This last 90 days 0f 2007 has been designed to be a time of mighty manifestation. God is bringing you those things that He promised you and you set as your goals. Yet, there may be some things in the way of your blessing that have to be removed in order for you to receive your manifestation. God has really been dealing with me on these areas in the first 9 months of this year  – I call them spiritual spankings – and I want to share them with you to see if, by chance, they have been a challenge for you, too.

 1. The first area I had to get a spiritual spanking in was truly getting my flesh under foot. For some this might mean the spirit of lust or greed of the eyes. I had moved past all of that and my struggle was getting my flesh in check around weight loss. I have had weight loss on my list of “To-Do’s” since my daughter was born 12 years ago. Enough. I had to learn to stop feeding my flesh. Stop eating late at night. Exercise daily. Take immaculate care of this vessel that God has blessed me with. One down…

 2. The second spiritual spanking I had to get this year was to understand that money is the least of what God wants to do in my life. I was spending WAY too much time and energy focusing, praying for, and requesting money. It took The Lord whispering in my ear during a church service that money is the least of what He is doing for me. He reminded me to focus on the “most” of what He is doing for me. It is all too easy to get tied up in my money and allow it to negate all of the miracles God is performing in your life. The money is the easy part. Is your life ready for the wealth that you are asking God for? Is your spiritual, financial, and physical world in order? If not, you are holding back your blessing. Okay…2 down…

3.  My third spiritual spanking was realizing that I really wasn’t trusting God. Yes, I was faithful, but it wasn’t enough unshakeable faith to be called trust. I would be faithful until things got really uncomfortable, and then the worry would set in. So, I learned to truly trust God and to lay back in His arms knowing that no matter what it looked like, He was carrying me and was working on my behalf. I learned that trust was not just an emotion, but it was the gateway to accessing Gods fruit in my life. Are you trusting God?

4. This last spiritual spanking just came full-circle last night for me. It is all about using my tongue for what God created it – to speak life and uplift people. It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? It is 50% of the time for most of us. Well, I was about 97% there and He showed me that even the last 3% had to go. My 3% showed up in my conversations with my dearest friend back in Seattle in phone conversations. She was my sacred place to go and “vent” (a fancy word for gossip).

I knew I could tell her anything and it wasn’t going any farther. While I wasn’t running around spouting at the mouth, it was still blocking my blessings. This is especially critical for me knowing that my gift is one of speaking and transforming lives through the words that come out of my mouth. It seems almost impossible to live a life with no gossip what-so-ever, huh? Well, it’s time to open yourself up to the possibility. No more negativity crossing your lips – ever. You KNOW that will truly take a move of God! So, I invite you to join me as I use my tongue only to produce life and multiply goodness in my life and lives of others.

The truth is, while there are so many more lessons from this year that I had to truly live, these are the main ones and these are a full-time job. If you are focusing on these things in your life, you shouldn’t have time to even wonder what others are doing, not to mention have time to talk about them. They need you to pray for them. Once you get these three things down, you will be truly walking in your new level.

 I’ll talk to you soon! -Ericka