Motivation Monday - Why The Female Voice Gives Rise To Revival
“I am declaring a challenge to all of you women to rise to the call God has placed on your life. He has chosen you before time.
He has created you with wonder and fear of Him, and has placed His image on your heart. Your presence reveals His nature to the world.
You do not serve God by shrinking back. ”
I just returned from a women’s conference where 700 plus women gathered from all over Atlantic Canada to worship and receive truth from God’s word.
I came home certain that something amazing going on in Eastern Canada. The Spirit is moving.
I believe the rising of women’s voices with hands lifted is pointing to a deeper work of revival God is doing across our nation.
If you want to know what is going on in a country, find out what is going on with the women.
If you want to know what is going on in the church, find out what is going on with women in the church.
Are women thriving in the church in Canada?
In all of my many conversations with women from across Canada, and in the work we do in Gather, here is what I know:
- Women carry the wellbeing of their families, their communities and their nation in their hearts.
- When you acknowledge that women show up carrying a disproportionate weight of a nation’s wholeness in their heart, the acknowledgement in and of itself goes a long way to women feeling seen and recognized for their contributions.
- When you create opportunities for women to gather in friendship and cause, the very experience of being in a room together unifies hearts and elevates the potential for preferred futures, personally, as a sisterhood, and for the church.
- When you allow women the opportunity to give voice to their stories, their confidence increases as their significance in the greater story of God becomes visible.
- When you provide opportunities for women to be developed and invested in, you contribute to half of the church’s potential to not just survive in a status quo landscape, but thrive and become part of a movement of change.
- When you affirm the image bearing status of women as co-revealers of God’s character, you come into alignment with all that Jesus said and did to declare the value of women.
- When you call up women to the possibility of studying scripture to ascertain for themselves what is true about their value, and their choices of serving the kingdom, you allow them to own their beliefs once they have done the work and settled their theological viewpoint.
- When you try and tell women what to believe based purely on tradition, and largely from a male viewpoint, you diminish both their intelligence and their desire to be students of God word and live out their beliefs.
- When women have a call on their lives that does not align with denominational or church viewpoints, you leave them confused and isolated as they question their ability to co-labour alongside male counterparts in order contribute to flourishing churches and ministries.
- When men fail to declare in public the inherent value of their female counterparts in ministry contexts, it sends a strong message that women are left to the work of investing in their own call to serve, and must find ways to fit in without ever being invited in. They must continue to serve their vocation without true community.
- When men fail to really listen to a gathering of women and hear the anthem of glorious God-focused praise, they miss an opportunity to see that women are close to the heart of God, loved by Him, and can lead the way in modelling humble posture before a Sovereign God.
- When women are mentored by those who have gone before and understand the God narrative includes the stories of Biblical women who were world changers, they rise in their confidence and have more of a propensity to take risks for the gospel of Jesus.
- When women find safe and healthy communities based on genuine feedback, growth opportunities and intentional coaching, they thrive and find their dreams for kingdom service reawakened.
- When younger women can see women who are modelling strong choices, strong presence despite challenging external circumstances, strong bravery in obedience to God’s call on their life, and a strong intention to develop their birthright gifts, they are encouraged to not run from their call but pursue it.
If there is a revival coming in Canada, and I feel it in the air as I bear witness to the Spirit moving, you can be sure that women are a significant part of it.
I am declaring a challenge to all of you women to rise to the call God has placed on your life. He has chosen you before time.
He has created you with wonder and fear of Him, and has placed His image on your heart. Your presence reveals His nature to the world.
You do not serve God by shrinking back.
You are a jewel in His crown.
You created to be seen for His glory.
I am inviting you to take your step forward by taking hold of His invitation to you to come to Him. Come as a disciple, as someone who will sit at His feet, be held by Him close to His heart, and raise your face to Him so His light shines over the wonder of you as a woman created with eternity stamped in your heart.
Study His word. Rediscover the truth of what Jesus says about you, and who He sees when He gazes on your face. He loves you and sees who you are becoming. He is for you, with you and in you. His kingdom is all around you and as a disciple, and part of the priesthood of all believers, you have been ordained to reflect His glory on this earth.
Don’t be discouraged because the world is in opposition to your voice. It has been that way since Eve. Your simple act of brave obedience in stepping into your kingdom place can change the world. For generations to come.
Raise your hands right now in praise to the Father who created you into existence and is here to see you safely home. Add your voice to the rising of the anthem of women worshippers across Canada. Let your voice get loud. You are stronger than you think. He can’t imagine the world without you and neither can I.
I believe in you!
Cathie