Who We Were Made to Be: A Prophetic Word for America

Written the night of June 26th, 2017.

I sat down a few hours ago after a rough night of struggling with self hatred once again and I asked Jesus to come in and show me the truth of who I am. I started worshiping in a halfhearted kind of way and this song to Jesus turned into a prophetic declaration and song over America – quite literally out of nowhere. I wasn’t at all thinking about America and her destiny and identity before I started worshiping with the 4 chords I can play half decently on the guitar. And honestly I was thinking mostly about myself and trying to get over whatever funk I was in while still trying to focus on Jesus and just worshiping Him. So I recorded some of the main parts I remembered on my phone when I was done, which I don’t usually do with stream of consciousness prayer/songs like this, if they ever do come my way (mostly because they’re usually not that interesting musically and don’t really make sense to anyone but me). But for some reason I felt like God wanted me to steward this prayer/song better and so I decided to just sit down and type it out. And it ended up being a lot more profound than I’d realized it was even while it was coming to me as a song.

So here are some of the lyrics I wrote down and the meaning I felt like God was showing me behind the words while I was singing. I thought you might like to read them and be encouraged and maybe given some insight and discernment into America and the spiritual battle we’re fighting as a nation (and as a result what we’re battling in our own lives and hearts as people living here in this land and who are affected by the spiritual forces around us whether we realize it or not).There is also a generational sin (from all the way back to our founding fathers) explained in this song that could help us walk into another level of freedom in the Church in America if we repent of it and turn our hearts fully to the Father. I know that I am going to have to ask Jesus where I have personally let my heart get tied into any of this, and how I can open my heart and my life to God in surrender in all these areas.  

I love you as a sister in Christ!!  Thank you for taking the time to read this and seek to follow Jesus, in obedience to the Father and by the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. He knows what he’s doing with us and He has a special purpose for you in the master plan He is weaving into every fiber of your life. Look to Him, lean into Him, trust fully in Him, and lean not on your own understanding… and that’s where the power lies to unlock your destiny and the dreams God put inside of you for His glory from the foundations of the world. Only in complete surrender will we find the fulfillment, freedom, and security that are hearts are yearning for.

“Desire of the nations, You are. Desire of this nation, You are. (see Haggai 2:7)

America, turn your pretty head away from the idols and the posers.”

The song started by me almost randomly beginning to sing that Jesus is the desire of the nations. Then I felt Him leading me to sing that He was the desire of this nation. Not just for “the nations” as we refer to the unreached people groups of the world in American Christianity, but He is truly the desire of this nation as well. America, as strong and seemingly invulnerable as she is, still has a deep hunger and longing for Jesus. He wanted me to realize this before showing me what He showed me next.

He showed me that we are longing for something in America – that there is a desire deep inside us that we are aching to fill and we have looked in all directions to find it. Like Solomon of Ecclesiastes, we have used our wealth and power to try the world’s delicacies and test which ones will satisfy the most… And we’ve found them all to be empty and lacking in the most infuriating and disheartening way. As I was singing, I realized that our anxiety, depression, and rampant physical and mental health issues are, in many ways, symptoms of a deep unfulfilled longing that we cannot distract away no matter how many seasons we binge watch on Netflix or calories we consume. We are going crazy realizing that life is meaningless apart from the Meaning Giver, yet we refuse to turn our heads away from our materialistic idols we’ve made for ourselves and away from the religious posers calling themselves “Jesus” (but who are actually demonic wolves in sheep’s’ clothing) and turn to the real Jesus who fulfills every longing and desire within our hearts. If we were to turn our gaze away from these idols and posers, we would see that Jesus is more entertaining than Hollywood and more tangible and fulfilling than physical pleasures. He’s fun and fearless and strong and passionate! (Tall, dark, and handsome!!! J) He’s everything we want as a nation and He is waiting for us to stop trying to satisfy ourselves and to turn to Him to satisfy us.

“Freedom is our battle cry. Freedom is found in His eyes”

Freedom is our battle cry as a nation. We pride ourselves on being the land of the free where we can do whatever we want and be whoever we want to be. Our fathers and forefathers, our brothers and sons, have given their lives for our freedom and it is a prize we hold above all else. We know the value of freedom and we will die defending it. This is a good and noble cause, but in the process of idolizing physical freedom, we have lost any form of true freedom… We are in so much bondage we don’t even know our right hand from our left anymore. A spirit of confusion is covering our land. We have become slaves to our belongings and our money – our status and our power. We are erasing the lines of our God given sexuality, we are killing our own children, and we’ve lost respect everything that is sacred. Nothing is apparently off limits to our desecration. I thought of a quote from the Star Wars movie “Rogue One” when Chirrut says, “There is more than one prison. I think you carry yours wherever you go.” That pretty much sums it up… Our external freedom that we champion and fight so hard to keep is only masking the internal bondage to the powers of darkness and to satan himself that we carry with us wherever we go.

But regardless of all this, true freedom is still available to us in the eyes of Jesus. He alone holds the keys to the freedom we are searching for – freedom for our souls and our whole beings from the strongholds and forces of darkness over this world. He alone holds the power to free us to walk in the peace that passes all understanding that we are searching for. Just the look in His eyes alone has the power to unlock every chain and prison that we find ourselves in and to give us hope and meaning again. The Love welling up in His eyes - the Grace, Kindness, and Joy He wants to show us in His beautiful eyes - are all we need to be made whole again. Freedom is found in His EYES. We need to look away from the idols and the posers, and look Jesus straight in His eyes until we know who He really is and who we really are. And we will find freedom in that place of perfect intimacy.

