Adventures from the Farm, Part 1. Trusting God in the Waiting and the Moving

Hello Victorious Living family! I am Christi Overton-Johnson, your host of more Victorious Living. Today I am coming to you from a farm, a couple of, well several hundred acre farm in Central Florida and I am visiting some loved ones and it is just beautiful. It's the first time I've spent the night out here and woke up and able to come out and watch the clouds, watch the sky and you can hear the airplanes going by. There's cows out here. I woke up to cows mooing. Now I can't say that that's ever happened before and I've even been sitting out here with a kitty cat curled up by my feet and y'all know me. I am a dog person. I have four huge dogs but my dogs aren't here with me and there is a kitty cat and this cat is pretty cool. I have to say I have judged cats very harshly my whole life and I really do like this cat. The cat's name is Toothless, named after the dragon on some some cartoon or something, flying, how to name, something about a dragon, how to tame your dragon. I don't even know. See, y'all might know but anyway that's the name of the cat is Toothless but I've learned that I like this cat. I don't know about all cats and I this morning just been taking some time and I took some footage of the clouds and all that and we will show that at the end of the video so make sure you stay with me because it's really precious. We're watching the clouds. Maybe you can even stop and see if you can find some shapes in the clouds. Y'all remember doing that as a child? I would just lay there and look up at the sky and look at shapes and this morning when I looked up at the clouds it to me looked like jellyfish and God just really spoke to my heart and I videoed that and included a prayer with y'all so make sure you stay to the end and watch that. I am coming off a I am still in the middle of a cold and I've been waiting to feel better to do a video and I'm not feeling better so I figured let's just come out here let's just dive in the word together and this place is too beautiful and I have to leave in a few hours and go to the next place but I wanted to stop and share it with you. You know the Word of God is so precious and it talks so much about being still and knowing that God is God and I have to admit that I roll hard and I roll fast and especially with the growth of the prison ministry and as you

know the work and it's heavy in a great way but meaning that it's it is always it's always there and there's always more to do and trying to find that balance of caring for self which is I'm not very good at that so this the sickness kind of forces me to be still I've got on an airplane and flew and come to a place and I had to miss an event last night I just couldn't get there that's hard for me to do when I say I'm gonna be somewhere to not go and wasn't a prison event it was actually a water ski Hall of Fame event and I was like you know I just can't now if it had been a prison event I would have been there to my detriment but just because I wouldn't have wanted to miss seeing you and in our IFAM our incarcerated family and I just can't thank you enough for joining and recently we went on a tour my last tour was in Texas and it just warmed my heart and to see and to read the letters and to see the impact the ministries have and and even these videos what it means to you to see a cloud it it just touches my heart and so I just want to thank you I never dreamed that this would be what God had for me but I would not have wanted to miss this for anything in the world so I want to encourage you today if God is inviting you into a space and it may not fit you may not understand how you fit in it you may feel very disqualified you may feel unqualified I want to encourage you to step in it because you don't want to miss what God has for you and if I had not answered that letter that my friend Bill wrote to me and it all started with Bill having the courage to write to me and him having the courage to say Christy I'm sorry for any harm that I caused your ministry that was from my incarcerated friend And I'd lost contact with him for seven years, but he had the courage to write to me and to say, I'm sorry. And that one act of courage led me to go visit my friend in prison in Miami. And you know, when I read that letter and I had an invitation to go visit him in prison, a couple of things had to happen. I had to pray about that. And when God was moving me to go, I had to say yes to it. And then I went and asked my husband, Hey, can I go? And my husband had to say yes. Like there was a lot of people saying yes. Bill saying yes to the, to the nudge of the Holy spirit saying right to Christie, humble yourself and write to her risk being rejected.

