Lessons from Joshua & A Prophetic Word

Are you feeling stuck in a wilderness season? Wondering if God’s promises still stand? 

In this episode of The Higher Pursuit Podcast, Cecily Lachapelle dives into powerful truths from the book of Joshua, sharing prophetic insights and real-life encouragement to help you stay strong and courageous in your faith.

🔥 What you'll gain from this episode:
✨ How to hold onto God’s promises in difficult seasons
✨ The role of imagination in seeing your God-given inheritance
✨ The power of prayer and prophetic words to shift your perspective

Don’t let discouragement steal your faith—press in, trust God, and step into all He has for you!

🎙️ Listen now on your favorite podcast platform! 

#FaithOverFear #GodsPromises #HigherPursuitPodcast #Christianpodcast #Christianauthor #Prophecy #Joshua #Wilderness #Promises #Inheritance #Enlargement #Tenacity #Strong

Takeaways

• Many people experience wilderness seasons that can lead to discouragement.
• The book of Joshua offers lessons on patience and faith during waiting periods.
• God's repeated encouragement to Joshua highlights the need for strength and courage.
• Obedience to God's commands is essential, even when the path is unclear.
• God promises to fulfill His plans for us, regardless of our age or circumstances.
• Imagination and vision are crucial in understanding and claiming our inheritance from God.
• God's grace allows us to overcome feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt.
• We are encouraged to seek God wholeheartedly, as He is always present and working in our lives.
• Prophetic words can provide clarity and encouragement during difficult times.
• Prayer is a powerful tool for connecting with God and receiving His guidance.

Chapters

00:00 Navigating Wilderness Seasons

02:54 Lessons from the Book of Joshua

05:52 God's Promises and Our Inheritance

08:46 The Power of Imagination and Vision

12:10 Prophetic Encouragement and Prayer

Keywords

Wilderness season, Book of Joshua, God's promises, prophetic word, encouragement, faith, inheritance, spiritual growth, courage, imagination

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Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Wilderness Seasons
• 0:00 Lessons from the Book of Joshua
• 0:00 God's Promises and Our Inheritance
• 0:00 The Power of Imagination and Vision
• 0:00 Prophetic Encouragement and Prayer

Transcript

Cecily Lachapelle (00:00.92)
Hi there Family! Thanks for tuning in to the Higher Pursuit podcast. I have a question for you. Well, actually a few questions. Have you been experiencing a wilderness season in some area of your life? Has it been going on so long that you're starting to wonder if there's something wrong with you? Are you seeing other people around you accelerating in their lane and that makes you feel an almost overwhelming sense of discouragement?

Are you beginning to question prophetic words that you've received or the promises of God that you read in the Bible because everything in your life seems to be going in the opposite direction? If any of that describes you, then this episode is custom made for you because in this episode, I'm going to share some lessons and takeaways that I've been getting from my personal study in the book of Joshua and also a prophetic word that the Lord gave me that I believe is going to encourage

some of you radically. those takeaways from the book of Joshua are going to be an encouragement and a challenge to some of you who are listening. Listen, there's no accident that you tune into this podcast and specifically to this episode. God has your number. He cares about you. He knows how you've been struggling. He's heard your tears. He's read your journal. He's read the things that you've written on your heart that you haven't even said out loud.

He knows your discouragement and your pain. And so he has sent me through this podcast to give you some words that are going to help you in this season. So to wind things back a little bit for me, over the last month, I've been studying the book of Joshua. And because I've been experiencing a lot of what I just described in that intro in certain areas of my life, I am hearing the book of Joshua in a very different light.

So before I get to the prophetic word aspect, I want us to think about Joshua, whose story is found in the book that's named by him, about him, and think about all that he experienced. This is a man who wandered the wilderness with the nation of Israel for 40 years, 40 years, waiting on a promise, clinging to the promise that was spoken through Moses. But let me tell you this.

Cecily Lachapelle (02:25.271)
He didn't just tick off the days like a countdown to Christmas. He made use of that time to learn how to sit in the Lord's presence and hear the Lord's voice. It was critical that Joshua learned how to hear the voice of God. was critical for him and for the whole nation of Israel. And folks, it is no less critical that we learn how to do that. And that's not an easy thing to do, it?

to learn how to sit in the presence of the Lord. Sometimes that seems so unfruitful. It seems like we're just sitting there. Is anything happening? But if you have gone into the secret place and you have worshiped the Lord, you've read the word, you've held promises up to God, and then you have sat in his presence, something is happening. Just because your body

or your fried out emotions can't get in touch with that at that moment does not mean that in the spirit, God isn't doing a work in you, a work of patiently waiting on the Lord. He said that none who wait on the Lord will be put to shame. So that's the first takeaway. The second takeaway is that God had to tell Joshua three times in the very first chapter.

to be strong and courageous. So if God had to repeat himself three times to tell Joshua, be strong and courageous, be strong and very courageous, then obviously Joshua needed that encouragement. Joshua was a man just like us. He was looking at real situations. He was looking at real leadership issues. He was looking at

having to develop war strategies as a man whose background was as a slave in Egypt. This is a man who didn't have military training. Moses, at least, was raised in the king's and Pharaoh's palace. So he at least saw and grew up around leadership, leading a nation. But Joshua? No. All he had was Moses example and the ability to hear from God. And I'll tell you what, folks, that's all we need.

