The time of your complaining has come to an end. The worry flowing from your mouth and filling your conversations has been put on order to cease. This is a Spirit of Shut Up. No more doubting. No more fearful ‘what if’ scenarios spoken about. No more negativity.
God says ZIP IT!
God is working in your life. He is in the process of fulfilling his every promise to you. He is actively moving mountains on your behalf and aligning miraculous details for your journey. Oh, you can’t see it yet, but it’s happening. Your mind hasn’t even dared to imagine the things God has planned for you, but the plans have been set in motion. Now, God is ordering your mouth to get in alignment!
I listened to a sermon yesterday from Elevation Church on the story of Zechariah from Luke chapter 1. In the early hours of this morning, God woke me up well before my alarm, with his request for me to dig deeper on this story. So, you and I are going digging this morning!
Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were good people. They loved and obeyed God. They did everything right, yet their prayers for a baby seemed to go unheard. They had prayed. They had asked. And nothing had ever changed. Now, the time for having babies was well past gone, it was too late. All hope was gone. Their delayed dream became an unanswered prayer sitting in the land of impossible.
Maybe you too have something that is too far gone. Something that you once hoped for and prayed over, but nothing ever changed. Nothing ever happened. And now it sits in the impossible. Just a reminder of a prayer that went unanswered for you. A flame of hope that went out. A big ol’ pile of disappointment that threatens to make you bitter.
But, my sister, God wants you to know HE HEARD YOUR PRAYER! Yes he did. He heard it from the moment you first prayed. He has heard it every time you brought it to his throne asking. There’s not a single time he hasn’t heard you.
And I get it, it’s hard to believe that when your reality doesn’t seem to align with heard prayers. It’s hard to continue to have faith that your every prayer has set God’s power in motion when you have no proof of what you’ve been praying for. But God wants you to know he has heard you and he has every intention on revealing to you his divine answer to your every prayer. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but you’re going to see he has always been at work for you.
So here Zechariah is, an old man with no children, and he has been chosen as the priest to go into the temple to burn incense. There, within the temple, Zechariah has an encounter that changed everything.
Luke 1: 11-19 “Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”
The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”
And this is how God said “Hush!” Hush your fears. Hush your doubts. Hush your dismissal of the miraculous. Hush your reasoning. Hush trying to understand the impossible.
Understand, Zachariah was made unable to speak, not as a punishment, but as protection. Something miraculous was happening. Something divine. Something greater than him. And his negative words of reasoning with reality were in the way. So, God said, “Hush!” It was the Spirit of Shut Up!
Sure enough, Elizabeth became pregnant. It happened when it was far too late. It happened when their prayers of the past had been given up on. It happened when it was totally impossible. It happened exactly when God said it would happen, in his perfect timing.
You see, this baby Elizabeth would have was to be set apart. He was John, soon to be known as John the Baptist. He would be filled with God’s Holy Spirit before ever being born. How? Well there was another impossible pregnancy happening at the same time. It was Mary, Elizabeth’s cousin, the virgin who was miraculously pregnant as well. Who was Mary pregnant with? JESUS!
Think about it … For Elizabeth, it was too late to have a baby. For Mary, it was too early to have a baby. But God’s timing is perfect! And God’s timing requires all naysayers to take a seat and hush!
When Elizabeths’s pregnant tummy came close to Mary’s pregnant tummy, something happened. Elizabeth felt her baby “leap”. What was this leap? This was the receiving of the Holy Spirit, just as the Angel had said. John was in the presence of Jesus!
John would prepare the way for Jesus. He would even be the one to baptize Jesus. So, yes, he was divinely set apart in a time that was too far gone for his parents, but absolutely perfect for his life’s mission.
On the day of John’s birth, Zachariah miraculously received his voice again. The entire pregnancy he had been unable to speak. Why? Because the Holy Spirit had hushed him. There could be no negativity spoken while God was working. There could be no fearful stories told while the impossible was unfolding. There could be no doubt. There could be no complaint.
HU-SSSSSS-HHHHHHHHHH!
And to you my sister, you have to know God is working. You have to know God’s power has been set in motion by your every prayer. You have to know there is so much more than what you can see. You have to know you are under God’s divine timeline that doesn’t align with your timeline, because God is not limited by time. God works in the infinite and forever. God’s power unfolds in the now for the sake of the eternal.
Sometimes God’s power in the now is saying, “wait for it, wait for it, waitttttt for ittttttt….”, and it will happen in the most earthly unlikely timing for the sake of eternity. And sometimes God’s power in the now says, “let it be immediate because right now is the time I have declared.” I personally like the right now instead of the wait for it, but I’m learning it’s all worth it when God’s aligning it.
What is God aligning for you? Gosh, I just can’t even imagine. When is he going to do it? Girl, I have no idea! But I know this much, your complaining has got to stop! Your negativity is getting in the way. You’re on a gag order by the Almighty.
Hush while God is working on your behalf. When is he working? ALWAYS! So when should you hush the negativity? ALWAYS!
This is not your punishment, this is your protection.
Elizabeth didn’t need a husband reminding her every day of the dangers of a pregnancy at her age. And your family doesn’t need you reminding them every day of all that is wrong. Your friends don’t need you talking about your problems. You’re stirring up doubt, worry and fear with your complaints. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
God says, HUSH! He brings the Spirit of Shut Up down for your protection. There’s something precious growing here. There’s something divine unfolding. God is doing something, and your job is to protect it with positive faith instead of drown it with negativity.
Today, you will notice a sudden awareness when negativity is flowing from your mouth or your fingertips. Yip, that’s the Spirit of Shut Up at work! And proof, God is protecting something miraculous unfolding in your life!
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