What's that in your hand? (Responding to the Alarm) | DEVOTIONAL

Hey guys,

what

's up? Welcome back to Roots and Refuge Farm. My name is Jessica Sowards. If you're new here, I'm so glad you're here. If you're not new here, I'm glad you're here too. I walked into my greenhouse to film a completely different video, um, for new gardeners and I sat there and stumbled over my words and stopped and restarted and stopped and restarted and stopped, restarted, which is not something I normally do when I speak. introduction to gardening. things and I stopped and took a second and just prayed, which is

what

I usually do when I'm a little awkward with myself when I'm feeling a little messed up inside.

I'll just stop and be like the holy spirit, help me. And this came to me and I realized I was just trying to record the wrong video. This video will be

devotional

in nature. If you haven't been here long, you might not realize that I have a playlist at this point, I don't know, it's a dozen 15 videos that are of this nature, they're faith-based, You know, they usually talk about the Scriptures and the heart of God as I understand it and I never have. I really understood the fact that this was something I needed to do in terms of any kind of obligation.

I feel like I also honor the Lord every time I talk about gardening because I actually feel like that's just as hard, but there have been times over the years of doing YouTube where I've had something really heavy on my heart that I really I felt like I should share and I've had this phrase running through my mind this last moment and I've thought about it. I shared it, but I never felt like it was time and until today, every time I sat down and thought about recording a video for the new Gardener and maybe that's it in a sense, but if you're not familiar. with us if this is an introduction many times these videos are shared in new circles and new people.

This nature of video is shared between Church families and different things like that and women's groups and all that and a lot. A lot of times these are an introduction to us and then people go watch other videos and realize that we mainly talk about agriculture in 2014, my husband Jeremiah and I were in the Ministry. I was working as a photographer and he was working at the Ministry and there was always this desperate longing to have my own farm on a hobby scale, not necessarily like big farming or anything like that, since I was a little kid I always felt so quickly fascinated by animals and growing things, when I was young I was really into animals and really got into the food aspect as I got older and realized how corrupt our food system was and how harmful many of the things that we commonly ate or to our bodies and in 2014 this was a dream that was for all intents and purposes completely impossible when we got married, merged our families and rebuilt what is now something that is such a beautiful image of Grace at that time, it was a very difficult transition and from the beginning I always talked about the fact that we wanted to have a farm, we wanted to raise our children in this environment and we wanted to grow food.

It was truly a dream that I brought to the table and Jeremiah promised to give it to me and as the years went by. starting from our marriage and we were entrenched in our church and in everyday life, you know, our kids were in school, we walked them to school every day and I was taking pictures and we were just trying to do it, you know, the day. To this day, that dream was still there and it was always present and it created a sense of longing in me that it had really reached a point that made my heart feel really sick because we just didn't have the money when we found our first dream. house, it was a foreclosure that we could really afford and we dove into that and moved into that first farm in April of 2014.

We went through some kind of world-shattering, life-defining tragedy with a friend of ours who was affected. by a tornado that hit the day we moved just a few miles from our house and she lost her children, they were very close friends of my children and walking through that brought a sense of revival in my life that brought back some things and some encounters that I had had with the Lord when I was young and a teenager that I had kept in a closet because he was a kind of God that I couldn't define and he was a God. that I couldn't really control and it wasn't necessarily ordained and so I wanted to get back to an experience of going to church and a walk with the Lord that was flesh structured and expected and I had kind of pushed this very present and very involved actively speaking experience. of God that I had had in a closet of myself and I wanted what was organized I wanted to go for an hour on Sunday I wanted to have my routine of getting up and reading my Bible and I wanted to be able to organize something and, when the tornado happened the day we moved to our first farm, taught me that really walking in relationship with the god of everything means that you can't have control and that through the good and the bad, you have to be in that posture of relinquishing control, you have to let it go and It was a very decisive season, so to speak, and it was very much one of surrender and I would say Revival.

I always say that whenever we talk about praying for revival and we start praying for new encounters and we pray for people to really come to know the Lord, um, I experienced that in the truest sense, without any kind of um human planning. It didn't happen because of a program It didn't happen because of something someone wrote or did It was very much the Lord meeting me directly during a time of crisis and ever since then I would say my life has been in this place of being surrendered and having a relationship. really deep in 2014, we found our land that we moved to, we went through the tornado and later that year, in August, we were overcome with a sense of urgency to be more sustainable in the way we fed our family and how we were maintaining It made me very afraid of the people we cared for.

