Lessons Learned from Shifting into the Apostolic Office

When we take on too many responsibilities in one season, we risk being unprepared for the next season God has for us.

Before the Lord shifted me from the prophetic to the apostolic office, He worked to prepare my heart for several years. In the secret place where He would once refer to me as prophet, He began to refer to me as apostle. He led me to take part in the teachings and training of apostolic leadership. He asked me to buy several books on the apostolic, but I didn’t read them. I didn’t take seriously the directive, “You need to be ready.” I couldn’t see beyond my position and office as a prophet.

I thought to myself, “Surely this is hard enough,” “Surely, I am doing enough for God,” “Surely He’s just trying to tell me I am a prophet with apostolic grace.”

If I had read those books in the years prior to being positioned in the apostolic office, it would have been confirmed to me that the prophetic office in my life was always God’s intention to prepare me for the apostolic office.

I know that my journey is not normal.

When I entered University, the Lord told me He was preparing me to be released as a prophet. He said, “For the next 5 years, expect nothing but obscurity. Don’t seek leadership. Stay hidden.” Over those next 5 years, while I prioritized the secret place, I allowed my ambition, pride, and the opinions of men to drive me to leadership prematurely. There was something greater God sought to prepare me for, but because I couldn’t see beyond the opportunities before me, I chose to fit my gifts where it “made sense” in my own understanding.

This was my first error.

My entire senior year, God kept reminding me, “I am about to release you as My Apostle.” Instead of asking how I needed to get ready and how I needed to align myself, I chose to bury myself in the ministry work immediately in front of me.

Looking back now, I see how I placed my ministerial identity in a place that was always meant to be transitional training ground for my true assignment. This was my error. And so— I took on responsibilities, obligations, and commitments beyond what I had grace for.

I can see it now all so clearly, as I have taken these last four months since my graduation to Sabbath as led by the Holy Spirit. He said, “Shut down the coaching program to new students and delegate the weekly group coaching to your spiritual daughter, Prophetess Ana.” And so— I obeyed. And over the course of these last 4 months, I am seeing, by revelation of the Holy Spirit, my weaknesses and my strengths before me. I am taking ownership of my failure to humble myself to all of what God said (not just some of it).

When we choose to avoid some of what God tells us in the secret place because it makes us “uncomfortable,” we prepare ourselves for our own downfall. When I should have been studying the apostolic, I kept pushing the boundaries of my prophetic office. When God was asking me to slow down, I picked up more responsibilities, all the while thinking that I had God’s approval.

Permission is not obedience.

I should never be asking God for permission; I should only be responding in obedience concerning the things that He has called me to do. This is the ONLY way.

I see my error now, and I am not ashamed. I am repentant.

I am bearing the fruit of exhaustion and fatigue of the work of ministry I was given in this season, because I didn’t lay the emotional, spiritual, and mental foundation I needed in the last one. This season I found myself constantly trying to put new wine in old wineskins, and it was exhausting.

The new wine represents the new way God wanted to move through my life— apostolically.

The old wineskin was my prophetic office.

I took pride and confidence in all God taught me as a prophet. Yes, this is what the Lord had trained me to do and to be, but if I had listened more attentively to what He was trying to tell me from the beginning, I wouldn’t have assumed this was my final destination.

The call was always to train prophets. I myself needed to experience the prophetic office before I was qualified to train others in that office. Now, here I am doing that work, but the war I went through against God breaking my prophetic habits to come into apostolic ones, was not easy.

I had to be disoriented before I could be reoriented.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own needs, our own desires, our own wants that we lose the integrity of our calling. We think, “Surely this is what I am called to, and it will never change,” “Surely if God built it, then He wouldn’t tear it down…”

I’m learning that God has no problem tearing things down that He built. He is the master builder. There’s a multitude of reasons that God chooses to tear down buildings that I am not fully privy to, but I am learning that one of them is spiritual pride in His leaders. We’ve spent years building with God; we begin to find identity in what we built with Him, and it becomes an idol.

