As posted on LifeReWritten.org

Tomorrow I turn 42.  Nothing really significant about that number really….it’s just another year. Or so I thought….

So often we look at those age markers in life….like 13 – you’re a teenager, 16 – you can drive, 18 – you’re an adult, 21 – you can drink alcohol legally.  Then you start marking the decades…..30,40,50,60, etc.  We all do it.  There’s nothing really exciting about the in between numbers.  But then late in 2014, the number 11 kept coming up.  I was seeing it everywhere.  I still do.  I asked a friend about it and she challenged me to search it out with God.  To ask Him what He was trying to say to me.  He has since answered that question and it is a promise.  One day I will share that with you, but not yet.  Today I need to talk about 42.

In researching, I found that there are 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus.  Okay….this is cool. It’s a start.  I kept digging.  In looking up 42, I found a lot of references to 41.  Okay….now it starts to get real.  41 means separate.  Literally. Separate.  I have spent my whole life feeling and being “separate.”  Separate from human intimacy.  Separate from friends who have strong and faithful marriages.  Separate from others with easy children.  Separate from people with steady emotions and peaceful homes.  The Hebrew word “badal”, meaning separate, has a numeric value of 41. Okay, okay….bear with me.  I’m going somewhere with this.  There are tons of scriptures that are equivalent to 41 and they ALL speak of separation.  But then there is this. Israel had 41 encampments in the wilderness prior to crossing the Jordan….so you could say that the Jordan kept the Israelites separated from their Promised Land.  WHAT?  I AM 41 and this is my life!  I have been waiting and crying out and asking for the Promised Land.  Reminding God of His promises to me.  Asking for reconciliation, restoration, wholeness.  Standing on what HE has said to me. Working so hard to fix my eyes on Him, not my circumstances.

Ok.  So here comes 42.  Literally the first thing I looked up said this, “42 is written in Hebrew as mem-beth.  Together, these letters signify a flow of time and events until the arrival of a house or a household (family).”  NO WAY! There is tons I could quote and describe and confuse you with, but one specific meaning of the number 42 is ARRIVAL.  The Israelites arrived to the Promised Land after 42 encampments.  In Revelation, the DELIVERANCE is said to arrive after 42 months of TRIBULATION. Are you getting what I am saying to you?

I have nearly lost hope so many times over my life.  I have nearly ended my life.  I have lived many times in hopelessness and despair.  I have looked at different choices and circumstances in my life and been doubtful if I could persevere through the pain of them.  I have taken a stand where God has asked me to, yet questioned my strength and ability to remain standing.  Yet, with all of that, I have never moved into actually giving up.  Close, but not quite.  And now I am seeing a light at the end of this tunnel of grief and pain.

Just recently I’ve been reading a book by Ted Dekker called A.D. 33 and it has spurred some pretty serious thought in me. The disciples had such hope for the power of Jesus and what that was going to mean for the future.  Can you imagine the hopelessness they felt when they saw Jesus just standing there?  Not arguing with His accusers?  Not bringing His power before them all to save Himself?  I almost feel their emotion when I think about it.  They must have felt betrayed beyond all betrayals, abandoned, forgotten.  They believed Jesus to be one thing and yet He wasn’t showing this power that He had been talking about.  They’d had an idea of how things were going to play out….yet this is not what was happening.  He was being beaten and crucified…..and murdered. Where is the power in that?  Where is the hope in that?  They didn’t know what was coming.  They couldn’t see past their own pain and the events right in front of their eyes.  Are you in a circumstance where there is utter hopelessness?  The betrayal that has come at you, the rejection that has covered your heart like a blanket, has clouded your eyes to anything but the darkness that this pain inflicts?  What if we are the disciples? What if the RISE is just around the corner?  What if SUNDAY IS COMING?  Do you quit now?  After all this time?  Or do you quit before you even start?

What if my 42nd birthday isn’t just another birthday?  What if it is the year I have been asking God for? For my whole adult life?  What if my ARRIVAL is just around the corner?  Is it possible? I think, yes.  It is possible.  Because my God is the God of the impossible.  If you can’t find the strength to believe that for yourself right now, I will believe it for you.  Leave me a comment or send me a message and let me know how I can pray for you.  I surely will. You are no different than me.  Your dreams matter.  Just like mine.