Enlarge Your Tent

Lately, I’ve been finding it hard to ignore the new Toyota Land Cruiser Prado 250 VX. Much stunning isn’t it? And of course, naturally, we incline to declaring and confessing ‘It is mine.’

‘As much as you want it,’ God conversed with me, ‘You don’t have the capacity to handle it.’

Truthfully speaking, He was right. My finances can’t afford to sustain the fuel or mechanics and other costs of this beast — yet. The man I know who owns one of these is almost 50! Practically he can afford it way better than I. And God is calling all of us to sincerity.

He said many of us are like little girls. We play with dolls, and wish we had our own babies. But we forget that to have babies, we must have fully grown breasts from which they’ll suckle. We ask for things we have no capacity to steward; and He only longs that we attain the maturity, and the wisdom, to understand that He isn’t denying us, but waiting and watching with us, to achieve that capacity first.

Okay you want marriage; but are you sure you have the capacity to handle all that goes with it. As that pressure increases my way — and of course I’m not letting it weigh me in — He has made me collide with sincerity. Deep down I don’t have that desire yet because honesty has showed me I don’t have what it takes to take care of a wife — yet! God saw that it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone … and so he took out a rib and made a wife for him.

But many of us are not as alone as he was. Being the only human then, no siblings, no parents … it must have been quite different. I’m not that alone! I mean I even have His very Spirit as helper…

The other form of capacity I feel I still miss: is the purpose or revelation of marriage. Deep down I feel I have not yet discovered it. Yes there are scriptures that state how we must conduct ourselves while in this sacrament:

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church

Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord

Those are more of the knowledge and code of conduct for matrimony. But I haven’t received the answer to the question: God why do you want me married? Me…

Yes, lineages or legacies must continue. But Apostle Paul didn’t have kids, neither did Jesus; but have not their legacies continued? Have not their lineages spun longer through spiritual sons?

That question is similar to asking God: what on earth did you make me for? And to that, He already gave me an answer — or answers. Purpose to life is tick. I still seek the purpose of marriage … And the example I give, is Hannah. She initially wanted a child just for having a child; that her co-wife would stop mocking her. God withheld the child; until her prayer was mingled with purpose; until she added the ‘offering him to God’, and Samuel — the Kingmaker, was born shortly after.

I am not condemning those that have arrived there yet. I’m cautioning my fellows on the same journey; that as we wait, we enlarge our tent regarding God’s mind about marriage, or even seeking Him about its blueprint. Not the blueprint of marriage as an overall, but what He wants yours and your spouse’s to be all about.

Such will drive deeper our roots, to spread about the waters as Job experienced in chapter 29. Jesus didn’t just jump into ministry. We see Him going through this protocol and preparation; such that at 30, when He broke out; it was impact after impact, glory to glory, never stopping; and three years later, the things He did have impacted the next two millennia!

His protocol followed written prophecies bespoke of Him. Then He came, and verbal prophecies were spoken again by Simeon and Anna. Then He grew in wisdom and stature, as He fed on the word. Then He received the baptism of water, and of the Holy Spirit, then He went into the wilderness; then He went into the world. This could have not been for everyone in marriage now; but I know there is a template of sorts for me in that regard before I say ‘I do.’ And as I wait, I seek it out; like one would ask God what name to give their unborn child.

In Isaiah 54, His word beckons us to enlarge our tents and to let the curtains of our habitations stretch forth. He says spare not, lengthen your cords, strengthen thy stakes. Verse 3 says ‘for you shall break forth to the right and to the left …’

The stakes are foundational anchors that hold a tent together. If they are weak, the tent can collapse in. They are a form of capacity for the tent of the barren woman being prophesied to! In verse one, she is being told to sing, for she would have children soon! If she was alone and her husband, God seems to say, make more rooms for the children to be born; and their nannies!

It is a call for us to prepare for what is to come! The breaking forth to the left and to the right: A form of consecration. Many of us want new wine, but resist the consecrations that enable the ridding of our old wineskins. We are not thinking ahead, like the wise virgins who carried extra oil in case the groom delayed — which He did!

The other aspect of enlarging our tents is intellectual! Not conforming to the standards of this world but transforming ourselves by the renewing of our minds.

How?

Many of us let scriptures pass us by without engaging them critically or applying them. I’ll give an example; switching off the security lights because the bills seem expensive. But they are security lights for a reason.

Perhaps your new reality is ‘expensive’ … and expensive doesn’t mean unaffordable. The scriptures say you will lend to many nations! Many! And not borrow! How can you lend to even one nation if you are still crying about the bills of your one small three-bedroomed house! Or for your car fuel?

You must enlarge the tent of your mind!

How do you do so? By breaking such strongholds. Renewing your mind with such scriptures! I find that the more I recall Deuteronomy 28:12-13 and 8:18, the scriptures can’t let me settle for less! If I want a thing, and my mind begins to cry about the price, I tell it, ‘What is 150k compared to the billions we just lent to the other country?’

I find that immediately, the mind bows and breaks, yielding to the power the scriptures and the understanding of them has availed. And slowly by slowly, everything high-end becomes more and more affordable. It is like more room for possibilities gets created, and I enter the realm called ‘all things are possible to him that believes.’

If you continue to struggle with bills and ‘too expensive’ mentalities, you must ask yourself ‘do I really believe God’s word?’ In fact if you still struggle, that is it! You don’t believe God! You thought you did but you don’t!

The antidote to that is simple. The more you read scriptures as such as I have shared, they convey faith to you. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word. The more you meditate on them, the more you believe Him. And the more your mind and imagination is convinced of what previously was impossible to you!

That’s how you enlarge your tent! By thinking according to what God has declared over you! That alone creates capacity for you to leap from one realm of glory to another. From only blessing your household, to blessing your community. From blessing your community to blessing your nation. From blessing your nation to many nations!

Primarily, His word is the first type of capacity, before we encounter the physical capacity. It is concealed! And that’s what makes it glorious. The more of it you search out, you fish more glory to yourself — or more capacity to enable you qualify for that promotion, that marriage, that parenthood, that inheritance, that expansion, or that next level!

I commend you to it, for it is able to build you up — to build your capacity up — and give you an inheritance … for it is alive! And if it is; it will convict you of abundance when you are thinking scarcity! It will convict you of possibility when you are seeing impossibility! It will convict you of nations when you are thinking a small plot of land!

Apostle Joshua Selman once said that we must be so into scripture that it becomes our stronghold! In my understanding, a stronghold is a form of mindset that can’t be easily undone or undone at all. It is what the Bible calls ‘minds being seared.’ To sear is to be burned with sudden intense heat. The picture that comes to mind is a cow being branded. A mark is burnt into their skins as a type of label, which can’t heal! It is permanent!

What would happen if your mind and heart are beyond convincing that you can ever be poor! What would it look like if His word over you is as that tattoo scar on a cow?

I mean, for our sakes, He became poor — though He was rich, that through His poverty we would become rich. (2 Cor 8:9) It makes no point His sacrifice being in vain, making both of you live poor! Who’ll be rich then? Or who did He become poor for?

If this scripture is seared and set in your mind, you can never believe that you’re broke! Never! Regardless of your bank balance! And as a man thinketh …

Ah, (sigh of exhausted laboring)

Brethren … reader, I commend you to the word of His grace!

•

Acts‬ ‭20‬:‭32‬ So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
‭‭

Mark‬ ‭9‬:‭23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
‭‭