I have told this story. I have two videos that I made recently, one is called The Urgency of Growing Food and the other is called "I Don't Do It." I don't even remember what that other

devotional

was called, the leaves are green, maybe it's talking about a storm and those two, I'll link them below, there's the whole playlist of this stuff, but that's what happened in 2014, we felt the sense of urgency, so we dived in and it's been quite a process, you know, like diving in and not really having the ability to do a lot of resources and then really getting the direction to start a YouTube channel, start that and experience a incredible growth in that and then, of course. through that a big breakthrough with resources we can now grow and provide food for many people as well as our family as well as currently working on some community efforts to be able to teach people on a larger scale and hopefully provide food.

For people on a larger scale, I worry that the sunlight behind me will make me do this thing where you can't see, so the phrase I keep thinking about and I think this is actually kind of a stimulus a lot of times. I will share with you lessons that I have learned and things that I feel the Lord has guided me and given me experience and sometimes I will share with you my understanding of what the word says and sometimes I just share my own experience of how things have been for me and I think all those things are valuable.

I think it takes vulnerability to share what you think or what you felt or what you've experienced and I think that maybe when we allow people to behave vulnerably in that way and we give value to that, it makes us grow and I truly believe that God Yahweh, you'll hear me say Yahweh, which is just the name of God, um, that Yahweh will allow things to happen. in someone's life so that other people can see it and it can serve as a testimony of what Yahweh will do for a person and I believe that by testifying that every time you see someone obtain the fulfillment of something perhaps you are praying for Dreaming about it can be very difficult because then we have to go through that refining fire of not giving in to jealousy, bitterness, resentment or the feeling of being forgotten, and every time we fight for those things and we choose joy and we choose to see the blessing of another person as a testimony to the goodness of God and the promises that he is good to keep, that which really positions us to then receive those things, it does not always turn out so neat and as soon as I say that someone always wants to argue that I am like talking of naming, claiming his Prosperity Gospel and all that and no, I think you know, like Paul said he could live like a beast and he could abound, he knew how to do both, but I do believe that when we pray for things like the Revival and when we pray for the fall of corruption and the exposure of corruption and we see corruption, we see things that we think is not fair and that is not right and that we pray and say that God will bring justice and establish

your

righteousness and that Your kingdom come and

your

will be done on Earth as it is in heaven in heaven and we pray for all these things, we have to be willing to let God use us in the way of bringing resources to change systems we have to be willing to let God use the people around us and you can't truly talk about the corruption of a system and then cut off the legs of anyone who stands up to confront it every time David came to face the giant Goliath his own brother said what you're doing you're looking for fame you're looking for glory what are you?

You are only here for your own glory and your own brothers who were there in front of the same giant shaking in his boots and he came to bring them food, he came to serve them, they cut him down, they tried to cut his legs out from under him and ultimately, your ability not to listen that is what allowed David to take down Goliath, you know, obviously, through the favor of God and So I think we have to be very conscious of how we

hand

le people who come with the courage to face the Giants and we have to be aware of how we

hand

le our hearts and the presence of things like that.

Now I really believe it and this maybe. um no I don't think it is no I'm not going to say I'm not going to qualify that and say maybe this is optimistic no I really really believe this I really genuinely believe that God poured out massively. blessing to our life and our simple obedience to just listen and follow in a public way so that other people can see that and say if he will do it for them, he will do it for me and I firmly believe that because in the process of all this of having this dream that I couldn't explain of listening to start occupying a house of starting to listen to teach it of starting to teach it and then feeling it and then having enormous favor and resources and the ability to really have scope and importance as all of that has unfolded. developed and we've openly shared these things and a lot of people have come up to me and said, I was so afraid to start, I was so afraid to do it. anything I was so afraid of failing or that the resources weren't there and I didn't want to take the risk, but I saw that this worked for you and now I'm three years in and I'm growing a lot of my own food and this has worked and that has worked.

I truly believe that when we come to terms in our hearts with what God says he loves and what he has designed, he is there in it. We see from the beginning that the original design of Humanity was to manage the earth and be in relationship with God and of course that was derailed with the introduction of sin and the knowledge of Good and Evil and separation came, but as far as I know Understood, that is what Jesus came to reconcile to open the way back to a perfect relationship and I believe in the original design which is to be in relationship, to be in family and to steward the Earth, and so I have that in mind when we choose that.

