The Fishing Pole in God's Hand

I know a lot of men who enjoy fishing and see it as a relaxing time of getting away from the rat race of life. Some people do it as a sport and become very competitive with who can catch the biggest fish. But if you are like me, who only went fishing once, I did not touch the worm or the fish; but at least I can say I went fishing.

When I first came into ministry, I heard the Lord say, “I’ve called you to bring order, but how do you know what is out of order.” For twelve years, as I operated my printing/publishing company in Cheltenham, MD, God has used me as a sword to cut and expose things that are out of order to Him. Now, needless to say, I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that people backed up from me and didn’t really deal with me, stop talking to me, etc. In the natural it seemed like something would go wrong or they didn’t like something I said or I just did not like how people were doing business and it frustrated me. I often wondered is this how they do business when they go to Staples or WalMart?   It took me 12 years to become comfortable in my skin, the oil on my life and my assignment.

“Recently I heard the Lord say, “I’m going fishing in the waters of your soul.” Wow! When that word came forth we were excited; but, shortly afterwards, we began to see it unfold. For twelve years, God has been going fishing in the waters of our soul. Well when you go fishing, you must have BAIT if you are going to catch FISH. The fish is the thing that God is after in your soul and the bait is the thing that He allowed to expose the things that lie dormant in us.

The reason why we can go to church for years and still be none the better is because we focus more on the bait instead of focusing on the fish. Meaning people always look at what was done to them, or what was said, or why someone else did what they did or didn’t do and never look at the emotion that was attached to whatever just happened. 

Have you ever had something to happen and you found yourself a week later still replaying it in your mind? Have you gone to bed and woke in the middle of the night with it on your mind? Has your mind ever been overwhelmed with internal conversation over what someone said about you or to you? Those incidents are called BAIT, the behavior and our reactions are the FISH that God wants to bring up and out of us. The only way that can happen is if we first begin to identify them and then confront them. Once you start confronting these negative behaviors and challenging yourself to change, then you can start closing the door to the enemy and begin to get victory in your life.

The holes in our soul come from one of three sources: (1) unhealed hurts; (2) unresolved issues; and (3) unmet needs. Things that were never resolved but swept under the covers are the things that grow up in us and cause holes in our soul which in turn become damaged emotions. And if we go into ministry then we end up being gifted but still wounded. So now we release muddy waters through our ministry.

God is a Repairer of the breach and a Mender of the broken. No longer see the other person, but if you begin to pay attention to your emotions and behavior and thoughts, you will begin to see the FISH that God is after in you. To help you in this process I have a coaching class called Metamorphosis and a book called “It’s Time to UnMask the Real You.” This book and coaching session will help you walk in the REAL YOU and come out of the “YOU,” you became.

Contact us today at: www.karenpresley.org | Metamorphosis Coaching Program (here)

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The Price of Being a Prophet

I was awakened to the call of ministry in 1995, but it was 2005 when my on-the-job-training began when I opened my printing/publishing company in Cheltenham, MD.  The Bible is filled with men and women who declared God’s word and were used to bring people out or to take them into something.  But it is not until you begin your own personal journey with God that your eyes will be open to the many things they went through serving God.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love what I do and I love God and God has definitely been good to me along my journey.  But no amount of prophetic words could have really prepared me for the price I had to pay to walk out the call on my life.  When I think about David, Moses, Noah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Elijah and Jesus; they all had times of solitude and rejection.  They all had seasons of being off to the side and where they could not walk the path that others were walking.  Well that has been my life; unbeknown to me that it came along with the preparation process.

My journey has been very fruitful, but it was also long.  You can still live and grow in the winter seasons in your life.  You can still produce when you are in the back side of the desert, because no matter what season you are in, as long as God led you there, then He will cause you to flourish.  When I think about David from the initial time he was anointed by Samuel to the events in his life that caused him to run through the wilderness, I’m sure he had to be saying, “God I didn’t sign up for this!”  I know I have said that several times. LOL!  Or what about Noah, who was instructed by God to build the ark and warn the people because something was coming that, was not familiar to anyone at that time.  He was faithful to the task, and the process in spite of being ridiculed and ostracized for years.

If you are called to the office of the prophet, God needs your ear so you can hear Him above all the other noise in the kingdom.  He also needs your heart, because this walk of ministry will cost you and bring must rejection.  Remember Jesus said that when people reject you, they are actually rejecting the God in you and His message.  If God has your heart, then He has you because your heart is the innermost part of you.  That is where God speaks and you move.  If He doesn’t have your heart, it will be hard to withstand the journey and you will allow outside influence to dictate your behavior and release what God isn’t speaking.

