Where Should I Go?

"It happened after this that David inquired of the Lord...Shall I go up to any of the cities of Judah? The Lord said to him, "Go up" . David said, "Where shall I go up? And the Lord said, "To Hebron." 2 Samuel 2:1

Where should I go? This question each of us are faced with at crossroads in our lives. At this important crossroad in David's life David knew where to go for guidance and he knew to put the matter into the hands of God. David knew to inquire of the Lord. While David wanted God's

blessings on his plans and he wanted even more to be in the center of God's will. And when he inquired of God, God answered him in His faithfulness. The Lord gave him guidance.

David was anointed king many years earlier and this promise to him was still being waited on for it's fulfillment but David did not rush ahead of the Lord but sought the Lord for his next steps. David knew of the promise God had given to him but instead of trying to manipulate the Lord he knew God would fulfill it in His perfect timing and way.

Before David advanced in his next steps we learn that his first anointing was not enough....for the continued promise upon David's life to unfold he had to get a fresh anointing from the Lord. God was teaching him that his walk with the Lord was an on going experience with the Holy Spirit. He had to get things right first with God in his own walk before this fresh anointing was upon him, this first was needed to prepare him again for what God had for him and to be in the will of God.

Today I am sure many of you, like me, are seeking the Lord's will for something and for His next steps. For the direction in areas needed you ask the Lord too, 'where should I go?' 'what should I do?' And we see this too in David's life. And we see the Lord's response to him, "Go up. To Hebron" the place of fellowship with Me. As God's called ones we should not only expect to have a blessed life here on earth but also to follow in the steps of those who have gone before us...like David and Abraham and all the faithful saints who were "looking for a better country, for a city with foundations, whose builder is God."

Hebrews 11:10-11

David's heart remained steadfast in his seeking God and through all that happened so far in his life from the time he was first anointed to be king and through the many years before he took the throne. How we can look back and see how David's early years were divinely ordained and how each task prepared him more for what God had. He faced giants early on (Goliath), and the wrath of jealously from others (Saul), and the challenges of leading (a nation). But God knew. And God seen. And all the while God was preparing him for his calling and ministry in his life and to others and God began preparing him for the plans God had while he was yet in his mother's womb as David and the prophet Jeremiah wrote....

"Certainly You made my mind and heart; You wove me together in my mother's womb. I will give you thanks because Your deeds are awesome and amazing. You knew me thoroughly; my bones were not hidden from You, when I was made in secret and sewed together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was made inside the womb. All the days ordained for me were recorded in Your scroll before one of them came into existence..." Psalm 136:13-16

"The Lord said to me, "Before I knew you I formed you inside your mother's womb I chose you. Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you to the nations.." Jeremiah 14:5

Such glorious promises to each of us and how we hear the heart of God towards us all throughout these scriptures. How the Lord has created each life and knows each life that He has created even before time began for His glory. How important it is to know our Creator and for others to know how important their life is to Him. And He also goes on to tell us that each of our days were fashioned by Him....that He chose us and His plans for us are so very good.

As with us, all that the Lord allowed to transpire in David's life was a training ground for godly leadership. As David sought the Lord, the Lord continued to grow him to influence others for Himself. As we read and look back we can see the hand of God in David's life, his calling, and God giving David His Spirit to face opposition, to meditate upon the Lord in times of isolation, all he experienced God allowed so he could be used of God and learn from God to then lead others. God always shapes each of us the same way...for the years and works that are yet ahead.

As Christians, God has a purpose and calling for each of you. God fashioned you to in your mother's womb to carry out His Divine purposes. As we sit even today in the place you find yourself in....you may think today does not appear to be a place looking quite as you may have intended just a few years ago. But today is part of the bigger plan that God yet has....and you can be reminded of this as you look back and remember God's faithfulness in your life and see His hand that has shaped you and prepared you..'thus so far' for what He is calling you to do. In your ministries at home and beyond. All that He has allowed to come into your life comes through God's good hands that bring all things to pass for our good and His glory as we continue to yield to Him.

