TIDES AND SEASONS

From: Graham Cooke's Newsletter, June 2000

There are many currents at work around our lives, involving relationships, work, love, finances, creativity, hormones, as well as spiritual, general, emotional and mental currents. When the tide goes out in one area, it may come in at another. Where we are experiencing a flood tide in one part of our life, another may be at low ebb. Some people think that real blessing is when everything is at the same good level. Balance to them is everything in its place of maximum benefit and good. This, for the most part, is hopelessly unrealistic. Our lives are like the earth; tidal, with lots of influences in and around us.

Some of the things we are drawn into come to us because of people we are connected to in life. We have no way of knowing what influences will be exerted upon us externally in the next few weeks.

Living with different tides can be difficult unless we live in a place of internal rest.

THE SEA IS NOT DIMINISHED

The sea is not diminished. When it decreases in one area, it increases somewhere else. The end of one thing in this place may herald the beginning of another in a different area. Just like our lives, nothing is lost, only changed. Within the scope of our lives we may experience many different tides at work, either individually or simultaneously.

The INCOMING TIDE occurs through new experiences, fresh opportunities for change and renewal. Fresh encounters with new people, new situations. God is always coming to us and we must rejoice in His appearing, however disguised it may be. He is the God of the tempest, living in the earthquake, present in the fire, as well as the stillness, the beauty and the sunshine. There is always an inflow with God, however small. Indeed, if you will allow the training of your spiritual perceptions, you will discover an enormous inflow of small blessings and cameo Presence's of His Nature in and around your life.

Present always, hidden mostly, visible occasionally, is God's preferred methodology.

New beginnings abound in the Lord. Incoming tides keep us fresh, alive to Him, living in newness of life. Like the incoming tide, we may only notice the small movement of God in retrospect. It is vital that we make time for (Selah = pause and think calmly of that psalm-speak for time out!) reflection. Look back to find God and then you will discover His present closeness.

FULL TIDE IS ALWAYS ABOUT EXPANSION

FULL TIDE is always about expansion. Future promise of blessing and anointing breathed upon us at low tide are now made outrageously real. We grow at depth. There is an ease of life, momentum. A stretching and journeying. People see us differently. They believe in us and want us around. Don't just enjoy the obvious opportunities that present themselves! Continue seeking God, and never stop. Scripture is clear. When you are living in total blessing "beware, lest you forget God" (Deut.6:12). When you are in full flow, make space and time to continue your experience of the keep things of God; they are always on offer.

God remains the same to us, no matter the tide!

Launch out, go for it, take risks, live by faith, and lose timidity. This is a time of fulfillment and enrichment. Take care to keep filling the bank account in the Spirit with real worship, adoration and intimate conversation (prayer). When the EBB TIDE comes, peripheral things like gifting and ministry may diminish. Your talents may fall away in power, or just not grow in further anointing for a season. Every gift and ministry is pruned ruthlessly by the master gardener.

If we have not continued to work on our relationship with the Lord, we will be assailed by emptiness in ministry. Trying to fill that void with more study to produce more messages will turn our ministry into idolatry.

THE PRUNING OF THE LORD

When the Lord prunes my prophetic gift, it is always because He wants me to see something else. It is a time to go deeper into His perspective; to see people differently. He closes my mouth to open my heart to Him so that I can see with new spiritual eyes. It is a time, therefore, to ask questions and seek God on a different level.

Each pruning has a promise attached that will materialize as we stop striving after ministry and allow ourselves to come to close to God.

INTERCESSORS MAY HAVE TO COME OFF THE WALL

Previous activities may lose their meaning. Intercessors have to come off the wall and spend more time in the throne room in worship and thanksgiving. Time spent watching must now give way to time spent waiting in the Presence of the Lord. It is a season away from the public ministry of warfare and into the private and personal season of ministering to the Lord. The secondary way must always give place to the prime directive. "Love the Lord your God with all your .!!!"

We cannot appreciate the flow without the ebb and vice versa. Many churches going through renewal failed miserably to understand the importance of the ebb tide. In manufacturing the flow, they moved from spirit to flesh who had bewitched them?

NEW, NOT MERELY UPGRADED

The point is that we are in preparation for being filled in a new way with a new thing. New means new, not the old merely upgraded! The ebb is about displacement; the re-surrendering of our lives to the Lord. Unfortunately Christians only seem willing to surrender the bad stuff. We maintain a choke-hold on our blessings until God has to pry our fingers loose with a crow bar.

Displacement is about making room for God, not just for more of the same. Maintain a practice of holding all things lightly before the Lord, especially the good. God lives in the ebb and the flow. Gains made in the flood must be consolidated in the ebb. Go deeper or you will just go wider. We don't need millions of Christians with an experience of God that is a mile wide and an inch deep.

IN THE EBB, BE AWARE OF WHAT GOD IS DOING IN YOU

In the ebb, be aware of what God is doing in you, just as the flood made you conscious of what He was doing through you. The LOW TIDE is always a time of purity and beauty. The trash in the sea is washed up on the shore; we are exposed. God strips us of everything so that we can see Him as He really is. When the Holy Spirit exposes our ugliness, He always reveals the beauty of the Lord. "Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness" (Is.61:3). In flood tide, many things are covered by the grace of God. In low tide we discover ourselves as we really are and see God as He really is, all at the same time! His grace uncovers us so that we can be radically changed.

We are learning how to walk in the places of our own heart to discover God at work. God has not left us comfortless. Just as the sea leaves rock pools of varying shapes and sizes as it recedes from the land, so we have pockets of anointing and blessing where God remains ever true, though in miniature. Do not downgrade your life and ministry to a rock pool of anointing. Simply allow those to sustain you as you do clean up before the Lord. This is a time of comfort, consolation and contemplation. The Comforter is present, leading us into a deeper embrace of the life and power of God.

HE WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU

The less that is happening externally (in ministry), the more is occurring internally in your heart. We know that the tide will turn. Samson's hair will grow back. We must discover where our real strength comes from. God encompasses His people; He always surrounds us. Tune in to how God is enfolding you in His everlasting arms. He will never leave you, but He does walk with us differently at certain times. The roots of trust must grow in times of quiet desperation.

"I would have despaired unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (Ps.27:13).

When we are in despair, it is because deep is calling to deep within us (Ps.42:6-8). The breakers and waves of life have rolled over us. We are now waiting for His commanded loving-kindness to come to us. God works differently in all the tides. His Presence is with us in sure, certain, but different ways.

EXPLORATION, EXPANSION, AND REDISCOVERY

The incoming tide is about EXPLORATION, the discovering of new things. The full tide is about the EXPANSION of our experience in His Majesty and power. The ebb tide is concerned with our REDISCOVERY of the sovereignty and depth of His love for us, so that in the low tide we may learn to APPRECIATE as we contemplate His all-sufficiency. His Presence sustains us as He purifies us.

Wherever you are in the tides and seasons, there is a provision set aside for you in this situation. Ask the Holy Spirit, wait patiently, be drawn into thanksgiving and praise, and you will access the truth of His Presence and taste the joy that is set before you. That deep internal happiness in His love and favor will strengthen you on this next leg of your journey.

Graham Cooke's Office, PO Box 91, Southampton, SO15 5ZE, United Kingdom Tel/Fax: +44 (0)2380 399133