There are many who write me and say, “The Lord told me to write a book.”
Whether you are a writer or not, this can be an important act of obedience for you and your family. It carries weight because when we put our testimony down on paper it creates a memorial. In the Old Testament there were times the Lord gave instruction to create a memorial. Sometimes it was with a pile of stones or some marker so that the story of deliverance and God’s help could be passed down from one generation to another.
Your story is no different.
When we write something down it takes what was just a thought, and once committed to paper ,brings it from the supernatural into the natural realm. It gives it voice.
“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the Lord.” Jeremiah 30:2-4
I believe this is a word for this hour.
Our restoration and ability to move forward is contingent upon our obedient action to write down what the Lord has done and said and to pass it on to our families and to others.
We are to write the vision and make it plain.
SEE ALSO: Are We In God’s Timing or Our Own
This action puts the words in motion with these three steps:
- It establishes His promise of what He has spoken.
I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied:
“Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. Habakkuk 2:1-3
How many times have we heard someone say, “I want to do so and so someday?” We’ve probably all done that at some time.
But a dream stays in the “hope for” realm until we take hold of it to move into the action phase. What makes a dream move from desire to the physical realm? When we write it down.
When we write the plan, it moves from a dream/desire to a destined purpose.
- It becomes a road map.
Have you ever taken a step to begin a project only to get discouraged when things begin to go wrong? A few years ago, my husband took over a storage building project when the original builder had a stroke. My husband is really good at carpentry. Although he was working full-time in ministry, he offered to work weekends to finish the project.
He first mapped out what still had to be done. He wrote it down, took measurements and made calculations. He determined it would take one full weekend. The only problem is once he got into the project, he discovered the previous builder had set some things in place that had to be redone.
What should have been a one weekend project became three. It would have been easy to become discouraged and walk away, instead my husband pressed in, redid the work that required fortifying and made the building secure so it could withstand any storm.
In the midst of the challenges he had to sit down several times and look back over his notes to stay on track.
In the same way, when God gives us a revelation and we write it down, it becomes our road map. It is important that we go back often to make sure we are on target.
SEE ALSO: When You Are in the Place of In-Between
When we don’t take the time to write down what the Lord speaks to us or does for us, we can lose part of that vision/revelation.
My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them,
And health to all their flesh (Proverbs 4:20-21).
We may find as we encounter challenges—and there will be challenges—that we have to make revisions as my husband had to do on that storage building. But as he went back and referred to the blueprint that he had written down, he was able to finish the project rather than walk away in frustration.
- It instructs and inspires.
This is especially important for our children, those who we mentor and those who are watching our lives.
Habakkuk 2 says, “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
When we don’t take time to write down a plan or revelation we can’t pass it on to others.
As parents (spiritual or natural parents) it is important that we pass on to our children the victories of what God has done in the past. By doing so we invest in their future.
When Joshua led the Israelites to take the Promise Land, each time they experienced a miraculous victory, they were given instructions to create a memorial so it could be remembered by future generations.
This is an important action of obedience and a prophetic act for the future. If we don’t write down the miracles and blessings of God’s provision in our lives, they are easily forgotten. Not only can we forget over time, but they are not passed down to instill faith in our children and grandchildren. Miracles from our past become the soil of miracles for the future.
What about the time God healed you? God provided finances when there wasn’t enough? When God delivered you out of an impossible situation?
When we write down what God has said to us (future tense) we create the atmosphere to see that word performed in our lives. Similarly when we write down when God answers prayer, it carries within that testimony the DNA to replicate itself in the soil of everyone who reads it and hears it.
It instills faith that if God did it once, He can do it again. It is the nature of who He is.
As we emerge from this season of challenge, we need to look back and review what God has done for us in the past—and regain hope that He will do it again.
If you have been prompted in your heart to sit down and write a book, a testimony a word the Lord has spoken to your heart. Or just sit down and journal, you need to act.
God can only move forward in our lives where we obey and give Him opportunity.
Until we take our step of obedience to do what He has instructed, such as writing the dream or revelation, it remains in the spirit realm. We need to pull it into the natural realm as we write it down.
The “book” you write doesn’t have to get published. It may be your journal. Or it may something that you publish with just ten or twenty copies that you pass out to family members at Christmas.
The important thing to remember is God said, “Write the vision and make it plain so that others can run with it.”
Did you know that God has a book of remembrance? If He does, shouldn’t we?
“Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. ‘They will be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him’” (Malachi 3:16–18).
