The Ancient Landmarks

“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.” - Genesis 12:1-2, 7 ESV

I don’t think I’m the only one who doubts myself, almost religiously - especially when it comes to a dream or an idea too big to comprehend that God wants to do through or with me.

So when I found myself pondering on the whens and hows of this idea that God had been merciful to yet again place on my heart, fear crept up on me and began to talk all manner of doubt and deprecating words (can I be honest here?).

Then I heard the Lord speak into my heart ‘Go back to the Ancient Landmarks’.

And I want to encourage you to do so too.

In the last newsletter of 2024, I said to you all ‘The only time that you should look back is to remember the promises of God and what He has said over you’. And so I want to qualify that statement in the first newsletter of 2025.

When thinking of the ancient landmarks, immediately Abraham comes to mind, throughout Genesis, when God spoke and reaffirmed His promise to him, Abraham set up altars to the Lord, or you can say, he built places of remembrance. Places that Abraham (and future generations) could go back to and remember what the Lord had told him.

Along the journey, it is so easy - especially when we don’t see anything moving, changing or getting better - for doubt and fear to creep its way in and encourage us to shrink ourselves, lose belief and kill the dream.

But go back to the ancient landmarks.

Go back and listen to or read the prophetic words spoken over you. Go back to the journal entries where God spoke to you. Go back to the scriptures in The Bible that remind you of God’s promises to us as His children. Go back to the Ancient Landmarks. Go Back.

Time can act like a morning fog or a film over the window, distorting your sight of the promised promise. It may act like rain washing the chalk of your hope off the pavement - but when you go back to that place where you laid down a monument or built an altar of remembrance, the Lord is able to pour out fresh strength, hope, determination and peace all over you.

And if you have found that you can’t relate, maybe you have not yet built altars of remembrance, or you’ve long forgotten those unrecorded prophetic words, I encourage you to go into the place of prayer and communion with the Lord, let Him speak to you (because He is always speaking), and begin to place that first stone of remembrance today.

Usually this would be a word of encouragement midway through the year, when things seem to be at the peak of toughness, but I believe there are many of us, where a new year doesn’t bring feelings of excitement and determination, but rather feelings of frustration and nervousness. Start this new year going back to the Ancient Landmarks and allow the Lord to pour fresh hope into your heart.

Happy New Year!

“and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’” that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”” - Joshua 4:3, 6-7 ESV