Now arise, get out, and return...

Follow the cloud...

I will instruct you and teach you
in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye. Psalm 32:8


Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying
"This is the way, walk in it,"
Whenever you turn to the right hand,
Or whenever you turn to the left. Isaiah 30:21

One of the benefits of being God's child is the guidance that He provides every step of the way. The Bible passages I have quoted above from Psalm 32:8 and Isaiah 30:21 have been true in my life again and again.

When the president of Maejo University gave Ernie the invitation to extend his work contract for another year after it ends this September, we have both asked the Lord to show us His will regarding it.

On our hearts were the desire to go back home for good. Ernie was needed back at the university where he works, and we knew we needed to be back with our family again. Yet, we did not want to make a decision according to our personal agenda, we wanted to be sure it was what God wanted.

Lynne Hammond says,

Many Christians miss the will of God in their lives. Instead of waiting on Him, they just try to figure out in their brains what the best course of action would be...but God's plan isn't in our brains, it's in our hearts! And if we want to know what that plan is, we must allow the Holy Spirit to bring it up from our hearts and reveal it to us in times of quiet waiting. (from Lynne Hammond's book, The Master is Waiting)

Ernie was in Hawaii on a speaking assignment for two weeks in July. He had to give his decision before July ended, to give time for his papers to be processed for the new financial year.

On July 23, while reading in the book of Genesis to continue my study on the life of Joseph, I was struck by these lines from Genesis 31:

Then the Lord said to Jacob, "Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you." (verse 3)

"I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to Me. Now arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family." (verse 13)

The lines were just the very confirmation that we were waiting for. Somehow I knew that our stay here was over. I believe that God has already accomplished what had to be done in our lives for this season. Still, my God favored me with a specific answer to the prayer I made just a few weeks before Ernie left for Hawaii.

Another season has ended; now we must pull up our tent pegs, fold up our tent, and move on to follow where God's cloud leads.

With this revelation and clear direction for the next step, my heart is at peace. While it has given me sadness at having to leave, I have to face reality. We can't live in two physical worlds at the same time.

I know that this was just a healing season for Ernie and me, a kind of incubation period for God's deeper purposes to be birthed in our souls.

Because we knew we were obeying our Master, we did what needed to be done these past two months with a sense of purpose and resolution.

What a good parent God the Father is! He does guide His children with His eye. As a parent I know exactly what that phrase means. When my children were small, I always wanted to be sure they were safe. I would often watch what they were doing. I wasn't literally holding them, but my eye was on them. One eye on them, and another eye on whatever it was I was doing at the moment. Even up to their teenage years, my husband and I would "keep an eye" on them. Admonish them, encourage them, or give them advice and words of guidance, whenever needed.

Now I am ready to return to the land of my family. His sure word says, arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family. Very specific.

It was meant for Jacob, but it has also become His rhema word to me.

God was taking up Jacob on his promise that if God will be with him, and protect him, and lead him back, only then would he make God his God... a rather self-serving kind of promise, nevertheless, God honors it.

And just as God called Jacob to return to Bethel, I also hear the same call.

Pastor Ron Thomas says that the journey back to Bethel begins when we once again hear and obey the voice of God.

I am struck by the specific things that Jacob did in response when he finally heard the voice of God.

Before returning to the land of his forefathers, Jacob did re-visit Bethel. A humbled, more subdued, much wiser man, compared to the impudent and arrogant lad that he was twenty years before, he says to his wives and children:

Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone...

So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel)...he and all the people who were with Him. And he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel...

Then God appeared to Jacob again... And God said to him, "Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name." So He called his name Israel. (Genesis 35:2-3, 6-7, 9-10)

In Bethel, Jacob encounters God in a fresh way. God reminds him that he is no longer Jacob, but Israel. God also speaks to Him again the covenant promise that He gave to Abraham and Isaac.

Within these few remaining days here, I am seeking God's heart. I don't need to go to a literal Bethel, for I know that Bethel is in my heart. I just need to purify myself, cleanse my soul of things that have weighed me down or distracted me.

Just as Bethel was a place of revival and restoration for Jacob, I seek God again in my own Bethel. I want to be reminded of who I am, and be reconnected to God's eternal purposes for me for the next step of my journey.

Yes, much remains to be done when we return home but it will not be simply a picking up from where I left off.

I return to my homeland as a new person. Having gone through an inner transformation, and equipped with fresh revelation and new lessons, I am ready to face another level, another season, another breakthrough.