David still knew the need of God's continue direction and this was the reason for the success in David's life and ministry...he inquired of God. God was faithful to him when he inquired. We read that David wanted more than blessings on his own plans, it was more important for him to be in the center of Gods will for his life. David knew that it was better for the Lord to move in His life, to lift him up, than to strive. That although there was a first anointing from the Lord, this was not enough, but there was a continued work and filling needed as too in our own lives. An ongoing experience with the Holy Spirit. This is what it means to be filled and led by the Spirit and yielded to Him. How many believers today are not living the abundant blessed life because they are living in legalism or they unyielded to God's Spirit....how many who have said a prayer to accept Christ but are living for their own desires....and David's example is such an important lesson for each of us today. He desired God first....for his life.... in order for him to move forward with God. There are places today we are in need of God's wisdom, His peace, His strength and leading....and until we move forward with what He has we must first come to Him and continue in His Word and remain first in fellowship with the Lord. Although David had an anointing from the Lord early on....the Lord knew that there must be a fresh outpouring of his Spirit upon David...a renewing of his spirit and fellowship and communion with the Lord before he could go forward. As believers we should want more of Him as He desires more of us. As David inquired of the Lord the Lord answered David....and told David to "GO UP" to HEBRON....not just a place geographically speaking but a place that signifies a place of union and fellowship with God....a place that God desires of each of us to go in answer to that question..."where should we go?"....a question that I too must ask of Him each new day as I seek His leading and my need for Him. As well as in the new places that He desires to unfold before us when we are willing and ready for the next steps in our journey with the Lord....all He desires of us is to place our lives in His hands and all matters in His hands....with our hearts fully yielded to Him.

Wherever this finds you today...wherever you are seeking the Lord in places of His leading and direction...are you first seeking union and fellowship with Christ? Are you seeking solutions or holiness? Are you surrendered to His will first for what He desires? Are you returning first to Him in the very circumstance you are in...in full repentance and in humility and with the need of getting your own walk right before a fresh anointing from Him is then given to carry on the plans that He has for you? God looks at the heart while man only looks at the outside the scriptures tell us...and as we wait on the Lord He is waiting on us. And He will unfold the next steps for us when we are ready in our journey with Him.

While away in Florida it was a bitter sweet time for me. There are so many wonderful memories here as a child and when I met my husband Randy and memories with our daughters...and it is a place where each of us met the Lord. Randy's love for me and our daughters was unconditional from the beginning but that love continued to grow as he grew in Christ. Randy felt a calling upon his life early on in his walk with the Lord and the anointing on our lives as husband and wife promised the blessings God spoke of but the answer was not found in us trying hard to attain this goal...but in our union and fellowship first with Christ individually. The closer we became to God the closer we grew in our relationship with one another. When our relationship and fellowship with God is broken and our spirit is unyielded to the Lord it has devastating consequences not only in our life individually but in our relationships and it causes much pain for others because the choices we make effect others. We have the choice...in our words and deeds...to either lead others to Christ...or to lead them away from Him.

I ask each of you today...as I ask myself...are you having an eternal impact on those God has entrusted to you? Are you leading them to the Lord, always pointing them to Christ in your words and deeds? If your union and fellowship with the Lord has been broken....our lives will bear witness...and these things will not be a priority and our own agenda will slowly rise above the will of God. We will strive in getting our own desires and outcome instead of resting in the Lord and leaning on His promises and allowing the Lord to lead our steps so the fruit that we bear will have eternal results and done by His Spirit. Our hearts when yielded to the Lord will produce good fruit that is eternal and we will make a godly impact on all those in our lives.