Your relationship with God is first and foremost the most important value to a prophet.  You carry the mantle to root out, pull down, destroy, throw down, build and plant; well none of that is a pretty picture.  For me God spoke, “Karen you will be the first to hit the hard places in people’s lives.  Nobody wants to be the first one to disturb people’s un-surrendered walls.  That is what brings about the constant backing up that people will do to you.  This is why God needs your heart.  He speaks at every turn, which has always kept me open to Him and His people. 

Every prophet in the Bible had a different way of coming into their assignment and all of them had different assignments to fulfill.  It is the same today!  God doesn’t give every prophet the same vision.  Our spiritual DNA isn’t the same, from the standpoint of what God needs us to speak to the church.  That is why we must be sensitive to keep moving by the inward witness, like Israel moved when the cloud/fire moved.  We can’t get so comfortable with our lives and how we do things or who we are hanging out with that we are mad when it is time to dismantle and move forward.  God is trying to get you somewhere.  He never called you to set up camp forever at one place.  The journey of the prophet will be one of making quick obedience to the spirit of God.  This is why He needs your heart, because He is not going to keep rustling and tussling with you to move when He ready to move or send you.  One of the biggest lessons God will teach you is to stay in sync with Him.  No man can teach you that.  This will be done when you are sensitive to Holy Spirit.  Always be where God is and not where He was.

One last thing, 2 Chronicles 34:1-5 tells us that when Josiah began to rule as king, it was in his eighth year that he sought God and in his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from their molten images and idols.  The life of a prophet will also require us to go to the church and begin to tear down things that the church has established that was never God.  Along our journey, we do not realize that things creep into our houses (our temples and church services), and become idols and images before God that must be removed.  If God sends a prophet to do this, it is because the people have not taken heed or cannot hear God’s voice concerning the matter.  Again, do you see why God needs your heart and ear?

When I look back I can see that my journey was long and I paid a price for the call on my life.  I did not get to do what I wanted to do.  I didn’t have the luxury like others with a lot of hanging out, but I still had fun.  When I was in the journey, I never felt deprived.  I enjoyed spending time with God.  I enjoyed how God trained me and He graced me for this solo journey, while He took care of me like I was His daughter and queen.  I enjoyed life, but maybe not on the same caliber as others when I hear there stories.  If you take care of God’s business and stay in sync with Him; God will bless you beyond your desires.  The Bible says, “Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.” (Job 8:7)   --- Enjoy God and enjoy the journey…the reward will far outweigh the sacrifice.

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The Beauty of Color

Have you ever been to an Art show and seen the dynamics of all the different drawings and expressions of an artist?  If you have children, I know you have seen the coloring from one of your children just learning what a crayon is and not understanding about staying inside the lines?  Either way; color on art, paintings, drawings are all expressions of the artist or child.

Some drawings are breathtaking and leave us seeing the beauty of color, while others can be wild and erratic like the artist was totally out of the box with their way of expression.  With that being said, have you ever felt something was wrong with you because you were different?  Have people ever made you feel like you had problems because how you did things?  Do we all have to do it the same way?  Absolutely NOT!!!

People judge what they don’t understand?  The reason why this happens is because we have a world filled with judgmental, opinionated and critical people.  They may not mean to be, but too many people put their mouths on other people because it is different from them and/or how they would do it. 

I saw a movie that opened my eyes to how God sees our differences.  God sees “Color,” and the array of beauty that color makes.  We judge people from our limited scope of knowledge.  Limited because we do not know what people have experienced on their journey to cause them to do what they do.  We do not know the baggage and weight of pressure that people carry with them every day.  These same people go to work, have families, businesses, and ministries, etc.  When we see people starting businesses and don’t understand why they operate their business the way they do, we judge without knowing that the true visionary and CEO of their business/ministry is God who put the dream in them.

We must begin to put on a new perspective about people’s differences as an expression of color.  Can drawings be wild, untamed and what we may see as odd?  Of course!  But we don’t judge the painting, we just don’t buy it and that is OK!  Everybody is not going to be like us because everybody didn’t grow up or experience what we experienced on our journey.  We are ALL products of our journey, which causes us to express differently.  We are all different shades of color expressing our uniqueness in the Earth. 

The Bible tells us that “where there is unity there is the commanded blessings.”  The devil desires to keep us always separated by our differences which keep us a divided church, family and race.  We must put on the mind of Christ and see it as He sees the world, as the expression of color.  When we, the church begin to intercede more, we release the hand of God to go into the lives of people and clean up the muddy that’s causing the color to not be as vibrant as it once was. 

In conclusions, we are all expressions of color.  Let’s adopt the mindset and see others as a different color than us.  We are not all red or blue or green; but a combination of the many colors on God’s palette.  

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