I felt like the Lord told me that we are very good at traditions when it comes to church. He said this as a contrast to His traditions and agendas. He said our traditions aren’t cutting it. He went on to explain that we tend toward having things buttoned up, being linear in how we organize and do things. He said some of that has to do with looking good, insecurity, or a fear of losing control. We have our order of service, our programs, our way of doing things that we tend to fall back to, all our ducks in a row. If a beehive is wrecked, the bees will get to work to bring back order to every cell in a grid-like fashion. He was saying that’s kind of what we do when He brings apparent disorder to what we’re doing. We tend to flow back to what’s comfortable, but then there’s the inevitable boredom and complaining. We tend to do things a certain way and then expect Him to bless it as though it was His way, and it’s often less than stellar.
He asked me if He had all His ducks in a row. I then saw in a vision many rows of ducks in the sky all perfectly lined up as far as the eye could see. I immediately felt this was ludicrous about Him. He then said that His nature, though ordered with no chaos, was not man’s order. His tradition was not man’s tradition. He said His ways were unfathomable. The depth of His glorious ways are boundless and transcendent. I asked if His ways were like a fractal or like tree branches spreading out in random ways. He said not quite. His ways are His ways and we get to discover them if we pay attention and follow His lead.
I could sense how inscrutable He truly was. He reminded me of John 5:19-20 where Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. Yes, and He will show Him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.” Jesus had faith and trust in the Father. He is calling us to walk the same in how we do church and our lives. This isn’t easy. We try, but fall back to tradition because it has a powerful pull like a neodymium magnet. They are ten times more powerful than regular fridge magnets. They have to be pried off a metal surface.
We all love the move of the Holy Spirit when He breaks out and we shift away from doing things we normally gravitate toward. I have seen this several times where the Holy Spirit is moving and everyone is on board, in awe, having fun, “ducks” flying everywhere. We always go back to putting the ducks back in a row to bring order to what seems like chaos. This frustrates me personally because if the Lord is moving, why ever would we want to put a lid on it? The answer to that is comfortable traditions.
God is an adventure. To flow with Him in what He’s doing, there is power and effect which is confirmed as it says above, “He will show Him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.” He will show us even greater works that will blow our socks off if we genuinely do it His way. This can’t be faked.
From my observation, in the past moves of His presence, the Holy Spirit moved powerfully in a sovereign way on our lack of faith, unbelief, and inability to hear Him clearly. It’s interesting that when that happened, the prophetic came alive. To prophesy is to hear Him and repeat what He says. Ears were opened.
In 1 Corinthians 12 it says that the Spirit distributes as He wills all the gifts. This means from His heart, His order, His heavenly tradition, His agenda, He does His thing. He doesn’t do it according to man’s tradition. When we let Him do it, we see extraordinary power ministry.
Seeing and hearing what the Father is doing isn’t easy and it takes time to cultivate that relationship with Him. He’s calling us to get close and spend time with Him. He wants us to hear Him and do what He’s doing. I believe a sovereign move of the Holy Spirit is upon us to help our unbelief to fully affirm and do what He’s doing just like He did before. He’s empowering us to follow heaven’s traditions which takes faith, trust, and fearlessness because we find it hard to believe, hard to comprehend, and hard to take a leap into the unknown of His ways. Good to know that all His ways are love, creative, and bring new life.
