Whatever we are facing, Yeshua is the shelter in the storm; for His name is a strong tower and the righteous run to it and are saved! (see Ps. 18:10)
This year held many challenges for our family, but I heard how Abba Father said: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you. Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt...” (see Jer. 31:3).
I believe our Father is busy with a restoration process in all of us. I can feel it in my bones, in my spirit, with my very being... I feel the breaking down of the old and the building up of new inside of me.
When I quiet myself I can see more clearly how I have been building the walls of our city, while at the same time holding a sword in the other hand. I watch and pray... watch and pray... all the time. Like never before my spiritual senses are alert and sensitive to what the Lord wants to reveal to me. In the past the scales of pride were so thick that I couldn’t sense the spiritual attack quickly enough, but with the all the restoration happening in my life, pride has to bow the knee before the humble Spirit of God. Restoration is continual process that happens day by day. All my own ideas and plans have to be lain down to make space for God’s perfect plan, in order to rebuild the walls of protection for me and my family.
This year the attack against us in the spirit was extremely fierce and it made me realize that I couldn’t rely on my own strength or abilities to win the battles. I was at a place of complete dependence on God... flat on my face before Him, totally sold out to Him as I looked only to His mercy and leading to get me to the other side.
Besides the fight in the spirit for Aldo’s destiny, I also had the task of pulling out the arrows that people sent against us with their judgements. I was so humbled by the whole process and I learnt not to pull out the arrows and then shoot them back with human arguments or by trying to defend myself. The Lord taught me that the only way to true healing is to pull out the arrows and then to stretch out my hand and bless the people who fired the arrows – even if they didn’t want to receive a blessing but hoped for retaliation.
Tell me, how do I retaliate with human arguments about things that happened to my family in the spirit that is completely strange to some (just as it was completely strange to me 7 years ago)? How do I convince someone of the spiritual giants my family and I faced in order to enter our Promised Land?
For decades my forefathers were stuck in the wilderness and the enemy would have loved to keep me and my family there as well. The tribe I came from was one of the tribes that said it is impossible to conquer the Promised Land, because they still had a slavery mentality. This is how we can become slaves to Satan, even if we wear the “Christian” nametag around our necks.
Throughout all the tribulations Aldo had to endure, “Wisdom” (the Spirit of God, and one of the Spirit’s before His throne – see Is.11:2), led is step by step. Wisdom showed us that there is a life of abundance, or Kingdom life, available to all of us. That is our destiny in Christ, and that is also the thing that the enemy wants to rob us of.
Aldo kept on writing in his letters that the fight would not be over until Goliath’s head was cut off. Here is the story of David and Goliath as told in 1 Samuel 17:
Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”
David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.
So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.
David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. (1 Sam. 17:41-51).
We must offer Goliath’s sword and our victory over the giants as an offering to God. David disarmed and exposed the enemy and offered his victory up to God after he defeated Goliath. The moral of the story is that David gave all the glory to God.
During our own battle I realized that all the honour for every step of territory we conquer belongs to God. Only Abba Father can receive the honour because only Yeshua’s blood can save us.
Aldo also keeps on writing that where the “acid” is in our souls, there the enemy still has a foothold (“acid” is hatred, unforgiveness, jealousy, fear, murder, witchcraft, gossip, bitterness, rebellion, envy, selfishness, etc).
We must defeat our personal enemies and then we will be “transparent”, because in warfare the enemy uses our dark area’s (our flesh) against us. Therefore the first line of our defence is to be transformed to the nature of God and display the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us. So many have the words of God on their lips, but they don’t display the fruits of His Spirit. There is a very special place in the spirit – called being in God’s presence – where He deposits His character into broken and empty vessels, so that we can manifest His kingdom here on earth. From that place we operate out of God’s character and not from our soul that is full of human wisdom and ideas.
When we advance in love, the enemy is overcome! We weary him by taking up our position of rest in Christ. We discourage him by our faith in Christ. We demoralize him with our joy in Holy Spirit and when we do not look to our circumstances for our contentment. Our peace “checkmates” his anxiety. We depress him with our endurance. Our kindness in response to hurtful words from people, make him despondent; because mercy triumphs over judgement. Goodness overwhelms hatred, and our faithfulness overwhelms treachery. Our gentleness conquers the harshness of other’s hearts. Our self-control and perseverance towards His purposes and plans come through His grace and the blood of the Lamb.
God wants us to know and understand not only how to break through to the next level, but also sustain the increase that He gives us. It is one thing to get a breakthrough – but can you keep it? God wants to bring His remnant into a higher realm of authority, and as we are becoming more and more “transparent” (as Aldo calls it), we will be able to have victory over the giants.
But you have to know that we all have to fight our giants - even David had to fight Goliath before he could be crowned with his authority. The same goes for when Jesus Christ who had to fight Satan in the wilderness. David was already the anointed king, but to step into his destiny and next level of authority he had to face Goliath. Our increase and promotion in the realm of the spirit will only come as we overcome our Goliath.
I have found that the process of becoming transparent involves a lot of dying to self. And through this the power of God is increased, and the self becomes less and less; because God’s Kingdom is not words but power.
How will you know what your giant is? You will hear his voice in your head. It is he who tries to break you down every day with words of intimidation and fear. Aldo calls it “the curses in my ears.” Your giant is the one who tells you that you are not good enough, that you will never achieve your destiny and that you will fail miserably... you can hear him, so that means that you can talk back to him and counter his fear with faith. Start doing it. Preferably out loud, and tell him who you are in Christ. You can say to him: “You, the one who is telling me all these lies – go beneath the feet of Yeshua!”