Cecily Lachapelle (04:53.035)
That's all we need. But still, Joshua had emotions like we do, and God spoke to that. And what I thought was so interesting is that when you read God's commissioning of Joshua, I wrote this note in my margin. You see, first, there's a command. God says, arise and go over. And then there was Joshua's obedience and the promise from God. So

We have to make a decision when we hear the Lord tell us our next step to do to obey, even when we don't see how that's going to work. Even when we have absolutely no idea if we even have what it takes, because look at what God promised Joshua. He said, you don't have to have what it takes, Joshua. I'm going to be with you. And believe it or not, Joshua, I'm all you need.

You can't defeat those enemies. You can't defeat the giants. You can't lead a nation of people say between like one and three million people at this time. You can't lead them on your own. You can't do any of these things on your own, but with me, you're going to do it all. So then the third takeaway that I got was that he promised Joshua and believe me, this is where it gets really specific to my time, my timeline. He promised Joshua.

that even though Joshua was old, he was going to inherit the promises, all of the promises. I love that. Some of you might feel like you're late. Some of you might be feel like you're getting a late start in pursuing God's plan for your life. Or maybe you were in another vocation and now the Lord has told you it's time to change horses midstream. It's time for you

to start pursuing something different or to branch out or to have a promotion. And you're dealing with the self doubt. Am I too old? Am I too late? Do I not have what it takes? And here God is promising Joshua. Even though you're old Joshua, I am going to make sure that all of my promises fulfilled in your life and that you have the strength, you have the vigor, you have everything it takes to inherit.

Cecily Lachapelle (07:20.033)
the entire promised land that belongs to you. So that's very encouraging to me. I'm sure it is to some of you all as well. And then the fourth takeaway that I got was that Caleb, I don't know if you remember this from Exodus, but Joshua and Caleb were the two spies that went into the land when Moses first sent out the spies and they were the only two that came back with a good report. So Joshua and Caleb as a result are the only two.

who get to cross over into the promised land. And so Caleb, when he was over there as a spy, had spied out the land that he wanted. And Moses had given it to him as his allotment. And so now Caleb comes to Joshua and he says, look, I'm 85 years old, but I am ready to take my land. God has preserved my vigor.

And he has allowed me to cross over into this promised land. So I'm ready to take my inheritance. And Joshua says, buddy, go for it. Go for it. And you want to know what this 85 year old man was doing? He was taking what actually happened to be the most challenging plot of land of all, because it was filled with giants. was Kiriath Arba, which means city.

giants. This was the dwelling place of the Anakim, who were the descendants of the fallen spirits and the human women who had had relations and together they bore giants. Think Goliath. And so God is telling you, there's someone watching this right now, God is preserving your vigor. God is sustaining you. You have been through a lot.

And many other people would have quit. But God has poured out a grace upon you to hold on when everything inside you wanted to run. When the enemy was attacking your mind and saying that this, faith is baloney. Your faith isn't working. Trusting the Bible is baloney. You're, you're a fool. So because of the, the setbacks that were coming against you,

Cecily Lachapelle (09:43.522)
the way that it looked like your life was going in the absolute opposite direction of promise and blessing and healing, prosperity. Other people would have run and everything inside you wanted to run, but God gave you the strength to stay. He gave you the strength to come against your giants and you will take that land. It's not over. It's not over. And for some of you,

You've been so depressed that you've actually wanted to not be here anymore. But the Lord has held you and he has kept you from making a terrible and a permanent decision. Why? Because he knows what is right around the corner. It might not be tomorrow or even next week, but God's timing and ours are often very different. But no, he's working even when you can't see it or feel it.

Today, I believe that the Lord is telling someone, be strong and courageous. And if he's telling you that, that means he has poured out the grace for you to move out in his strength. Because when God says arise and cross over, we have to get up and get started. There's first the command, then our obedience. And God says that he is with us and we can't fail.

If God is with us, if God is for us, what giant can be against us? So then my fifth takeaway from just the first 18 chapters. In chapter 18, there is the allotment of land to the tribes that haven't received their allotment yet. And so Joshua tells these tribes, go in and spy out that land and bring back a description of the land. What I think is so interesting,

is as I was reading that, God uses the word description, at least in the ESV, five times in 10 verses. Five times in 10 verses, the word description is used. So what I got out of that is that when we have an inheritance from the Lord, sometimes we don't have clarity. Sometimes we know it's there, but we haven't taken the time to map it out with our Holy Spirit imagination.

