Beth Moore Conference (2 of 2)

| Posted by Heather Cotten on May 31, 2007 • (Comments)

I’ve asked my wife, Heather, to guest blog here by doing a couple posts on her recent trip to a Beth Moore conference in Boone, NC. As she was telling me about what she learned, and how God changed her, I felt that it was important to share.

The first post is HERE if you need to catch up.

Welcome, Heather! ~Ben Cotten

Part of the blessing of Asher is “that we would bathe our feet in oil”. Beth Moore explained that in the land of Asher there were olive trees. The people would pick the olives and would get olive oil out of them by using their feet to crush the olives. The point was that in order to have oil from the olives, you had to have the olives (the fruit) first.

As Christians we look at our land and we say, “Lord, expand my borders…give me more” but God is not going to give us more until we produce fruit where he has put us. We look at our neighbors yard and we want as big or as nice of a yard as they have. However, as soon as we try to step foot into their yard or try to even reproduce that thing, our feet will stop being bathed in oil (we will stop producing fruit). God is challenging us to produce fruit where we are. He has put us here for a reason.

I personally found a lot of freedom in this revelation. Maybe it is because I am about to be a pastor’s wife and as such there are the stereotypical ideas of what I am supposed to do and be. God spoke to me clearly that what I am supposed to do is to tend the garden he has given me. Do what HE has called me to do, not what man expects. This seems like such an obvious thing, but it was something that went from my head to being alive in my heart. So, the next step is pressing into God and figuring out what I am called to do, not just my husband and I, but ME. God has a plan and purpose for me on a personal level as well as for my marriage.

A great point that she made here was that a huge reason we don’t go forward and produce fruit, is that we are scared. There is a point that each of us come to when we are in a new thing that she was calling “the freak out zone”. If you are able to push through “the freak out zone” you will be able to enter into the true calling God has for you. You will never walk in your full anointing if you stay in your comfort zone (or if you are able to just maintain on your own).

There are so many times that we hold back or don’t move into the things of God because we are certain that we won’t have the strength or that we can’t conquer that thing. Well, with God we can. If we push through the fear, God will finish it. And not only that, but He will see us through with happiness because we are where He has called us to be!

Life is hard.

You can choose as you walk through this life to press through and trust God in all the circumstances he puts you in, or you can choose to curse God and be bitter. I want to choose happiness. I don’t always do that, but I am asking God to show me where I can choose it even when it seems that there is no happiness to be found.

What has God called you to push through?

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