Hiddenness and Manifestation

"Just Before Sunrise"
Zuluk, India

image source

Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there Your hand shall lead me,

And Your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”

Even the night shall be light about me;

Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,

But the night shines as the day;

The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

- Psalm 139:7-12

For He says, "In the time of my favor I heard you,

and in the day of salvation I helped you."

I tell you, now is the time of God's favor,

now is the day of salvation.

- 2 Corinthians 6:2

Christmas this year was like a slow train coming.

I was in Manila in October, and even then, I had already started buying Christmas presents. In November, I made several trips to the mall to buy more gifts. After my daughter Obedient One arrived from Manila on December 8, she and I bought still more gifts for family members.

Then there were the parties and get-togethers, all in the name of Christmas fun.

Obedient One and I finally finished decorating the Christmas tree on December 23, two days before Christmas Day!

The presents have been wrapped and given away... the gifts we received have all been unwrapped... my dear daughter returned to Manila the day after Christmas... and for several days, all I ate was leftover Christmas food to clear up the fridge.

And suddenly, just like that, Christmas 2017 is over.

Now the last day of the year is here. In just a few hours, we will be welcoming the new year.

Twelve months have gone by so fast! 

Chronologically speaking, I am a year older. 

I am also three hundred sixty five days wiser. 

And there are fifty-two weeks worth of spiritual lessons and personal experiences tucked within my heart.

As the month of December and the year 2017 are about to end, I am writing this blog post to sum up what the past weeks and months have taught me.

There are several truths about God that I understood more clearly this year.

One of them is about the two ways that He moves. For many months, I have been drawing close to God, seeking to align my heart responses to that of His. I have shared in my earlier posts about the inner struggle of faith that I went through in 2016. Generally speaking, I don't think I received any direct response from God. I would pray and seek His face, then from the Bible passages that "spoke" to me I would assume that God was indeed "speaking" to me.

After a while, I realized that I wasn't really sure that was God. It could very well have been just wishful thinking on my part to say that I was hearing from Him. The Bible verses would soothe me, and bring a measure of comfort and confirmation, but to say that I was a hundred per cent certain that God was speaking to me could be mere presumption.

In short, for the most part, I felt God was hidden from me.

I wanted the nearness of His presence, the certainty of specific answers to prayer. But really, there was only waiting, and more waiting, on my part.

Then a few months ago, while reading Graham Cooke's book Prophetic Wisdom, I came across a portion entitled Hiddenness and Manifestation. As I read, everything suddenly fell into place for me.

Here's an excerpt:

A key part of God's nature is the fact that He moves in two ways: hiddenness and manifestation. When we come to terms with this truth, we are set free spiritually to ebb and flow with what God is doing. There are times when God reveals Himself to us and times when He hides. I love it when God is right in my face, speaking into everything He can. But for every time of manifestation, there is a season of hiddenness, where God seems to move away from us. When God hides from us, He is trying to draw us into His presence. Manifestation takes place in our reality; hiddenness happens in His. Hiddenness draws us into a new place in the Spirit.... God is constantly with us, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes He jumps out at us because He cannot wait to show Himself to us, and at other times He hides, drawing us further into Him.

When I understood that I was in a season of God's hiddenness, my inner struggles ceased. God Himself promises in Hebrews 13:5 that He will never leave us nor forsake us. And also, that God desires for His children to learn to walk by faith, and not by sight.

In 1 Corinthians 2:7, Paul talks about the hidden wisdom of God: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory. Thus, meditating on those words, and other similar passages, I understood that the season of God's hiddenness was essential to the maturing and the nurturing of my faith and wisdom.

Graham Cooke writes, "The simplest way to explain it is to say that manifestation is a time of blessing, hiddenness is a time of building. God desires to bring us through seasons of hiddenness because He wants us to learn the discipline of walking by the Spirit."

Real wisdom is hidden from us until God reveals it to us. He often chooses to do that in the place of hiddenness. Hiddenness is God’s training ground. (Cooke)

David the psalmist understood that hiddenness and wisdom go together. He writes this in Psalm 51:6, “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom” (Psalm 51:6).