Cecily Lachapelle (12:10.977)
We haven't pictured what it's going to be like when we have crossed over into healing, for instance. Let's say that there is someone who's listening to this and you've been struggling with a chronic abdominal issues. Have you used your Holy Spirit inspired imagination to imagine yourself doing life without pain?

doing life without abdominal pain. Because until you can do that, how will you know when you have begun to cross over? God says, map it out, describe this land, bring the description back. And Joshua said, you bring the description back and I'm going to make your allotment. So you can use your Holy Spirit-filled imagination to describe.

what your inheritance looks like. The Bible says, write the vision and make it plain so that he may run that reads it. So now I want to prophesy to someone who's listening. You feel alone and isolated. You are dogged by regrets of feeling that the mistakes that you've made have disqualified you from God's plan A. And the Lord wants you to know today that you are his child, that he is erased.

your mistakes and your missteps, He has removed them by the blood of Jesus. Therefore, even when you don't think He's working, He is. There are things that are moving in the heavenly realms that you're not aware of. You are close to your breakthrough, so don't give up. There are some of you who have been struggling with feelings of comparison. Like I mentioned earlier, you feel like things in your life are not moving forward.

You want that Jordan to part so that you can cross over into your inheritance. And yet it seems like you're just doing one more loop around the mountain. You're watching others accelerate and achieve, and you feel like that that's proof that you don't measure up. But the Lord says you are in Christ, so you measure up. Everybody measures up who is in Christ. We all stand tall under that measuring stick. The Lord says it's time to stop rehearsing the mistakes

Cecily Lachapelle (14:38.475)
and the regrets and thank me that I'm using everything for my plan in your life. The Lord says, your heart is tender toward me and it pleases me. And I'm doing a work in you in this season because what is coming is greater than you think. You are not late. You are not off track. Keep seeking me and you'll find me. Seek me with all your heart and I will be found by you in all your ways.

Seek the knowledge that comes from me and I will direct your paths, says the Lord. Okay, so now I want to share with you a prophetic word that the Lord gave to me in my journal the other day. So this is what he said. If I fought for Joshua and helped him in his old age conquer all the territories that have been prophesied, then how much more will I be with you?

since my spirit now dwells not just with you, but is in you. You see all of Joshua's successes in the word, but he was a human and struggled just as you do. And he brought his struggles to me just like you. He repented for his sins just as you do. He made mistakes that brought unwanted consequences just like you have. But the sum of his life was that in my eyes he obeyed me and did all that I commanded him through Moses.

Remember the vision of your book in heaven. I rewrite your story by my mercy and grace. You are not as you appear. My Holy Spirit living in you is giving you success that you don't see right now. And you will take all of your inheritance. I am a covenant-keeping God, and you are my emblem of covenant upon the earth. Every time I see you, I see the memorial of my covenant with Jesus and mankind.

walking around, lift your face to me and speak out in boldness of that covenant. I love to covenant and I love to hear it coming out of your mouth. I love to see it written on your face. I love to see you trusting my faithfulness as your defense. Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant of which you are a partaker and a beneficiary.

Cecily Lachapelle (17:03.253)
And as I see and hear my spirit dwelling in and speaking through you, Jesus is honored. Every time you herald the covenant, he is blessed and honored. Every time you stand upon the legality and the authority of the blood shed in the covenant, you bring glory to the son and to me. For it is this covenant that has purchased men to God for eternity and has brought destruction upon death and the power of sin.

Lift your voice, lift your hands, lift your face, lift your heart. Raise your hallelujah for every enemy that is fierce and overwhelming has been vanquished in the victory of my son. Rejoice for you are winning the battle. As you keep your hands raised in worship, you win. Freedom and joy that comes from living in God's grace is with you. hallelujah. Hallelujah. So

If you resonate with that word at all, it's for you. And I want you to take that as your word. I now also want to pray for you. Let's just pray right now. Let's seal this in the presence of God. If you can, just close your eyes and see yourself sitting, just sitting at the feet of Jesus. Just see Jesus putting his hand on your shoulder or on your head.

and you're just leaning against his knees. Take a deep breath and just know that in this moment, he is so close. You are hanging on his every word, but right now, it's your time to talk to him.

Thank you, Jesus, that you rewrite our story by your grace and that you're causing us to win the war, even if we lose a few battles. Thank you that you don't grade us by our failures, but you forgive and you cover them by your blood. Thank you, Lord, that you see us as memorials of your covenant, of your sacrifice. And as such, we

Cecily Lachapelle (19:21.611)
our victors. If our God is for us, who can be against us? Lord, because of all that you have done, Jesus, we declare that we will inherit all of our promised land, not by might, not by our power, but by your Spirit. We love you, Jesus. We want to know you more. We want to see you more clearly.

and we adore your presence. In your precious name we pray, amen.

Well, I hope that blessed you. And as always, if it did, please hit the Like and the Subscribe buttons. And if you think this message is for someone you know, make sure to share it with them. And if you're watching this on a platform where you can leave a comment, please do that. And here's why. The algorithm doesn't really pay attention when people scroll and Like or ❤️, but when they stop to make a comment, even if that comment is a clapping 👏🏽 emoji, the algorithm picks that up and it tells itself to promote my videos and my podcasts to other people who might be searching for content that will build them up, give them clarity, and from time to time challenge them on their pursuit of Jesus. 

So until next time, this is Cecily Lachapelle and I just speak grace upon grace over your life in the mighty name of Jesus. God bless you.