“You don’t have to fight for yourself. He will fight for you.”

Here’s where the struggle comes from against our destiny (and the generational sin I mentioned earlier). We were born into this world fighting in rebellion against our mother nation. We have been fighting for ourselves since day one and we’ve grown up with an orphan mindset – always fighting to “prove ourselves” in a world of nations that have ancient histories and legacies to gain identity and meaning from. We have no legacy - at least not like the nations of the world who come from dynasties and centuries before us. And we are fighting to make one for ourselves with a frenzy that points back to our fear of vulnerability and our fear of being taken advantage of again – as we feel our mother nation took unfair advantage of us in our infancy.

And so, in order to prove we are strong enough to hold our own, we’re trying to make a name for ourselves and build our own Tower of Babble for the world to see. “Down with the haters who said we wouldn’t make it! See what we’ve made of ourselves?! You said we’d never make it, but we’ve done even more!” …But in the mean time we’ve only led the nations of the world into deeper bondage to the enemy through our idolatry and we’ve drawn the world into a deeper level of deception and oppression than they were in before we were birthed on this planet almost 250 years ago.

In our efforts to fight for ourselves, we have pushed all other nations down into the ground in order to pull ourselves up by “our own bootstraps”. We have swallowed whole the lie of self preservation and independence in a world where we were made by our Father to depend completely on Him and His beautiful creation to provide for us and protect us… So much of our evil as a nation comes from us trying to do it on our own and protect “ourselves and our own” in the name of “just putting food on the table”. Only when we realize that we don’t have to fight for ourselves any longer, and that we can let Jesus fight for us, will we be free from our orphan mindset and be able to walk into our beautiful destiny that our Father meant for us to have from the foundations of the world.

He never made us to fight in this world on our own. He made us for rest in His never-ending provision and protection. He is the perfect Father to the fatherless and He is calling us to come home and rest awhile with Him – while He shows us how small all our fears really are how BIG His Love really is. He owns “the cattle on the thousand hills” (that’s a lot of hamburgers J) and He is our Papa. Our Daddy. He’s got us.

 “Generosity and hospitality. I’ll take care of you, and you take care of me.”

Here is the GOOD NEWS!!!

Generosity, hospitality, and mutual dependence are our destiny and the identity that Jesus has for us to walk in as a nation!!! We are meant to have our doors always open to the hurting and the oppressed and to always have our hand open with blessings to give to the world and to each other. As one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations in the world, we have the choice to use our strength for ourselves and our own self-preservation and gain, or for the benefit of others.

Think of the most beautiful, peaceful, and hospitable home you can image. One where good food, laughter, music, and family are always present and fully engaged with each other and anyone else who comes in the door. No one is a stranger and no one is turned away. All are welcome at the table to eat and be refreshed. That is the destiny for America. We were meant to be a place where all are welcome to stumble in and get cleaned up, to be loved really well and empowered to get back up from wherever we’ve been and become who God meant for them to be. That’s not a political statement either. That’s just the heart of the Father. 

So the choice stands – “I’ll take care of you and you’ll take care of me” is an actual option for us, as foreign as it may sound. It’s the picture of mutually giving to each other 100% of our care and love – I give my all to you and you give your all to me. It’s the dance of dependence that so many of us are afraid to step into because it looks messy and there are no fences and boundary lines between my life and yours… What’s mine becomes yours and what’s yours becomes mine. This is the way the early Church lived in Acts 2 and it is the way our Father longs for us to live today as well. I’ve heard many American pastors specifically read the part in Acts 2 describing how “all the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need” (Acts 2:44-45), and they quickly reassure the congregation that they won’t be forcing anyone to practice this lifestyle... The congregation usually laughs in relief because this lifestyle is SO counter to everything we value in America that to do something like this almost sounds like an absurd fairy tale from the “olden days”. But it’s not… Mutual dependence on each other in the Body of Christ in America is where we are headed in the days to come as the Father teaches us to depend on each other as much as He is teaching us to depend on Him. It’s not Communism… it’s the Kingdom and it’s Family. And it’s what we were made for and will, by the grace of God, walk into in the days ahead.

“We’re an image of the kingdom”

Our diversity is a blessing and as the “melting pot” of the world, we have the unique opportunity to release the kingdom of heaven in the area of unity, even within our incredible diversity, unlike any other nation on earth. We are the gathering place of the nations, just as the kingdom of heaven is, and we have the opportunity to set aside our perceived differences and let each other’s cultures and stories speak to our hearts. We have the chance to sit down together at a table as family and eat and laugh and enjoy each other’s company - with no agendas or programs, but with only our vulnerability and our children playing together at the kids table, teaching us the ways of the kingdom. If we follow their lead, they’ll show us how it’s done. J

And so, the crux of the matter is whether or not we will lay down our self preservation and our fear and let Jesus fight for us. Will we let Him show us our destiny as a nation and our true identity that He died for us to become? Will we stop fighting for ourselves and let Jesus come in and be our Man so that we can become America the Beautiful, ruled by Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish king, the Son of God, who’s coming back to rule from Jerusalem? I believe that we will. And more importantly, God does too.