And so having understood the season I am in, I went on with my life, secure in knowing that God holds my times and seasons in His hands.

The months of November and December was loaded with opportunities. With me doing full time work as housekeeper, laundry woman, gardener, and pet caretaker all rolled up into one, not to mention my commitment to Family Foundations International as part of the ministry team, and being mentor-teacher of one of the women's groups in our church, there really is no day that nothing is happening.

In November, my dear friend Grace arrived from the United States with the cremains of her husband Max who died unexpectedly while they were on vacation. That was an emotional time for me and my family as we traveled all the way to Kabankalan to attend the memorial service.

Also in November, I coordinated an Ancient Paths seminar for a small group of teachers from Trinity School. Then on the last week, I was part of the training team for the School of Ministry for Facilitators.

Last weekend of November, I conducted a two-day retreat for the Women of Purpose of our church.

On the first two days of December, I coordinated another Ancient Paths seminar for a group of nine.

To join the Father in what He is doing and be part of a ministry that helps set people free from erroneous mindsets about their identity and destiny truly boosts my faith and refills my spiritual tank. At the same time, however, it requires discipline and wise management of time, because on ministry days, I need to wake up before dawn to give me enough time to finish my chores by 8 a.m.

The busyness of November spilled over into December as the new month began.

Make it a December to remember. This was the welcome post I wrote on my Facebook timeline on the first of this month.

And indeed, it is a December to remember.

Somewhere along the full schedule of each day, I neglected my usual time with God. Prayer time was short and perfunctory, very much on my mind was the list of things I needed to do.

Then I developed a cough that wouldn't go away. It wasn't nasty, just stubborn. After two weeks, I realized I needed to seek medical attention for it, before it worsened.

I also realized that I was short on funds, and much as I hated the thought, I would have to dip into my savings again.

One stormy evening, upon arriving from an out of town trip, I noticed that the lights in my home would flicker from time to time. I didn't pay any more attention to that until my daughter noticed one rainy night that the service entrance connections were emitting sparks. I made a mental note to get an electrician to check the cables.

Each night before going to sleep, I would thank God for helping me through the day, and thank Him for His protection for the night. Each morning upon waking up, I would remind myself that I am a daughter of the King, and ask God in advance for wisdom to do things right for that day.

Quick prayers... but not staying long to hear God's answers. I was, after all, in a season of hiddenness. I wasn't expecting any manifestation at that point.

Then money started coming in from unexpected sources. I realized God was meeting my need for funds. Up to today, the last day of the year, there is still more than enough for all the expenses that this Christmas season entailed.

I wanted to get an appointment with the pulmonologist on December 20 to seek advice regarding my cough, but her receptionist said the doctor could see me only on December 22. Because I really wanted to see a doctor, I went to another doctor, an upper respiratory specialist who listened to my lungs and diagnosed my condition as acute bronchitis, and prescribed medication for me.

That night, for the first time in weeks, I was kept awake by non-stop coughing. There could have been something in the medication I was given that triggered the coughing bouts.

I was content to finish the course of treatment from this doctor, howbeit at lunchtime of Friday, December 22, the receptionist called to remind me of my appointment with the pulmonologist. It was nearly 1 p.m. when she called and I was reluctant to go, but a voice in my heart told me it was important for me to keep my appointment.

So I went.

To make a long story short, Dr. Locson said I needed to have a chest x-ray taken to confirm her suspicions. She also instructed me to stop taking all the medications prescribed by the other doctor, and gave me a new prescription. I had an x-ray taken, bought the medicines, and went home just in time for my daughter and me to be at Vikings for a Christmas party that we were attending that evening.

After taking the initial cough medication, I slept like a log until morning. I had peace that God's hand of healing was on me, even though part of the x-ray results read, "beginning or resolving pneumonia." On December 28, seven days after my initial check-up with Dr. Locson, she declared my lungs clear. And my cough was all gone as well.

Again, I was on my knees thanking God for the manifestation of His timely healing and care.

