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December 9, 2025 • 18 mins

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody. Michelle Jackson here. This is Life the Overflow
and it's my podcast and we're going to be talking
about forging new paths today. One Corinthian sixty nine says,
because a great effectual door has opened to me, and
there are many adversaries. So Paul the Apostle, Paul talks

(00:26):
about an effectual door for ministry, for an effect of
work being open, and that there were adversaries, and so
he had to rearrange his schedule to stay in emphasis
for a period of time until Pentecost or the anniversary
of the outpouring of the Upper Room experience, because effectual

(00:49):
ministry had opened up. This has been such a unique
time of walking with the Lord in times and seasons
and recognizing when we need to do something until and
when we need to pivot. So we've been talking about
our prayer journey for the last few weeks, and I've
just been talking through different aspects of it because it's

(01:10):
been about five years that i've been leading the local
church and I've been leading in prayer, and really, prayer
is the engine of the church, right It's the place
where the power is stewarded, where the anointing is grown.
Where the glory is increasing. It comes from the place

(01:31):
of intimacy with the Lord, and the prayer meeting is
the most important, is the most important meeting of the week.
I know that a lot of times we look at
Sunday service and we're like, that's the high point. But
really we plow in prayer during the week the people
that are part of that core group that are really
invested in seeing the church move forward. This is the

(01:52):
case in every place. It's not any unique to my church,
but that is the drill. It's like, you want anything
to move and carry us carry the grace of the
spirit of the Lord. It's like we have to have
prayed about it. Right. So Paul highlights this in one

(02:13):
Corinthian sixteen, and it's something that it always sticks with
me because a lot of times we don't recognize that
it's the enemy that wants to oppose what God wants
to do. Right. Sometimes we second guess ourselves, or we
allow fear or things that lurk at the door or
lurk at moments of transition to throw us off our path.

(02:34):
And so what I thought would be good would be
for us to talk about how God is equipping us
the body of Christ in this season to forge new
pathways and to take new territory. Joshua, Chapter thirteen. The
Lord begins to talk to Joshua, and he tells him, hey,
you're getting old. And Joshua thirteen, Chapter one A Chapter thirteen,

(02:57):
verse one. He tells them, Joshua, you're getting old. And
now you're very old. And there's still very they're very poor.
They're very large portions of land that still need to
be conquered. And so the Lord begins to point out
the land that's still to be conquered, who has possession
of it, where the inhabitants are the boundary lions of

(03:21):
the land. And then he tells Joshua in verse six,
I myself will drive them out before the Israelites. Be
sure to allocate this land to Israel for an inheritance,
as I have instructed you, and divide it as an
inheritance among the nine nine tribes and the half tribe

(03:41):
of Nnassa. So I want us to think about it,
to think about this fact that most of the paths
where God is calling us to go where we've never gone,
is because He has now decided that is the time
in the hour where he is going to enable you
and impact you, and in fact, he's already gone ahead

(04:02):
of you, so that you can partner with him, to
cut through the resistance, to deal and navigate with the
adversaries that come up, to endure the refining processes, the
fire of the Lord that he uses, and to blaze
a trail as they, as my grandmother used to say,
to boldly go where no man has gone before. Right,
That's what they said when they put a man on

(04:23):
the moon. And so a lot of the things that
God is requiring of us in this season require great courage,
but it also requires a pioneering spirit. A pioneer goes
and blaze a new trail where others would not walk,
and they blaze that trail so that others can follow them.
They are one who is not afraid to be the first.

(04:46):
I remember being the only black kid in my high school,
in my elementary school in certain activities and things like that,
and for me, I always took it as a stigma.
It was a point of shame for me because I
wanted to be a part of a group I didn't
want to be one of. But I didn't understand that
the Lord was setting me up for what in days

(05:08):
ahead would be a pioneering place. That it would be
not being a weirdo, right, because nobody wants to be
a weirdo, but it would be one who was an
example that God had set me in that place to
be an example. So I would encourage someone today who's
been feeling othered, who's been feeling odd, that God is

(05:32):
forging you in a place to step into His promises
over your life, even in places where it's unfamiliar for
someone like you, or someone from your background, or someone
from your comfort, from your from your country or whatever.
That it might be unfamiliar or even uncomfortable to others,
but it does not mean that God has not sent
you there. In fact, in Joshua thirteen, we see that

