CHAPTER ONE – RESTORE WHAT?
YES! RESTORE WHAT?
I was puzzled. I was just walking our dogs and praying as I do daily. It was fifteen years ago, and we lived in the Chicago area at the time. Now that I think about it, I can see it as if it were a snapshot. I was walking around a tree and over a rock, suddenly saying out loud these three words:
“RESTORE, RESTORE, RESTORE!”
Why did I say that? What am I talking about? Who wanted me to say that and remember it all these years? God did, and He saved this memory for me by putting that snapshot in my mind. I have never forgotten it in all this time, remembering it like yesterday.
Lord, where did that come from? What does that mean? Why did I say these words like that?
Did God answer me right then? No. But year by year, the Lord started revealing more of what was on His mind.
It is HUGE! HUGE, EXCITING, AND WONDERFUL! I could add more adjectives, but I can’t wait to start telling you what was revealed to me.
Don't read just a few chapters and stop, for the best part is towards the end. It is amazing, and I don’t want you to miss any of the little bit of His plan I was allowed to know.
Lean not on your own understanding.
We can’t even begin to think like He can.
This is big! God is about to do this new thing He has been talking to me about for two decades!
It is a BRAND NEW THING!
I have known the Lord long enough to know that His news is always exciting and amazing. What a thrill we get to know and be a part of it!
I can’t wait to read this book to learn more of what our Heavenly Father has in store.
I know what you're thinking: What? You are writing a book YOU want to read to find out what you said was revealed? That doesn't even make sense!
Yes, that is exactly what I said. Let me explain. I had the title for this book for fifteen years, ever since suddenly saying those three words on that walk. That is when I knew I would be writing a book. I just didn’t think it would look like this, but I knew it had this title. I had not even a thought about writing a book until a week ago. Nothing really has happened as I expected.
That is why I said what I did.
Lean not on your own understanding.
I figured I would indeed write this book when those things I was expecting started happening
How many do what I have done? God revealed a small portion, and I wrote a whole book.
Readers, it does not work like that.
I am walking this, one step at a time walk, sharing with you as I go.
This is not the book I wrote in my head.
This evidently is about our Heavenly Father’s perfectly timed agenda and plan to turn heads back towards Him.
Our God is full of surprises. You know that; I know that. I didn't expect this one about writing a book. I didn't know the contents of it until I stepped out in faith. Bear with me, and I will explain.
Oh, how God loves us! Oh, how He wants us to just sit with Him, walk with Him, talk with Him, and allow Him to guide us.
While at a conference recently, I was challenged to write a book in only sixty days. Knowing that any such endeavor would have to be orchestrated by God—and practically dictated by Him as well—I agreed, not even knowing for certain what I would write. I had a title but nothing else.
Have you ever taken a step of faith and just said YES?
God is faithful. As I began, He downloaded the titles of chapters.
Lean not on your own understanding.
In the second week of writing this book, my husband and I were on a trip, and I carried my developing manuscript with me everywhere, just in case God spoke to me about something that I was to include. On the ride home from the airport, the radio was playing the song Pure Imagination from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, performed by Julie Budd.
Here are some of the lyrics:
Come with me
And you’ll be
In a world of
Pure Imagination.
Take a look
And you'll see
Into your imagination.
We’ll begin
With a spin
Traveling in
The world of my creation.
What we’ll see
Will defy
Explanation.
I was singing it to myself when it was over, but I found myself changing the lyrics.
I was singing:
Traveling in
the world of God’s creation.
What we’ll see
will defy
explanation.
When we think of our imagination and compare it to God Almighty’s imagination, no wonder—NO WONDER!—we are told in the Bible to lean not on our own understanding.
God created this world in His mind, and then spoke it into existence. IMPRESSIVE!
I am extremely excited about this new agenda. The winds have changed, and the time is now.
I received my first prophetic word in 1995, twenty years ago. The prophecy was about a brand new ministry, with the agenda all written out ready for me to walk into. That which He has been speaking to me for twenty years is now, this time period. What I have seen in visions and I have been blessed to receive is wonderfully kind and awe-inspiring. I cannot even create in my mind the how part. I will tell you about those in later chapters.
When I started this project, this is how I prayed:
I humbly throw my plan in the trash, my Heavenly Father. I want only to hear You and to be guided in Your plan for this new wave of power.
Now I totally get it, Lord, and I have readers here with me who want to know what this new wave is, this new agenda.
I want to get out of the way. They want to get out of the way, too, and see and hear only from You. Please do not let us down.
I am telling you to be prepared to take your own plan and just put it away. God is not going to do this brand new agenda based on anybody’s plan but His own.
What I began to do was ask questions—as many questions as I could think of about the subject presented by each chapter title. It wasn’t up to me to answer those questions, it was God’s responsibility, and He began to speak.