You did that for me, Lord, didn't You? You wanted to show me You care, and that You love me!

I couldn't stop thanking Him.

On Thursday night, December 28, it started raining again. There was a tropical depression on its way to this part of our islands. I was awakened early Friday morning by the smell of burnt rubber. I knew immediately that it had something to do with the service entrance cables. I prayed to God for protection, and for the provision of a reliable electrician. At that early hour, 5 a.m., I texted my sister in law and asked her if she could send her electrician over to my house that morning. Sue replied that she will check the electrician's schedule for that day.

By 6 a.m. the rain stopped, and the sun was shining. The electrician arrived at midday and confirmed that the service entrance connections were all corroded and needed to be repaired. It didn't take him one hour to repair the connection. That evening, the rains started to pour again. It's been raining off and on since Friday night until now. If the sun had not shone on Friday, it would have been difficult for the electrician to troubleshoot the problem. The smoky smell has since dissipated, and my lights are not flickering anymore.

Again, I realize that God was manifesting His care and protection for me! I am not surprised that God would do this for me, but I am amazed at the timeliness of His response.

In church this morning, Pastor Joe spoke to us about the importance of gratitude, because it is gratitude that produces worship. Luke in Chapter 17:11-19 writes about the ten lepers who were healed, but only one saw the need to go back to Jesus Christ and thank Him for the healing.

What produces gratitude? Pastor Joe pointed out that we may not be leprous physically, but we all are spiritual lepers on our way to eternal damnation. We are all in desperate need of His healing touch. If we but recognize the magnitude and the depth of what we have been healed from, the spiritual decay, the rottenness, and slow but certain death, then we would waste no time bowing before Jesus and thanking Him for healing us.

It is a timely message for me, especially because of what God has done for me this month of December.

My heart is indeed overflowing with gratitude for the specific ways in which God met my need: for financial provision, for healing from pneumonia before it could take its toll on me physically, for saving my home from what could have been a disastrous electrical fire. And many other little miracles that have simply gone unnoticed.

I will never forget the message of the Bible lesson that Lyndon gave us on December 4, the first lesson for this month. He said that God is the God of the times and the seasons; even God Himself respects and submits to the principle of right timing.

The prophet Habakkuk asks for the time when answers will come, but God simply tells him to wait for the right time.

For the vision is yet for an appointed time;

But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.

Though it tarries, wait for it;

Because it will surely come,

It will not tarry.

-Habakkuk 2:3

God operates on the principle of kairos, or opportune time. He waits for the fullness of time before acting. In the meantime, the waiting is not in vain. The waiting, or the time of hiddenness, is ground or heart preparation for what He will do.

And there is no question about it. God is a good God. So even while we are waiting for His answers to come, He is already good. His love endures forever. He is faithful to His promises. He is not forsaking us when He is  hidden, He is simply waiting for something to happen in our hearts that will benefit us, not harm us.

This is the second truth about God that sums up the month of December, and the year 2017, for me: After all has been said and done, in the end, one thing is sure, the time of God's favor is always NOW.

Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians:

For He says,

“In the time of my favor I heard you,

and in the day of salvation I helped you.”

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

- 2 Corinthians 6:2

I thank God for the times of hiddenness, when He has given me first hand lessons in understanding the deep things of His heart. And I thank God for the unexpected times of manifestation, when He has shown me first hand what His love, His care, His provision, and His protection is all about.

One of my favorite passages in Scripture is found in Jeremiah 32:40, where God says, 

I will make an everlasting covenant with them: 

I will never stop doing good to them, 

and I will inspire them to fear me, 

so that they will never turn away from me.

On that note I will end. This is indeed a December to remember. And this has been a very good year.

Before the year 2017 says good-bye, Abba Father is reminding me to relate to Him by revelation, not by reason, from my spirit, and not from my intellect. He purposely revealed His heart to me in a language I understood.

What a beautiful way to end the year! How it revives me, and fills my heart with hope for better things to come in 2018!

My heart overflows with gratitude. 

Indeed I can never thank God enough for everything He has done for me.

This is my song, my story.