When we say this is what I want to do, I often see the hand of God in it and I see people saying these things worked when I didn't know how they were going to do it. I think we have to remember that ultimately, to say what God truly desires for us, first and foremost, is to have a relationship with Him, to talk to Him, to know Him, I mean to really understand who He is, to know His heart and to understand His love, and I mean, I also think that's why So let us prosper when we embrace the garden when we embrace stewardship because I have never laid my hand on anything that speaks of His goodness and His gospel and His creative power so clearly and loudly, maybe parenthood and marriage would be the only others. things that I've really done that require so much personal sacrifice and a lot of learning and a lot of care and that come with so much reward and right under those two things I want to say is growing food, farming, taking care of the land and the things that live on it and the garden itself, the soil now, the words that I've been thinking about that keep coming back to me, that I finally thought, you know, I think this is really something I should share with our friends on YouTube. the phrases to use what is in your hand for the context of where this is biblically and exodus whereEssentially Moses is listening to God's direction to do what he was called to do for God's people who were at that time in slavery in Egypt.

Moses' response. to God's direction is to argue and basically say that I can't do that and he keeps saying that if you don't believe me or listen to me and say that the Lord did not appear to you and the Lord's answer is that the Lord told him what is that you have in your hand and Moses answered a staff. The story continues and the Lord shows Moses that he can do something with his staff by turning into a snake and this scares Moses, he runs away and comes back and basically when Moses confronts Pharaoh for the freedom of God's people who were in Egypt in slavery, what Moses uses is his staff and it becomes a signs and wonders thing and you can delve into all the symbolism and meaning of that, but the phrase that has really caught my attention and keeps coming to mind.

What are you holding in your hand right now as I record this? It's interesting because I recently went back and listened to some of the previous things that I mentioned that I had posted several months ago about the urgency of growing food and all that. of these things and as of now, a lot of people who maybe didn't really believe that there could be any problem with food have started to believe it simply because we are really starting to see the crisis in food prices every There are still a lot of things available that we can not see.

You know, some places are seen more as unavailability than others, but of course a lot of different events have happened if you haven't done your research on it. There have been a lot of different events happening at different food processing facilities and there's been kind of a perfect storm of drought and of course last summer's drought in Texas caused a ton of people to sell their livestock, which for the time being probably brought down prices a little bit, but we won't see the results of what that does to the market probably for a while longer because the way these things work when you're talking about growing food is when fertilizer costs go up a hundred percent. .

That's not actually reflected on grocery store shelves for probably at least a year afterward, because it's all based on growing seasons and growing food, and in the case of cows, you know when you're raising cows and it takes 18 to 20 months to raise them you're not going to see the lack of what happened because of that drought until much later. I've been worried about food since 2014 because that's when I first put it in my heart, uh, that's why I wanted to start farming. I didn't know how to grow food in 2014. I had grown small-scale gardens. I didn't have chickens.

I had never milked anything like this. I had no experience growing food. I'm grateful that when He first felt and Jeremiah also first felt that kind of anointing in the urgency of growing food. I'm grateful that we're still at it and especially now because I think, how kind God is to speak to us like that then and make the provision available. so we got our first farm and he didn't blow the door off its hinges with supplies there at first. I mean, we certainly didn't have the money to do much, Faith required stretching and discomfort steps every step of the way. and now you know people will see where we are, obviously we plan to build it, we have built this farm very quickly because we have dedicated all our resources to it and people like, well, not everyone can do that.

I say, oh, me. I know I absolutely know. The reason we did this quickly was to open our stores and open up the teaching aspect to be available for other people to learn, but I've built slowly and I've also built uncomfortably slow each time. sacrifice and at the moment of feeling that food shortage or crisis I don't really know what words to use because I'm not one hundred percent sure what it will be like, but at the moment of feeling it so strongly I thought it was crazy. Like I think that's crazy, I've never seen empty shelves in my life.

I mean, maybe bread runs out when snow is forecast. You know, maybe something like that, there are recalls from time to time, but there is a shortage in the United States of America, as I was thinking. There's no way, but I really had that feeling of that still small voice and I knew the voice of God because that's what the Bible says, my sheep will know my voice and when you're in that daily relationship and you feel that push and you feel that anointing and that guide um, you know. I made a video in 2020 again, another devotional video about the shepherd and the butcher that talks about the difference between the push of fear and the guide of wisdom.

You have to know the Now I have personally felt the difference between the two: keeping the garden gate open, keeping the house gate open, essentially to invite people who are starting to come in because I think the more people follow the guidance and listen to that little push and that anointing. uh, bravely and perhaps taking the uncomfortable steps of risk. I think the more people do that, the better off we'll all be collectively, but the more people will understand how to stock a pantry so they can feed their family in the long run if they don't. have access to a grocery store the more people learn to garden the more people get a cash cow.