The Lord had been speaking to Randy and his heart was to serve the Lord over 31 years ago...and this heart of service first began as very young husband and then father by serving his family. Eventually his heart grew to serve the Lord in the churches we attended....and then the Lord led us to Virginia in 1997 and in 1999 he began serving at Calvary Chapel Richmond as it first began. Through many trials and triumphs the Lord was growing his faith and his ministry. As opposition came in....he knew the enemy was working hard to try and hinder the work God began....and He knew of the unfailing promises of God and the need to surrender more and more of His will for God to accomplish His. His life in ministry at CCR for 19 years began in serving God in all he could do and then in God's timing in the early years in 2000 he was ordained as a Pastor. God's plans unfolded as he became more and more surrendered to the will of God for his life. As we set our hands to do this good work Nehemiah tells us that opposition comes in...but through much opposition God always is faithful and He accomplished His will and He continued to accomplish His plans in our lives...in His Church...and in the lives of all those He brought as God is doing today.

This February would be 39 years of marriage for us as well...and its 22 years of serving Christ at our church. I was reading in his journal from February 2018 as he was facing yet the greatest battle to come...and the doctors prognoses to him that month was that he had only a few months to live. He wrote still of the very thing he always valued the most in his relationship with Christ, His fellowship with God each day, the importance of his alone time with God. His desire to walk each day in union and fellowship with the Lord. He wrote, "in silence and quietness to wait on Him to fill me". He always knew that part of our shortcomings as believers and the lack of the yielding of our spirit to Him was often traced back to the missing of our time to get alone with God each new day. His first question to most problems many were facing was simple, "When was the last time you were in the Word?"....and ... "Is you joy complete in Jesus?"

He too quoted Tozier as he wrote, "Now, in the case of our Lord, the people came to Him, John reports, and He was ready for them. For He had been quiet and silent....looking UPWARD". This is so true and beautiful....that we are ready to serve others, to minister to others, when we first are quiet and silent and looking up towards God. This is such a beautiful character found in a man or woman after God's own heart...a heart that first seeks fellowship with God and desires to hear His voice before he is ready to minister to others and to hear the voices of men. Randy became more and more convinced over the years in serving Christ of the things robbing mans relationship with God and the souls of men....was...the time given to their own desires and selfish ambitions, outside influences and a growing presence of social media crowding out the time men had to be alone with God and in the quietness of His presence to hear from Him. To be filled by His Spirit and be poured out into their family's and then into the lives of those outside their homes simply by abiding in Christ. He spoke against striving and the works of the flesh always trying to replace the workings of the Spirit of God.

My faith continues to grow as I think of his and of all God has done within me while God desires to do much more. My desperate need for Him each day. My desire to glory in His will. The acceptance of God's will is easy to speak of but it is often never easy to walk. But it brings peace and it brings others to Him and the fulfillment of God purposes in us and it brings redemption to others as we continue to trust and obey and maintain our fellowship with God first...trusting Him to lead our way and bring to fulfillment His promises and plans and how He will use our life to impact others as we surrender to Him. I was so blessed today to be reminded of this and of David and his reaction as He sought God's leading....and in doing so...the godly impact he had on others.

After years of persecution and opposition since David's first anointing as a young boy and now grown, he heard of Sauls death. He was able to tear his garments over this news as he and his men mourned. David then spoke both of Saul and Jonathon as the sweetest and greatest of Israel. Not one bitter word he spoke of Saul. David could do this because his own ambitions were found in God. Not in position or place of honor given by men or in the strength of an army...only in his relationship with God. In the Lord's presence he said, "You are my strong tower, in You I will trust." It was anew day for David after 15 years of running and much opposition but always remembering God's calling on his life and it is the same for us. Believing in who we are in Christ..in our calling....and in its fulfillment. David goes on to inquire of the Lord...a place he now stands where obstacles are removed. And David's heart is bowed before the Lord knowing he is not the real king but only a vessel to take orders from His KING. A place where he is desiring only God's guidance. Not what others are telling him. Not glorying in the fact that Saul is now dead and his crown in now David's. But instead, He wants the crowning to be of God. He now asks God where he should go? In essence, I only want to touch what you desire to give to me. Isn't that beautiful. And God simply says "GO UP' to HEBRON. Although Hebron was a place on the map ...God was more concerned with the place of David's heart...and to teach him of his need for God to do what God is calling him to do. The Hebrew root word for Hebron means union, communion, in step with, joining together, fellowship. A coming together with God...first..for his ministry to be blessed and for his heart to be in the center of the will of God.

