolving a ministry I had built to pull entirely away and only be with the Lord in the secret place to write and allow Him to hone my hears to His voice to be able to operate in the prophetic. It looked like pulling off all social media and narrowing my circle down to very few people for a season.

But now I am in the shift out of that final cave season. I am coming out with the ability to teach, prophesy, and be used as a vessel to bring deliverance to His people. I come out with multiple classes and books written to assist God’s sons and daughters in growing into maturity and fulfilling their destinies. These resources come from the ancient paths of God. Jeremiah 6:16 tells us that we are to stand by the way and see and ask for the ancient paths. These paths are the good way, and we are to walk in them. When we do, we will find rest for our souls. What are these ancient paths? They are the eternal principles of God’s covenant, His decrees, and the things that He has hidden in His Word that we must search out (Proverbs 25:2). The Western church has gotten away from these ancient paths and has instead followed the ways of rationalism and a secular humanistic Christianity. The pursuit of knowledge over intimacy and the worship of man and his ideas have led to a church without power and authority. But there is a shift taking place where God’s people are crying out for more. They are desperate and hungry in a world that has turned upside down. There is peace in an upside-down world. This peace comes from intimacy with God and traveling these ancient paths with Him.  

I would love for you to join me on this journey out of the cave and onto the ancient paths. For it is here, you will find purpose, destiny, and rest for your souls.