And then God moving on my heart to say go. And then God moving on my husband's heart. Woo. Sorry about the wind there. And then my husband saying, yes, you can go, you know, there might be people in your life saying, Hey dad, I feel like God's calling me to go here. Or your wife maybe, or your husband saying, I feel like God's calling me to do this. And you don't understand it. And maybe you're not comfortable with it, but my husband, even though he didn't understand it, he, he trusted God and he trusted God in me. And he said, yes, you can go. And so he could have easily said, no, I'm not comfortable with that. And I would have honored that. And I would have kept praying about it. So maybe someone's not there yet. You just need to not push them. But God has just lead me in a whole different direction than I thought I was going, but I'm just going to go with this. You know, there have been times where my husband has not been where I am in a decision where I think back to our adoption of Dalton and Ivy and God had put on my heart to adopt, but God hadn't, Tim had not recognized that yet. And so instead of me pushing him to give me a yes, so I could go do what I felt like God wanted me to do. So maybe you're in a position today that God's put something on your heart and you're trying to go to a chaplain and you're trying to push your way in a position or you're telling your spouse or you're telling your friend and you're ready for that place and you're ready for it to happen. But the timing's not there yet. Other people aren't positioned for that. Here's what you have to do. You have to trust God with the timing. You have to trust God with the person and you have to pray. And that's what I did when it came to our adoption. I knew that if I went and pushed my husband and said, baby, we've got to do this. God has said it. He wasn't ready. But there was a time where I just backed off and I said, God, if this is your will, would you move on their heart? And I trusted God with the situation. I trusted God with my husband, Tim. I trusted God with the children that he had shown me that I would one day have. And when I trusted God, God positioned it all. I think about these clouds that are moving and they're forming and the wind is blowing them into position and there's purpose in it. And God did that with all the moving parts of my adoption, all the way to the end, all the way to right now, where I am visiting with my adopted daughter, 20 some years later, and see how God has just shaped, informed her life and the adoption and all the things. But it wouldn't have happened. I don't think if I pushed him and I had tried to make it happen, it wouldn't have happened in his timing. And I would have messed it up. You know,

I've been studying Abraham and all the Isaacs and the Jacobs and all of that and seeing how they've had promises and they had to wait for the timing. They had a word from God. And then not everybody was always aligned with that word and they had to wait and they had to trust and they had to go and he had to step into things in his timing. God is always moving, just like these clouds. He's always forming something and sometimes we can't see it. But if we trust him and we pray and we trust him with our kids, we trust him with our ministry, we trust him with our calling, and then we step out when it happens. And sometimes God has positioned things and he's aligned it all, but we're waiting because we don't understand it all. Don't wait. Trust that God is forming these clouds, who's feeding these cows right now, who's going to water this earth, that's going to feed the birds. Trust him to care for you because he will and he is. So, I am so grateful for Bill's yes, for my being willing to step out. for my husband Tim's yes and then I had to get in the car and I had to go to prison and I had to walk through those doors you know sometimes maybe right now you're ready and God is saying now it's time to walk through the doors it's time to take the stage and preach that's what he's saying to someone right now you've been waiting and I've been giving you opportunities and the doors have been opening but you've not opened your mouth you've not walked through the doors that I have prepared and it's time so I'm gonna read Joshua right now because that's where I is and I didn't know how I was gonna get there I know that's where I is it's not good English that's where I am y'all been sick for many many days and I've been waiting to feel better to come home but it ain't happening so here I is moo is right we're gonna move this out gonna sound like a cow this morning but Joseph excuse me Joshua Joshua had been following the leadership of Moses Moses had been following the leadership of the Holy Spirit which we always always have to do but he had raised up Joshua and now Joshua's standing in this place of leadership and God has called him to leave and Moses is dead and the position is there and there's someone right now that the position is there for you now there's some that are trying to take the position and it's too early it's too early like you're ready you think you're

ready and it was so beautiful that I had a loved one the other day has got us in ministry and God's opened up all these doors and he he has been sitting with me and he's seeing the heaviness of ministry and all the things that have to be done with the nonprofit everybody wants a nonprofit everybody wants a big nonprofit but they don't realize with that comes all this legal stuff all this fundraising all of this things that have to be done with integrity or you lose that nonprofit you lose the trust of people you are entrusted with people's money and not only that you have to answer to God for it and it takes a lot of work and my friend looked at me he goes I'm not ready God has shown me that I I just still need to stay under where I am and do these things but not to march out and try to have this grand thing because I'm not ready and it's gonna crumble and I'm gonna crumble and that was wisdom so there's some of you that are trying to make it happen and God's like saying trust me trust me but there's some like Joshua where you're positioned right now and God is saying it's time to move it's time to move and so I've seen that several times where back in Exodus where let me look at it was Moses and he's like what are y'all looking up for what are you looking up for it's time to go move and now it's Joshua after the dead Joshua one Joshua's in the New Testament it's after Deuteronomy and Joshua had been like I said been under Moses and it says after the death of Moses the Lord's servant the Lord spoke to Joshua son of milk son of none Moses's assistant and he said Moses my servant is dead therefore the time has come for you to lead these people the Israelites across the Jordan River into the land I'm giving them I gave you the same promise that I gave Moses wherever you set foot you will be on the land I have given you no one will be able to stand against you I'm in verse 5 as long as you live for I will be with you as I was with Moses I will not fail or abandon you first six so many of you have probably heard this Joshua 1 6 be strong and courageous for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors so God had given this promise hundreds of years before and he's saying you're the one that's gonna lead him