I think that's great. I think food localization should happen anyway if you take any crises or craziness off the table. Food localization is better the way we've been doing it and it hasn't been that way for a long time because 120 years ago people didn't ship food from one country to another, they just didn't do that. It's not common to think that you can eat asparagus in September or, you know, apples all year round or whatever, if you don't provide it yourself, if you don't store it yourself, you don't have it out of season like we do.

I've been doing it here recently and I mean, over the last 40 or 50 years, it's just not sustainable, so the conversation about food localization is important anyway, removing all the nudges and guides and what the Lord says, that is a valid conversation, however, there are too many people I hear say and profess that the Lord is leading them to grow food for me to ignore that I am especially married to the fact that my husband and I have been listening and following that same direction for the last, you know, almost a decade and I mean the topic of fear because as soon as I start talking about this, people come out and act like you're fear mongering, you're fear mongering and you know that you don't have to do it.

Listen to it like it's okay, but there are a lot of people who I think must be in that place where they're still wondering if I'm crazy or if I really feel like I need to grow food and I want to be able to say yes. I think you're hearing that and I stand as a testimony that if you take the step toward that, I faithfully believe that Yahweh provides everything necessary for that because I believe it's heart and his word and he's faithful to keep his word, I need to be able to say that. and if other people are like you, you are instilling fear in people, I say, if anything, if you have felt that strong need to take the steps, I mean, sometimes you need someone to say hello.

If you should listen to that, I think the reason this conversation can get so scary is because when we feel very restricted or stuck where we are and we feel the urge to get out of where we are or to do something different, I literally feel like we can't um. , that's terrifying, that's absolutely terrifying. I mean, it makes me think of someone you know tied to the train tracks and someone is screaming that a train is coming, a train is coming and you're doing everything you can to get out. that place I mean, that's kind of scary now I really don't think that's where we are I think that's where fear paints it I think fear will do anything to lie to you to immobilize you and terrify you too much to do anything the word I've thought a lot that it's an

alarm

and some people think that

alarm

s are like the alarm goes off because the tornado is there, the alarm goes off because the fire is burning, but I wake up to an alarm every morning, um.

I wake up peacefully in my bed my husband is next to me he doesn't wake up he's not a morning person and I wake up much earlier than him my alarm means I'm going to sit down quietly and I usually sit there for a while and press the snooze function at that time but I didn't turn off the alarm because I don't want to risk ignoring it, you know, because I don't want to risk being late. I want to be really responsive to my alarms um because I intentionally set those alarms so that my day could go smoothly and pleasantly and um I usually get up and go wash my face and I like to do my morning things and um brush my teeth and that.

It's still good and then usually my alarm goes off again at that point, but when it goes off the second time I'm already so awake from my morning routine and warming up to the first alarm that there's nothing jarring, it makes sense like when the alarm goes off. Again, I'm not shocked at all, so yeah, I know I'm awake, that's my answer and sometimes I even joke because sometimes I'm already sitting at the counter, sometimes one of my kids gets up and my alarm it'll ring again and we'll say oh time to wake up but we're already awake we're already sitting at the counter we're having breakfast or whatever and I think where we are currently is that there may be some alarms going off and some people

responding

to them urgently and if you're trying to waking up a dead person sometimes requires like a jolt when the alarm goes off, but if you're someone who's already moving around a little bit, it's not that jarring, but I guess I want to be able to say, like, hey, we're awake. , we are having coffee, use what you have in your hand, this scripture that was given to Moses when he was arguing with God about the calling on his life and if you are going to read the full story of the man of Moses, what an incredible story of positioning and location and even trauma and maybe even disobedience that was turned around and everything was fixed and um attack, I mean from the beginning of Moses' life.

In the story there are so many aspects that could have been the end of the story, but instead it was changed forever and it all leads to this point where Moses is in this conversation, this undeniable conversation with God where he is arguing that I can't to do that. and God says what is that in your hand and the same thing in Moses' hand that was a staff was what God ultimately used to perform essentially all of these miracles and ultimately lead to the freedom of his people. A staff is not a power piece. You know, it's not something that in itself does much, I mean, for a shepherd, the staff is the gentle nudge that makes P, the sheep move, blocks them, you know, gets them out of danger, it's essentially a tool. of leadership. but not one of high technology, not one of strength or power, ultimately the staff is made useful by the hand it is in and when I think of God telling the person arguing that God has done nothing but position and redeem what is in your hand.