The heart says we want solutions, we want to go, we want to serve, we want success, but we must not move and go before the Lord but move specifically in asking Him where, when and how. Its a place of constant returning to Him and a continual yielding before the Lord. We cannot have what He wants for us until He first brings us to Hebron, back to Himself. To restore and redeem us and to continue His work in us and through us, His way. A great word for us all as He brings us into another new year and as we seek Him for the plans that He has as we step out in new areas of faith.

All things must be born first in Him. This is Hebron. This is ministry. And in doing so the fruit of our lives will remain and then multiply! The wheat that falls to the ground as we die will multiply...this is ministry! We then read of this as David also "brought up" other men with him as we too will bring up others with us to that place of union and fellowship with Christ.

A yielded life is contagious and it affects others for Christ. There have been many examples of this and the impact other godly women had made in my life over the years...and there is no greater glory given to me all these years in leading, serving, mentoring and discipling women and encouraging them as Christ has encouraged me through others.....To listen to the joy of women after we open the Word, as we gather in the studies and prayer, witnessing the Lord redeeming women, growing women. Hearing them pray and testify of their God doing great things in their lives. Witnessing Him fulfilling all the promises He has given to them. The ashes in their lives now turned into great beauty. Watching them grow into the godly roles God has given to them as wives and mothers as sister's in Christ and as friends. Seeing Jesus in their eyes and each brilliant smile radiating from a heart nurtured and filled with the powerful truth and love of God! Women no longer seeking the advice of this world that tries to define who they are or should be but women who seek the Lord and hold on to the promises that He has given to them and that He is fulfilling and bringing to them in every season of their lives....in each of their lives. David didn't have to seek anyone or anything but God and we then read that God was faithful and brought the fulfillment of His promise to David. It was God who made him king. In all of the opposition that came as he served the Lord he did not become bitter or jealous with others or with God. Instead he knew his calling and Gods promises to him. How often Randy would say to me when opposition comes...."remember who you are in Christ, remember your calling." And in doing so there is never striving but only an abiding and the outcome is Him. And how important it is today, as we are set apart more and more in this world as Christians....to know who we are in Christ and that we are hidden in Him.

May David's example be ours. There are those in our lives who have gone home before us and who have passed the baton to us. Those who never would admit or think of it, but whose lives have impacted ours for Christ and we have seen the value of a life yielded to the Lord. Men and women who have inquired of Lord each day and at every crossroad in their life. Each going up to Hebron maintaining first their union with God and trusting in God for the rest. Not arranging and striving and loosing their peace but believing in the fulfillment of the things He has promised through the bending of their knees continually before their God.

My prayer this new year is for each of us to inquire of the Lord more and more. To be fascinated with Christ alone and beyond self. That as we seek the Lord in where He would have us go....the answer from the Lord to us is always to first "go up to Hebron" and dwell there in full fellowship and intimacy with God ….that this would be our hearts first desire..."God is faithful through whom you were called into the fellowship of His son, Jesus Christ our Lord" 1 Cor. 1:9.....He is faithful as we seek the Lord and wait on Him for His fulfillment in our lives... as we desire His will and His next steps in all we are seeking Him in. To go to the place of fellowship where others will then come with us. To come to Jesus, and to be undone by His love and by just "BE-ing" in Him...here is where we have complete joy, peace and fellowship between us and the Lord...and all His saints!

Our God can be trusted and we need not depend on our own wisdom or understanding. Randy had learned Proverbs 3:5-6 early on and he instilled this beautiful truth in my heart throughout our lives, to first inquire of the Lord and enter continually into fellowship with Him ...to... "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

Michelle A. Guerra