We are 18 days into the New Year and many are still riding high off their resolutions for 2018.  While many are still excited about this new year and all that it will bring there are many who are left feeling defeated and like a failure because they did not accomplish all their goals for 2017.  I want to talk to that group of people and encourage you not to go another day further into 2018 carrying what you perceive as failure for not meeting all your 2017 goals.  Starting right now, pick yourself up, dust your shoulders off and square them back and look 2018 in the face boldly and gear up and get ready to crush it!  It’s not too late! It’s a trick, a lie and a deception of the enemy to make us think because we didn’t accomplish it when we set out to accomplish it, in our timetable, that’s it’s too late and it can’t be done.  That devil is a liar!  Your life didn’t end on December 31^st at 11:59pm.  It’s not too late, you can begin again!

I want to encourage you to begin again.  Pick up your pen, grab your iPad, pull your chair up to that desk and begin writing the vision.  Habakkuk 2:2&3 says, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.  For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.  Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”  Your vision, your goal, your dream may have tarried, it may have been delayed but it does not have to be denied.  The vision is for an appointed time.  I know you set a time but was that God’s time for the business, the book, the ministry to come to pass?  I know you thought you would be married and have kids by now and own a home, but was your time in alignment with God’s time?

So, it didn’t happen in 2017, are you brave enough to dream again, are you brave enough to try again?  Success is not for punk’s.  It’s only for those who are brave enough, courageous enough and tenacious enough to get back up after falling and failing.  Failure is not final, but it’s up to you.  Will you get back up again!  Do you have enough resolve to keep getting back up after life knocks you down or will you stay down?  Proverbs 24:16 says a just man falls seven times and rises up again.  You may be down, but you are not out, keep getting up!  That time may have not been your time.

We have to understand the timing of God.  There is an appointed time, a set time for you for that thing to come to pass.  Isaiah 60:21&22 says then all your people will be righteous and they will possess the land forever. They are the shoots I have planted, the work of My hands, for the display of my splendor.  The least of you will become 1,000 the smallest a mighty nation. I am the Lord and in its time, I will do this swiftly.  “In its time”.  You are the work of God’s hand and He has you planted you, and in its time, He will put you on display for His splendor and glory!  But in the meantime, stay planted.  Think of planting a seed, a seed is planted in the dirt where it’s dark.  You can’t see the seed while it’s planted.

God got you planted, He got you hidden, and it appears that you are hidden in the dark and no one can see you, no one can see your ministry or your business, it seems obscure, your business seems obscure, your projects seem obscure, your book seems obscure, but in the fullness of time, at the appointed time you, they will shoot up but you have to stay planted, you have to stay rooted, you have to keep praying, keep reading, keep pressing, keep believing and when the fullness of time comes; your appointed time God’s going to do it and He’s going to do it swiftly.  God’s going to shine His light on you and highlight you, your ministry, your business, your church, your book… for His glory and for His splendor.  Can you remain planted, can you remain faithful in obscurity, can you serve with the spirit of excellence in obscurity or do you need to be seen?  You must remain faithful in obscurity and what you do in the dark, what you do in private God will reward in the light openly!  He will shine His light on you and highlight you.

It will seem like it was overnight but no one knows that while you were planted in the dark room of life God was developing you, He was developing your ministry, your business, your gifts, your talents, your character, your anointing… to display His splendor and glory, but it’s in His appointed time.  So, keep plowing and pressing, keep sowing and serving, it may not have happened yet, but your turn is coming.  There is an appointed time for YOU!

Pastor Mel

MK Ministries