I want to ask that question today, if you're in that position where you hear the alarm, maybe you're fighting fear and you're saying, I feel like I need to do something, but I'm not qualified. I'm not equipped I don't have the resources I don't have the knowledge I don't have the time and you're making all the arguments why you can't do what you feel um I would ask what is in your hand and of course I've been asking that in a sense for a long time, because while many people listen to the alarm and speak to it very directly, I have been listening to the alarm and encouraging people to turn their waiting room into a classroom to learn what you can where you are using your yard or your backyard to forage for food use your kitchen to learn how to cook do what you can with where you are and I would say and all of this I mean, I think it glorifies God in his plan that he chose to make our journey so public and he chose to make That waking up with our alarm is an opportunity to teach other people.

I would say there are even thousands and thousands of gardens that didn't. They existed before because people turned their waiting room into a classroom, that they are now producing hundreds of thousands of pounds of food that would not have been produced if people had not started turning their waiting room into a classroom. and that, to me, speaks to the great and profound Uh, it's a beauty that people are obedient to the push that's within them and I'm quite optimistic. I really am and I've shared a lot of things that even if something looks really bad, I don't necessarily believe it is and dream about it. an earth that is not being poisoned by people and I dream of a Humanity that is not being poisoned by people and that is free from greed, that we can live healthy and that we can experience a Revival, not in the sense of necessarily having large gatherings in the church, because that's not how Revival came to me Revival came in the form ofhope, in the midst of despair, and maybe that's why when I see situations that start to look hopeless, I think, man, this is the potential for so much hope and so much.

It's good to come out of this and so much Redemption and all this that I hope at this point that this is even coherent because I know I'm speaking in many circles and it can even seem cryptic if you don't speak the Christian language um, I really try not to speak Christianis , but sometimes I start talking about things and it's just my second language, uh, I learned it well, there's so much hope right now and I don't know what might be in your hand I don't know if you have a little place that you can do garden I don't know if you have a kitchen that you can learn to cook from scratch I don't know if you can build a small pantry or you could partner with a neighbor or maybe you are in the process of moving to a piece of land and starting something like that, but I can't tell you what that you have in your hand and I can't tell you what to do, but I can harbor a question in your heart that you would wonder what is in my hand that I could use because it doesn't have to be extravagant for God to turn it into something extremely effective and I believe that the Moses' staff is ultimately an incredible image of that and there are many cases throughout the Scriptures of people who were very ordinary people who were positioned because of the goodness of God and, I mean, many times they followed pushes and many times, despite all their mistakes, they ended up positioned to make a change for people as a whole and I just don't believe that Jesus would have taught us to pray for your kingdom to come, for your will to be done on Earth as on Earth.

Heaven if it really didn't intend for us to live. as if that were true and I think that right now every time we feel the sense of alarm and we feel that food is getting very expensive and what else is going to happen and there are all these things in the climate of the world that could be perceived as very alarming um I would really love it if, to the extent possible, we are already moving in a way that does not cause us fear but rather evokes stability and I think there are people who may even be called to shake those who are sleeping soundly um, but in As for me, I really just want to tell you again to turn your waiting room into a classroom, you are not tied to the train tracks here, it is not the heart of God to tell us to pray for your kingdom come and your will be done and then just leave us all alone to figure out how to make that happen.

I don't think that was really our job. Our job is not really to do Miracles, but to recognize that he can. do a lot with the staff that's really the word I have for you today what I would leave you with and I hope it encourages you is that you have something in your hand maybe a pen maybe a frying pan maybe a garden seed maybe a camera no I know what it is but there is something in your hand that in itself may not be extraordinary but it is the fact that it is placed in the hand of someone who listens and obeys that makes everything the difference and it is the fact that God really helps us.

He loves and there is no format or formality or set of rules that we have to follow to remain in his good grace because Jesus did what he came to restore us. to the relationship and the original design and there are many things that we could look at and feel afraid, but the most important thing is what can we do today, what a simple thing is in our hands, that we could give it to him and he lives that dedicated life and genuinely believes that no we have to be doing something extraordinary to have an extraordinary effect because he is so extraordinary that he is extraordinary enough for all of us, so that is my encouragement.

I hope that was clear, so I'm going to pray quickly. because my card told me it was full and I had to delete those other clips to finish this Yahweh, thank you so much for everyone who watches this video, Yahweh, I just asked you to bring truth and light. If these words are yours, you would associate with them and bring them the signs and wonders that prove them. True Father, we simply believe in you and thank you and say that you are good and worthy of praise and say. May Your Kingdom come and Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven we bless you we love you and I bless you and I love you and uh laughter until next time