(05:54):
the land that God was giving them there were people
in it. Sometimes we start to think that if God
is giving us something, then if it belongs to us,
it should be easy to take over. The seat should
be already empty, it should be prepared for me, and
it should just all be so easy. But the Lord

(06:15):
was saying, no, they're there right now, but it belongs
to you, and in fact it's your inheritance, meaning I
already gave it to your forefathers, and I'm giving it
to you. And even though someone else possesses it, I'm
going to give you the strength, the ingenuity, and the
fortitude to possess what I am giving you because I'm

(06:35):
going ahead of you. Right. The other thing that forging
a new path looks like is not breaking under the
resistance pressure. Right. A lot of times we fall apart
under pressure, But the only reason we fall apart under
pressure is because we have not accessed the strength of

(06:58):
the Lord. The Bible to clear is that in our weakness,
he is our strength. So anytime that I'm facing a
door like the first Corinthian sixteen to nine door, where
there are great adversaries and I feel weak or I
feel intimidated, I have to put on the full armor
of God. I have to rise in the strength of

(07:21):
the Lord. Because the adversary's job, the resistance job, is
to intimidate, to belittle, to make us feel small, to
make them to try to steal the momentum of going
through the door. And so what I've learned is that
the Lord will use the trials, He'll use the hammer

(07:44):
of his word to shape us. Right, And so Isaiah
forty eight ten says, I've refined you, not as silver.
I tested you in the furnace of affliction. So sometimes
things have to be hard because God's just trying to
get something to us. He's trying to get something through us,

(08:04):
and he's trying to cause the door that he has
opened up for us, the opportunity, the advancement, the promotion,
the relationship, the house purchase, the business opening, whatever those
big things are, finishing the project, finishing the album, finishing
the book, whatever it is that you're going through. God

(08:25):
is using He's using the afflictions, he's using the challenges,
and sometimes he uses the enemies, the enemy thought could
be calamity, to stop you, to cause you to come
through transformed, to emerge through the process, refined, mature, and

(08:46):
even strengthened in the power of His might. The other
thing is that we are in a unique time where
God is raising breakers. He's raising up a generation like
Jacob that will seek the laws while he may be
found and walk in a glory that we have never seen.
And those that are called to that. I believe it's

(09:08):
that generation Zee that's right behind the millennials. Some of
the young millennials will also be breakers, but I believe
that the Lord is forging them not just to walk
in personal victory, but that they are a body of
breakthrough that begins to bring in the glory of the
Lord and prepares the way for the return of Christ,

(09:31):
much like much like John the Baptist in the Spirit
of Elijah did in the time of Jesus. The other
thing is that when we are forging new pathways and
the Lord is calling us into a new place, it
means walking in identity and not in insecurity. Right. And

(09:54):
so when we are stepping into things that we have
never done before, or be on the boundary markers of
what we thought was possible into the new, we have
to boldly step into who God says we are and
what he says we can do. Right. So a lot
of times when He begins to tell us, okay, I
need you to go from here, we begin to recognize, oh,

(10:18):
my goodness, I am stuck in old cycles of thought.
I got to rethink this right, Or maybe I've been
striving instead of receiving. Or maybe there are wounds of
betrayal that we need to be healed from, or habits
that have to be broken in order to step in

(10:38):
and walk in the identity that the Lord's calling us into.
I remember, I think it might have been the last
Mother's Day I had before my mom passed away. There
was a lady who came to minister to our church,
and she gave me the craziest prophetic word. Sometimes, like
prophetic words, they don't make sense to the giver, but
they make sense to the receiver. And she began to

(10:58):
prophesy that I was like Goldilocks in the three prayers,
that the Lord gave me a just right anointing, and
that you know, people were going to the people that
the Lord was sending me to, they were going to
be like Goldilocks. You know how she ate the one

(11:20):
porridge and it wasn't good, but there was one that
was just right. And then she sat in all the
chairs and there was a chair that was just right,
and that the Lord was sending me on a path,
that I wasn't going to be able to be hot,
that I wasn't going to be too hot for the
for the generation, and that I would not be gold,
but that I was on a one way path, and

(11:42):
that the Lord was calling me to preach, and that
I would get to a fork in the road and
a y, and that I would know which way to go,
and that the Lord would never have me in a
conundrum or asking why, but I would know which way
to go, but that it was a one way road
and it was no turning back, and to step boldly
into the identity that the Lord was calling me into.

