JANUARY 4

We are meditating on the natural birth process and applying it to the birth of a vision. The stages we have discussed previously were conception, development, and travail. Next comes the time of transition.

Transition. In the natural birth process there is a time during labor known as the time of “transition.” It is the most difficult time of travail right before the birth canal is open to permit the child to be born.

This parallels the birth of a vision in the spirit world. When God births in you a spiritual vision, you will experience a time of transition. Transition means change. As God gives you new spiritual vision it will require change in your life. It will call for a new commitment and dedication.

You may experience pressure in every area of your life. Everything within you may cry out for relief from the spiritual birth pangs of what God is bringing forth. This is the point where many fail to receive their spiritual destiny. Repeatedly, God has brought His people to the time of transition to birth His vision through them, but because the transition was too difficult many have turned back. They could not take the pressure of this most difficult time. A new vision required changes in thoughts, actions, and lifestyle which they were not willing to make. They could not abandon their own self-effort and traditions. They would not set aside their own ambitions and desires to embrace the plan of God.

This is what happened to the nation of Israel:

Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in Thy sight, O Lord. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. (Isaiah 26:17-18)

Travail and transition are painful experiences, but it is only by these that the vision can be birthed:

…for as soon as Zion (God’s people) travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God. (Isaiah 66:8-9)

The pain you have experienced and are experiencing is birthing something new in you. You are giving birth to your divine destiny.