"I Will Pour Out My Spirit"

Deep calls unto deep
at the noise of Your waterfalls;
All your waves and billows
have gone over me.

- Psalm 42:7



...and also on My menservants and on my maidservants
I will pour out My spirit in those days.

- Joel 2:29

This morning at church Pastor Richel and his wife Melody gave a moving testimony. They are leaving the Philippines in a few weeks' time to obey a call to serve as missionaries in Mongolia. They have surveyed the mission field, they have laid the ground work. They are in the final stages of preparing for their departure.

The two verses that they quoted, to my surprise, were the same verses that have been spoken to my heart over these past years.

In Genesis 12:1, God speaks these words to Abram:

Get out of your country,
From your family,
And from your father's house,
To a land that I will show you.


And in Psalm 2:8-9, God speaks these words to His Son:

Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.


I sat there, listening intently to what the Lord was saying to me through this couple standing in front.



When my dear husband passed away so unexpectedly in November last year, somehow I knew that God was opening a new door in my life, even as He was closing a door to a part of my life as I knew it.

A door leading to the unknown and the unfamiliar was opening before me...

Have you ever felt that you were standing at the threshold of a new beginning? There is an open door, and a path...

These past months, pictures of an open door... a path with a shining light at the end of it... a beautiful sunrise, pictures depicting a new beginning, have often caught my attention.

I am at the threshold of something new.

Yet God would also say to me, "You have not passed this way before, so don't come up too close."

This passage in Joshua 3:3-4 has often made me wonder.

When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it.

Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure.

Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.


I thought we needed to stay close to God, and live in His presence? So why were the Israelites being instructed not to come too near the ark?


God gave those very words to me in early 2000 when I sensed He was bringing me to frontier territory, the time when God led me out of the school ministry that had "defined" me for the 18 best years of my life. "Don't get too close, My child."

I didn't understand it then, but I left it at that... a question mark next to the passage in my Bible.

In November 2006, after the near-fatal heart attack of my husband, God spoke those words to me again. "Don't come too near, for you have not passed this way before."

And then just recently, several months after Ernie's homegoing, God speaks those familiar words again.

Finally I think I'm getting what He means.

Keep your distance to get a clearer perspective. Know My purpose. Don't jump in without understanding. Look where you're going.

I see myself standing at the threshold. There is a path ahead of me, and before me is an open door.


Each time I was facing something new, God seemed to tell me, remember your lessons learned, get the right perspective.

In a new season, the old anointing will not suffice. Fresh oil, and fresh provisions are needed for the new path ahead.



While listening to Pastor Richel speak on the call of Abram, the word disentangle kept coming up in my heart.

What God is saying is not new, He's already spoken this to me before.

The door to the familiar has once again closed; it is time to move on to higher ground.

As the soldier goes deeper into enemy territory, obedience to the commanding officer is vital to survival.

Don't get entangled in civilian pursuits. There is a war to be fought.

Obedience is the key to survival.



When I got home last Tuesday, I discovered that termites had totally eaten up the door posts and lintel of our front door. We've had termite treatment done on our property these past months, so the termites have been eliminated, for now.

But a new door jamb had to be installed. I hired carpenters to remove the damaged portion before a new one could be put in place. Huge chunks of the concrete portion around the wooden door frame had to be knocked out as well.

This was done to make sure that the new door frame will be very strong, providing enough space for fresh cement to be poured around the structure, locked in place by long screws on the new posts and lintel and becoming permanently embedded as the mixture hardens into concrete.

"The strength of the door jambs is vitally important to the overall security of the door." (Wikipedia)

Don't come too close, listen to what I'm saying.

Don't come too near, watch what I'm doing.

Yes, my Lord, I hear you.

The lesson was too important to miss.

This is a picture of the main doorway with the old posts and lintel removed. The shot was taken from the inside looking out into the front steps and gate of our house.

The Lord is removing old structures in my life and replacing them with a new and secure one.


You are the new door and gatekeeper of your family...

You need secure and strong posts...

Your obedience means a lot...



Let it be done to me according to Your word, Lord.

I heard myself saying these familiar words of Mary, the young teenage girl who called herself a "handmaid" of the Lord (Luke 1:38).

A handmaid is actually a female bondslave. The words "maidservants" and "menservants" are used in older versions of the Bible.

A bondslave, or doulos in Greek, refers to the lowest, most servile term in the scale of servanthood.

Mary considered herself a female doulos. One whose will is swallowed up in the will of another.

Yet not my will, but Yours alone be done, dear Father.

Maybe I will not be called to be a literal missionary to a foreign land. Maybe what the Lord is simply asking of me is to move out of the familiar, the comfortable... to obtain my promised inheritance step by step.

But whatever it is, definitely I want to be like a Richel and a Melody, who did not settle for a mere parcel of land as their inheritance, but asked God for nations and the ends of the earth as their possession.

In these last days, God is looking for the willing and obedient ones, His maidservants and menservants, on whom He will pour His spirit.



Father, You know my heart. How it easily settles into the familiar and the comfortable. Help me to trust You as I stand on the threshold of an open door, and a new path ahead of me. Make my heart a container for the pouring out of Your spirit.