into this and Moses the one who was leading isn't able to lead anymore why because he's dead now it's time for you to take your rightful place the one the place I'm putting you in the place I've chosen you for and Joseph he's just not Joseph Joshua is afraid he's like don't be afraid be strong and courageous and that's the thing when God opens these doors sometime so it might be maybe God isn't calling you right now to lead this huge thing but he's calling you to go talk to someone on the compound talk to the bunkie that's next to you or above you or below you and God has been good to you and God is telling you to invite that person you know God had me invite a person to church the other day I was scared to death like I could come on these and talk to hundreds of thousands of people and I could be all goofy and I could not care if like right now snot's coming out my nose and I just am comfortable when it comes to asking a Pilates instructor to go to church with me for Easter I had to sit in my car for 20 minutes and get the courage to do that but I knew God was saying invite that woman to go and it made me physically ill but I've learned enough to know if God is telling me to do something do it and she actually politely declined the request but it went really good like 20 minutes it took me Lord help me I know that sounds so crazy because y'all see me like if I come into your prison you see me on a stage you see me come in with talking to people and ministering to hundreds of people I've been on yards thousands of people in churches and ministering to thousands on here but to go I say would you like to go to church with me tomorrow for Easter I mean what is a better place to ask someone than Easter most people are ready to go and she was so kind but she refused and she already had plans but here's what it did it opened up a door she goes you know what but I would love to go get coffee and better than them going to church on a Easter Sunday which is a lot of times you know big and grand she was inviting me now into an intimate now I have a phone number which I didn't have before and and I just think that was beautiful but it had to be strong and courageous like all of us have to be strong and courageous and step into where God is calling us to be maybe it's a big

leadership position like Joseph Joshua what I keep saying Joseph because I've been studying Joseph Joshua was being called to you know Joseph let's go to Joseph he was being called to be a leader wherever he was whether that was in Potiphar's home as a servant whether it was in prison like he had to be strong and courageous and go interpret dreams and when he did God opened up doors for him wherever we are we have to be strong and courageous we will be afraid there have been times that I've been invited in to speak in a prison and maybe the person before me is speaking and they have this incredible story of just pain and abuse and everybody in the audience is recognizing and identifying with it and I'm like I gotta follow this sorry the airplanes going over us a lot of people out here in these country lands they fly like ultralight planes and things that look like go-karts and they fly gliders and that's obviously not a glider let's let it pass for a minute just enjoy the sound of the airplane maybe some of you used to be pilots it's going to come in the view lab we're going in a second anyway all right I don't know where I was I'll have to go back and watch it and but yeah so he's calling Joshua to be strong and courageous and he's calling you to be that and me be strong and courageous for you're the one who's gonna lead it may not be a whole group of people to into a land but you're being called to lead one person maybe it's the officer maybe you're to be strong and courageous and be kind to an officers not being kind to you maybe it's to your bunkie maybe it's to someone who's not been kind to you you're the one who's gonna lead that person closer to Christ and here's what I know God is gonna be with us just like he was with Joshua just like he was with Moses that was one thing I was thinking this morning as I was looking at these clouds and like I said go to the very end and watch the video where we pray we watch the clouds and we create find shapes and stuff but I was seeing clouds that they're not like that now but they had these look like jellyfish with tentacles reaching down and I thought about immediately the verse that says God's faithfulness extends from the highest heights of heavens to this earth

and that's what it looked like that's what I felt God showing me and then I thought about I just finished reading the book of Genesis and I thought about I was gonna look up how many generations were from Adam and to the death of Joseph because he was faithful from Adam all the way to Joseph. And then when I started reading Exodus, he was faithful in those generations and then faithful to Moses, who was abandoned and left in a Nile River in a tar-pitched basket. God was faithful to him. You can't get more hidden than in a Nile River, in the reeds, with crocodiles all around. And God ordained for Moses to lead. And I feel God's saying to you right now, you might be hidden in the reeds of a prison and a jail, but God has a call in your life. You might be in the Egyptian household, which is the enemy's camp, but God sees you, sorry, and he is ordaining for you to be plucked out of that place, to be used in that place. So, I'm going all over the place. Part of it's because my head is in the clouds. But all this is tying together because Moses, it looked like all hope was gone. And his mother had to trust God, just like I talked about at the beginning, like I had to trust God with the adoption, I had to trust God with everything

