Recently there was a prophetic word given at a conference Jim and I went to, stating that people had dropped their mantles in the dust and there was a call to pick them up again, dust them off and go again. This is something we have shared in a previous post titled “Re-Run’ but it is certainly becoming a clearer and clearer call for people to action.
What is a mantle? A mantle is a symbol of God’s calling in our lives. It represents the tasks or purpose God has called us and equipped us to perform.
During difficult times we tend to drop these and perhaps settle in what we are doing rather than running with a passion and a fire that perhaps we might have had previously.
Along with those mantles that had been dropped, I believe there are new things the Lord is wanting people to pick up and run with. In the letting go of previous held positions, jobs, callings, whatever it may have been in the last season, I see there are new things, new keys for new ministries, particularly in the marketplace and overseas.
An example of my own of a mantle being picked up, this last weekend I went to a NZ Christian Writers retreat where I had been four years ago, and although I have kept writing in my mind, and the promise sitting in my heart, it hasn’t been with the full focus and attention that the Lord wants me to give it. Not only giving attention to it, but ‘owning’ it as I declared with my spoken word this past weekend that I am a writer, and in fact I am a ‘published writer’. In the declaration of it, it brought about an authority in me and in what I write, that gives it a power that perhaps it didn’t have previously.
In the picking up of old mantles, God is asking you not just to pick them up, but to ‘own’ them, declare that this is who you are and what you are called to, even if just to the heavens, as it becomes a part of your identity, your future and with perhaps an authority that wasn’t there before. Step into it and run with it knowing that everything is resting not in your strength or ability but His, and He who called you is faithful and will accomplish all He has called you to do.
Secondly in the picking up of new keys for new ministries, particularly in the marketplace and overseas, there may be a bit of ‘fumbling’ for a moment as you try and find your way in a new place, a new land. You don’t know what it looks like, you haven’t been this way before, it’s like a brand-new slate but that is where the excitement can be if we allow it. Although challenging, there is a dependancy on the Lord that is beautiful as we put our trust in Him to lead and guide us.
As we go from glory to glory in following Jesus, from strength to strength, everything is built on what has gone before so it’s not completely new. God has already equipped us to be able to walk in the new places we may find ourselves in, just now at a different level perhaps, or in a different way than what we had thought of.
In myself picking up the mantle of writing again, it means there is also another level of accountability and action that is required.
As I write this, I am looking at signing up to a coach who can help take my writing to the next level and this ‘costs’ something of a sacrifice for me. Whether it be time, whether it be money, training in a new area, whatever it is, there is a cost now being asked in picking up the various mantles the Lord has us to pick up. That is where there is new fire or the fresh fire is as we put something on the altar that is available for the Lord to ‘burn’ up. We call out to the Lord for fresh fire but there must be something we are putting on the altar. What is it that perhaps the Lord is asking you to put on the altar as the sacrifice in the picking up and running with the old or new mantle the Lord has for you?
Perhaps your identity is changing like myself, one from being a pastor of a church, to now again picking up an old mantle of itinerant speaker and now a new mantle not previously walking in with authority of a writer. In letting go of old identities/roles and laying them on the altar. Perhaps you were full time mother and now your children have left home and you are looking at going back to work. You are still a mother, your role has changed in essence, freeing you up to now explore other options such as work. Like Jim he was full time working on a farm helping support the ministry, now due to epilepsy, he is not currently allowed to drive or be around machinery, which means he has to look at new things. So He is having to lay down an identity as a farmer with a question to the Lord of what now? Laying something on the altar and giving it to the Lord which in itself is challenging and often has a grief associated with it, which too needs to be recognised and surrended.
I encourage you through this blog, to stop for a moment and look at what is asking you to pick up again and run afresh with, or perhaps things you are being asked to lay down, trusting the Lord has new keys for new ministries for you to pick up, new mantles in the marketplace, or overseas. And as you take a moment and see, surrender it to the Lord on His altar asking for His fresh fire to come into your life. Ask for Him to reveal those new things for you to run with and don’t allow fear to hinder you in any way, because where He has called you, He will equip you and give you all you need in order to fulfill what He has put in your hands.
Philippians 1:6 “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”
