On March 1, 2020 I knew the Lord had led to get off social media for a year to let the land lie fallow. You can read the blog I wrote about it here.
There is a Biblical principle in the Old Testament where the people were commanded in the 7th year to not cultivate the land. Letting the land lie fallow in the 7th year would give rest to the workers, make the nutrients stronger in the soil and provide for you, your servants, the poor/foreigner and your animals to eat what the untilled land produced.
We don’t practice this is the Western world as we can be all about getting as much profit as we can, working the soil like crazy and as a result have to use all kinds of substances to use the soil over and over again.
When the people in the Bible didn’t practice giving the land a sabbath rest, God forced a sabbath rest when they went into exile. “Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed.” Lev 26:34
If we trusted God and did what He said it would look like this:
6th year: God would give extra produce that would last 3 years. (Lev 25:21)
7th year: Rest. (Lev 25:4)
8th year: Still eating from the 6th year as this is the year you sow the land again. (Lev 25:22)
9th year: New crop comes in. (Lev 25:22)
So in my “6th year” 2019….He gave me A LOT OF vision and dreams for my life. We started World Race America. I was writing “P squad book”….He had me praying and fasting for Revival in America.
Then in my “7th year” 2020…He led me to get off social media for a year to let the land lie fallow. This was at the end of February, pre-Covid, pre-anything surfacing with Progressive Christianity. He showed me I would sow in other fields. He knew my focus needed to be elsewhere even though I didn’t know that at the time.
I trusted Him to lay it down.
I chose to Sabbath rest.
Now, I am in the 8th year 2021….and about to go back to the field (social media) to sow again. He started this year telling me I would “follow the Lamb wherever He goes.” (Taken from Rev 14:4) It reminds me of the Israelites in the wilderness following God into a land unsown. There are so many unknowns for 2021, but I am trusting Him step by step.
You have to trust God to cease sowing.
You have to trust God to bring food.
And I had this HUGE aha moment yesterday when I saw how it all tied together.
In 2019, He gave me an abundance of vision that would last into 2022! I had to trust that all the fruit of 2019 would feed me three years. In 2020, I believe He forced a sabbath on the world with Covid (whether you think He brought it or didn’t, whether it was a plague or the enemy) God allowed it and used it.
I think He exposed our false idols and hopefully we used that time to slow down, repent and turn to the true God.
And now, here I am having learned so much in 2020, having time to slow down and see the pesticides and fake gospel of Progressive Christianity that had crept into the soil. I had more time to realize what Progressive Christianity was and take steps to eradicate it. It was killing our crops. It was deconstructing our soil we have been planting and harvesting in.
In addition to all the above He showed me, I asked Him what I gained in being off social media for a year. I heard “You let the ground lie fallow and your soil is richer in nutrients. Watch the fruit that will come…You trusted Me to stop. That’s a big part of it.”
I read in an article (I can’t find right now..) “Failure of Israel to give the land its Sabbaths determined the certainty and duration of the Babylonian exile.” (Lev 26:32-35, 2 Chron 36:21)
After reading this, I heard:
“You stay in the land
when you trust the Lord
in the land He has given you.”
The Israelites didn’t get to stay in their land because they couldn’t trust the Lord to stop planting and harvesting. THAT BLOWS MY MIND. It’s about trust. The wilderness was about trust. The 6th day, gather for two days. Trust Him to provide food. The 6th year, gather for 3 years. Trust Him to not do it yourselves.
Whoa.
He was giving rest to us, our workers, the foreigners, the animals and the soil and we thought instead we gotta take matters into our own hands because we will lose money. We think He is taking when He is giving….that shows our lack of trust.
And He is encouraging me through all of this, that I must trust Him when the year is full of vision and literally follow that vision and what He said for years. What He said in 2019, I am still working on.
As He has been pulling this all together in my recent quiet times, He encouraged me to read Jeremiah 2. It talks about the devotion of your youth, when you followed the Lord into the wilderness…into A LAND UNSOWN. But later, they went to carve out cisterns that couldn’t hold water when HE was the living water.
I read where in modern practice “letting the land lie fallow is a last resort.”
Like “Well, maybe we’ll try what God said because we tried on our own for so long and are hitting brick walls.”
We think we have our new, progressive idea that keeps failing, but if we would follow Him on the ancient path we would find the rest that only He can provide to bring balance and nourishment to the soil of our hearts.
Makes me think about fake methods we use to take control of the land and use it every year. Those cisterns we make that make us think we are in control when the real LIVING One is in our midst hoping we would be like we were at first, trusting Him as we followed Him into unsown land, that seems unpredictable and would require so much trust.
I loved being off social media for so many reasons. He got me off March 1, 2020 so I missed seeing the world’s narrative on:
1. COVID
2. Critical Race theory
3. Elections
And instead I dug deeper in the Word and let that write my narrative when the obvious was confusing in the world.
I will enter back on Facebook and Instagram 3/1/21. I will sow truth and stories of what Jesus continues to do. I am thankful for the break I had and I know this is a land that Jesus wants me to sow in, so I will continue to plant seeds.