and just keep moving forward. Moses's mother, the decree had been given that every male baby, Hebrew male baby should be killed. And she had to trust God and put Moses in the reeds, in the Nile River. And she could hear him crying and there was nothing she could do to go help him. She just had to trust God. And a lot of y'all are in that position right there. There's nothing you can do to go help your kids. There's nothing you can do to help your case. There's nothing you can do, but there is because you could trust God. The one whose faithfulness is extending from the heights of heaven to you today. The one that covered Moses and protected him from the crocodiles and arranged and ordained for him to be plucked from the Nile River. Read this in Exodus. It is incredible. Exodus one, two, three and on. How this abandoned person, this baby, helpless babe, which you feel right now like a helpless babe. You can't feed yourself. You can't free yourself. And you're just having to trust where God's gonna place you next. He placed Moses in the house of Pharaoh where he would have favor,

where he would have everything he needed. He was actually plucked from the Nile River and the lady that plucks him out is the daughter of Pharaoh and she adopts him. But before that, she says to this young girl who ends up, turns out, was Moses's sister, Miriam. Is that who it is? It was Moses's sister. Moses's sister says, would you like me to go get a Hebrew lady to breastfeed, to nurse this baby? And Pharaoh's daughter says, yes. So what does the little girl do, Moses's sister? She runs and gets Moses's mother. So Moses's mother, who trusted God with her son, ends up getting to nurse her baby and be there to raise her baby and told it was too old to nurse. And I imagine she milked that, I would have. And then she goes and presents her baby to Pharaoh's daughter and Moses is raised in the palace. And God was with him and he was still in the enemy camp, but God is with you and he is orchestrating things that you can't see. But to step into it and to continue to live in it, you gotta be strong and courageous. And you can't act in haste and you can't think, and I think about Moses, he acted in haste. He acted in haste and he ended up killing an Egyptian person and then he had to flee in fear,

but God was still with him. So even if you've acted in haste, even if you've taken matters in your own hands, just like Abraham and Sarah did, and they had an Ishmael, I mean, I'm tying a lot of in, but the reality is that God is still with you. And if you will come to him and you will ask for forgiveness for the times you haven't trusted him, if you will ask for forgiveness for the times that you haven't stepped out, he is the God of another chance. And he is a God that you have not messed it up. He is saying, come home. Let me shape it, let me form you, let me feed you like the cows. I've got you. Come graze with me. Come trust with me. We're not in a hurry. Come sit with me and let me show you great and mighty things that you don't know. And then when it's time to lead and it's time to go and it's time to speak, go and be strong and courageous in your way. Be strong and courageous in your goings because I am with you just like I was with Moses. Just like I was with Adam. Just like I was with Abraham and Noah, Jacob and Isaac. Just like I was with David. Time and time again I will be with you. Just like I was in with the disciples who were waiting in the upper room and just like I was with Jesus on the cross, I will be with you. I will help you through the painful moments, the lonely moments, the scary moments God says. Just step out with me. Be strong and courageous for you're the one who's going to lead. You're the one God says I'm going to have you lead that person to me.

To lead a movement maybe. To lead people into a new land. Maybe you're going to lead your family into a new land. A land that has been marred with generational curses and addiction and abuse and God saying I'm going to let you lead. I'm calling you to lead your family into newness of life. But you've got to be strong and courageous. And here's what we're going to talk about in our next episode. It says you got to be careful to obey. You got to be careful to walk with God and not deviate from the left or from the right what God's telling you to do. Your success is here and we're going to talk about that in our next episode. But right now I'm going to cut it off and I want you to to listen to this next segment which is us praying and watching the clouds. And in the background you're going to hear some pages. You're going to hear it is rustling. That was actually the pages of my Bible turning and when I was listening to it while I go I was like oh I wonder if we should cut that out but it's I'm going to tell you what it is the pages rustling and the wind of God's wind coming through and rustling the pages of this Bible. And in the background as you look at the cows and listen to the wind and see the cows and the clouds I want you to hear the rustling of the word of God that's calling out to us and saying this is how you can be strong and courageous. This is how you lead. This is life to you. This is the the manna from heaven that will feed you every single day and sustain you where you are. And we're going to talk a little bit about this word in our next episode. So God bless you. Watch this to the end and then be sure and look at the information on the slides at the end. Love you. Thank you for being here with me today. Thank you for enjoying this beautiful setting with with me. It's a little cold tea now.