Your giant will only speak negative and taunting words in the area that he knows God wants you to overcome. When the giant finds a legal right for him to enter, he will take procession of that piece of land. That is why it is so important not to take the acid of hatred and bitterness into your heart, because that will make it all the more difficult to fight your Goliath.
The walls of our city also help us to sustain the anointing of God on our lives. When the walls of our city are broken down, the anointing will start pouring out and we will go over into trying to please God with our works.
From my own life I can see that the less I become, the more the anointing of God increases and the less work from “Retah” is needed. Every anointing we receive from God will be accompanied with tests, because the tests keep us totally dependent and humble before God. That is how David overcame Goliath: through His dependence on God’s anointing, and not by relying on his human armour.
Abba keeps on telling me, “Retah, I want to cultivate sustainability, endurance, and perseverance in you so that you will not faint when the heat comes. The things I am training you for in this hour is going to be for the benefit of the body of Christ in the last hour. They judge you because they do not truly believe that this is what they are all going to face. I have to birth a remnant out of pain and anguish that will be able to endure when difficulties come and be content in their circumstances while trusting Me. You must face your giant and gain victory over it before the next measure of anointing can be poured out.”
God is busy training us in high level warfare. Just as in David’s case with Goliath, the other people depended on their own abilities, but David knew that the fighting tactics God told Him is the only thing that will be able to overcome Goliath. It required a life of set-apartness, and the lion and the bear was evidence of the battles he faced in secret.
“Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.
David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”
Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”
But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you.”
Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armour on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine (1 Sam. 17:29-40).
I see how people laugh at me and try to tell me that I’m missing the point, but I just keep on walking. Nothing will be able to convince me, because I can start seeing things in my own life that were never visible before, and it so precious and cannot be bought with money. It is a path of radical obedience – step by step in total dependence on God. We need to take up the inheritance that the previous generations gave up when they became content with a mediocre life. The life that God has planned for you and me is a life of abundance and victory – Kingdom life – one in Christ. God will anoint those things that have passed through the fire in your life. David’s sling and the stones he fought with were anointed by God – not the armour that Saul offered him. You will only overcome with the things that have passed through God’s purification fire. The pain, the battles, the tests become areas that carry God’s anointing – because you are out of the way and God has taken control. God releases the strongest anointing and glory on the areas where you have faced the greatest battles to overcome. Those are the places where you stood your ground and took your inheritance. Where the ground has been purified and where you have become transparent in the process.
We need to persevere until the end when we face spiritual pressure and resistance. I have found that the greatest fight is right before you enter into another level of breakthrough. (Photo: Aldo and Chantel at Yzerfontein.)
I had to decide that pleasing people and receiving the honour of men will bow it’s knees to being obedient to the voice of God and not grieving Abba’s heart. Whether other people understand my calling or not; I will please God and Him alone.
I understand that our journey is strange and difficult to understand to some people, but I want to ask you to please move on if you don’t have peace in your heart about us. I know that I have a responsibility, but I cannot stand back and be disobedient to God’s calling when people say that Aldo is false and that they don’t believe in generational curses or repentance. Each of us will stand before the Father one day and give account for what He entrusted us with. All I can do is to keep on walking on the road the Lord has put me on. The road I’m busy walking has definitely not been trodden out on by the generations before me; so there is no trail I can follow and there are many thorns and bushes still in the way. But this road teaches me how to overcome in my Promised Land, and through Godly sorrow and repentance we are busy pulling out the trees of opposition that are hindering our way. I will not let the esteem of men keep me away from the supernatural road of faith God has called me to. Even if I have to walk it alone – I will keep on walking as the Holy Spirit leads me.
I experience a deeper dimension of God’s presence the more I walk and fight. As I become less and less, quieter and quieter, I see God working in ways that I have never seen before. Aldo wrote the other day: “The further we walk, the more transparent you become, Mom.” It is pain, brokenness and suffering that is busy taking out the old Retah and making space for a new spirit... the Spirit of the living God, and for a new nature... the nature of the living God.
Exodus 33:14 says: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” December is the time of the year that I look forward to all year long. It is a time of quietness and rest with my family. We will keep on building the walls of our city, even while we are on holiday. Josh and Aldo’s cousins are here with us in Yzerfontein, and they have to help with the building process too. Every night we pray that God will remove the old ruins and build new and stronger walls. Sammy even helped me to get listed on Twitter, so now you can follow my tweets if you want to. (Photo: Josh, Sammy and Elisma). (Click here to follow Retah's tweets).
Tinus will only be joining us on the 15th of December because he still has work to do. The kids miss him a lot because he is the one who is usually with them most of the time. I love it that we have time together to have deep and meaningful conversations, and time to just love and embrace one another. We spend time together in the Word of God because that is how we hear His voice. The kids play cricket on the grass during the day, we go to drink milkshakes at the little shop, and we eat Grandma’s home cooking every night. What a blessing! Thank You Yeshua!
Tinus and I also came back from taking a tour group of 90 people to Israel last month. The trip was life changing.... I don’t even know where to begin. Yeshua met us at every place. From the letters that are coming in I find it very interesting that so many people chose the wilderness at their highlight of the tour. They say that they experienced the closeness of Yeshua in the arid quietness of the wilderness. Maybe it is because so many of us can associate with the wilderness because of the trials we have faced in our own lives? We understand the heat... barrenness.... no water... quietness... complete dependence on God... trust... and thankfulness for every drop of water the Lord provides. (Photo: Retah preaching on the Mount of Olives, Israel.) The Word of God promises us: “But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).
Thank You Yeshua! Rest in Him... He is faithful and true.
I will post some of the testimonies we received from the people who joined us on the tour on our testimonies page soon, so that you can experience Israel with us.
Love Retah and family.