(12:05):
And she began to talk about how I would preach
the gospel and all these things. Well, you know, I
wasn't thinking about preaching. I wasn't thinking about any of that.
As a pastor's kid, growing up in church and growing
up around the ministry, it's like you're familiar, but you
may not see yourself doing it. It's just like having

(12:26):
a business. You know. A lot of business owners tell
me that they've worked the business, they've poured their heart
and soul into something, and they did it for the
purpose of their kids succeeding them in the business, and
the kids don't want the business, right And so I
think that a lot of times, when the Lord begins
to open doors for us in realms that we have

(12:48):
not considered or we have rejected, it costs us our
convenience and our pride to humble ourselves to say, okay, okay, Lord,
what you want for me is what I want for me,
and I'm willing to confront the adversaries in the door
that would cause me to miss the day of my visitation.

(13:11):
So I want to encourage you that, you know, forging
a new path in our lives sometimes causes us to
have to confront spiritual things, but it also sometimes requires
us to heal emotionally and walk free from insecurity as
we are anchored as sons and daughters and God's affirmation

(13:32):
and his opinion of us being the final authority on
who we are right, Sometimes it causes us to have
to heal relationally. We have to heal from places where
there were breaches of trust, or maybe there were people
in our lives and relationships that we had that their
opinion really holds us or held us to a place

(13:54):
that we don't think we can break through to be
who God has said right, and so we've got to
confront that adversary. Then sometimes culturally we've been raised to
bow to certain standards of success or certain things that
you know, whatever racial group or gender you're part of,

(14:15):
that women only do this or men only do this,
or culturally sometimes there are some things that we have
to break through in order to create a kingdom culture
of honor in our lives and to walk in the
wholeness that God wants for us. And then practically, of course,
sometimes when we're starting new initiatives, the learning curve is

(14:35):
so high because God wants us to learn from Him
but also go into a whole new, uncharted territory. So
when the Lord causes to pioneer something, he knows all
of that, and he's giving us the fortitude, the ingenuity,
the strength, the wisdom to not settle for what we've known,
but to break through the resistance, to heal in places

(14:59):
that he are he knew was broken right, and to
break free from cultural patterns or even ideologies, so that
we can walk in a new territory, a new path,
and forge a path that others would walk on. And
so I want to encourage you in that because sometimes
we're like, God, you want me to do what you

(15:20):
want me to say? What do you want me to
go where? And we're considering ourselves. But if we consider
Him being all knowing, all powerful, so gracious, full of love,
full of mercy, that he would never set his chosen
possession up for failure, but he would bring us into
a place of our greatest days, of our greatest fulfillment,

(15:43):
of the greatest hope and joy that we could ever experience.
If we begin to believe that, then we know that
no matter what we're facing, no matter what the terrain
looks like, he will make us well able and just
like the children of Israel, he has already gone before
us to prepare the way. He's already gone before us

(16:04):
to overcome the enemies and to cause their power to
be subdued to his as we walk in His kingdom authority.
So I hope this is a blessing to you today
and that you're encouraged that no matter how old you are,
whether you're young or you feel like you're advanced in years,
that there's still much more that God wants to do

(16:26):
and he wants you to fully possess your inheritance in Him. So,
Father God, I just thank you for everyone today under
the side of my voice, God, I thank you that
you're calling us be on our comfort zone, you're calling
us into new territory, and I thank you Lord that
we are well able to walk in the path that
you have for us. I thank you, Lord, that we'll

(16:46):
be able to endure the refining process and not jump
out of your hand. Lord God, I thank you that
you're causing us to forge trails and go to places
that have never been done. I thank you, Oh God,
that you are forging something powerful, something purposeful, and something

(17:10):
that carries your life in the earth through your people.
So God, I thank you that you're going to endow
us with courage. You're going to endow us with grace
to boldly go where maybe some people in our family
line have not been able to go, but to do
it and your grace so that others have a model,
they have a prototype, they have a pattern saint to

(17:31):
follow in the days ahead. We thank you for the
generation that's arising in the gen Z that will be
full of fire, full of grace, and carry the breakthrough
of the Lord in Jesus name. Amen, listen, I am
so honored that you are on with me today for
the podcast. Please go to my website Michelle Jackson dot

(17:52):
com and you can sign up for my email list
and you can find out all the things that we
have going on and just stay up to I will
be doing a class in January so you can If
you get on the list, you'll be the first to
get the info on that when it comes out. But
until next time, stay in the overflow
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