God bless you. Good morning Victorious Living family. I am just sitting out on a farm and I was just looking at the clouds and look how they're just moving. If you keep your eyes on one cloud and look at the ones in the front it's just moving and it's just so pretty. This morning I was looking at those moving and then I was looking at these and they almost look like jellyfish. I've never seen clouds with like tails coming down and it just kind of caught my breath. It just reminds me of my childhood. It just reminds me of God's glory that reaches down to us and covers us and extends towards us and that's what I felt like the Lord showing me this morning is that He sees us and He loves us and He's reaching down to heaven toward us to lift us up to shower His grace upon us. And I just wanted to share these beautiful clouds with you. I've been visiting a loved one here in Florida and sometimes you know I live in a beautiful place on a river and I never go outside. Very rarely and this morning I had some alone time and I've been really sick and so I was just sitting outside and that'd be better not bite me. I am allergic and go away. So anyway, yeah, just see the cows out there, so beautiful and I've got some fun video of the cows running towards me yesterday, but I just wanted y'all right now just to see the peacefulness of this place and the beauty of those clouds and we will come back and read some scripture together, hear the airplanes, Father, we just thank you for this morning, thank you for the sun, a lot of you haven't seen the sun, let's see if we can see the clouds, thank you for the sun that is up, thank you for the clouds that are moving across central Florida, thank you God for this cloud, it's just moving so quickly, it doesn't look quickly in this camera, Father, we thank you for the simple things in life that we so often

take for granted, just to be able to see, Lord, right now, to be able to look up and to see these clouds and to realize what a gift it is that I'm sitting, feeling the wind, Lord forgive me for the times that I've taken that for granted and I just pray for my friends, my incarcerated family, Lord, my brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, Lord, that are not able to feel the wind right now and to feel the way the sun feels on their skin and to see these beautiful clouds accumulating and rolling across the sky, God, it's so beautiful and thank you, Lord, for this one that's just coming at us, I just feel like you're putting on a little show for us this morning, forgive us for how we take for granted the little things, the sound of a cow mooing, the fact that we can even hear it, the moss that hangs from the trees, it's so beautiful, water that we get to drink and see, Father, thank you for the little things of life and I pray that my incarcerated brother and sister right now can just find things where they are to be thankful for, if they have a window that they can see outside, if they're in prison and they can go outside to be thankful for that because I know there's a lot of people in jail right now that would give anything just for a window. For those that are in jail and have a little space to go outside, it might be a 10x10 concrete pad that's fenced in, but may they be grateful to feel the warmth or feel the coolness. Father, if it's someone that is just locked in and can't go anywhere, may they be thankful, God, that they can see, they can hear, they can feel, Father, that you're with them. Father, there's always that we're alive and that we're not alone and I feel like even right now when I was just sitting here alone on this farm, God, I looked up and it was like you were reminding me, I'm not alone here. The way you're just streaking these clouds down, God, it was like you were showing me that all of heaven sees me and I feel that is the case right now for these men and women that are incarcerated, that you're saying, no matter where you are, if you're in the middle of Central Florida on a farm, thinking that you're all alone, you're not alone. If you're in a jail cell, if you're in solitary confinement, if you're in some prison in Florida or California or Maine or wherever you are, that God sees you and that he is, all of heaven sees you and he loves you and he's caring for you just like he's caring for those birds that are running behind the cows eating the birds, eating the animals, the insects that come up when they eat the hay and open up the ground with their hooves. Father, for the hay that's there, that's grown, that I just thank you, God, that just like you care for them, you're caring for us. Father, today as we come into the word of God and we open it up, may God bless you. It just reached down into our hearts, and just like these clouds have given us a show, may you give us, Lord, open our eyes to see things we've never seen. Speak to us, Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen. All right, friends, I'll be back. Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement? Speak to us at Victorious Living Correspondents, PO Box 2751, Greenville, NC 27836, or email us at hope at vlmag.org.

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