So He tears it down just to remind us who the builder really is. He also builds with us according to the measure of our faith. As we grow, we have faith for greater buildings, so He invites us to tear down what we once knew to make room for something greater. Denominations often find contentment in what was built by their founders (the pioneering innovators who dared to do something new in their day).

The stewardship of our history is quintessential to our advancement, but it must not become an idol that limits our prophetic imagination.

Have we begun to put limitations on God again?

Have I begun to deny His miraculous power that tears down and builds up?

Maybe I am the one who needs the tearing down… the mindsets, the old ways, old interpretations, the old way of doing things… and maybe I am the one who needs building up. Maybe this was always about the heart and never truly about what flowed from it…

Lovesick longing, heart-felt devotion— this is the call of God to every believer regardless of the gift, the office, or the assignment.

God is far more concerned with my personal devotion to Him than He is with any ministry that He births out of me. The ministry I build is only as healthy as I am. I can only take others to dimensions I myself have lived in.

What if I God wants to take me deeper than I’ve ever been?

What if the cost is laying down the very ministry He gave me?

Will I cast it aside and choose Him, again?

Yes. The answer is yes. Yes, I will.

He is my one pursuit. He is my one desire. He is all I’m after. I never wanted to be a minister; I always wanted to say yes. I just wanted to be a woman that always said yes to God.

In that lovesick “yes,” I became a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I became a prophet, an apostle, an entrepreneur, a leader, a scholar. I became because it was no longer I who lived; it was Christ living in Me. He decided, and continues to decide everything about me.

What do I want?

Over the last 4 months, God kept asking me this question. And with this question, I wrestled.

What do I want?

I wrestled for countless hours with this question. Sometimes my answers religious, other times, spiritual, other times mundane and practical. I couldn’t help but ask the Lord, “why do you keep asking me this?”

Finally, he responded: “you have agency. I am not forcing you to say yes to the call upon your life. You choose it. If you want it, it is yours. And in the event that you choose it, you must contend for it. You must be willing to sacrifice for it, you must be willing to let go of who you used to be and what you thought you knew. It will cost you everything and more.”

“You have agency.” Those words blessed my soul. As a woman with a long history of sexual trauma and abuse, these words ministered to my soul. God is not forcing me to become who He has called me to be; He is inviting me, as a loving Father and a faithful friend, as the shepherd of my soul.

This question challenged me to deep introspection. It challenged me to listen to my heart and my soul and to share those things vulnerably with God.

I would answer, “God, I want you.” His response would be, “Yes, I know. What does that mean to you in this season?”

Our pursuit of God looks different in every season.

I didn’t have an immediate answer. I pondered. I wrestled. I questioned. What does it mean for me to pursue God in this season of my life? I have found myself constantly running back to Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
3     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Psalm 23 ESV

What do I want?

I want to “not want.” I want to know you as the shepherd of my soul. I want to know you as the rod and the staff that comfort me. I want to fulfill the assignment you have called me to do, as I am led by you. I want to operate from overflow. I want to give to your people what you have abundantly poured in grace, love, and mercy into my soul. I want to be delivered from the cares of this world, trusting you as Jehovah-Jireh in my emotions, my mind, my soul, the mundane day-to-day of life’s highs and lows, in my finances, in my relationships. I want to see you more clearly as I walk each day. I want to be content with Christ alone.

My one pursuit is Christ. The way I seek you may change, but my pursuit of you is unrelenting.

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection. I want to share in His sufferings that I might share in His glory.

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently. I’ve been in the attentive posture to hear thus sayeth the Lord. I can’t assume that He will speak to me this time the way He spoke to me the last time. I’ve been standing on my watch, going to the drawing board time and time again. I’ve been pursuing even when I feel (in the turmoil of my own thoughts and emotions) I can’t hear Him. I have been striving to still the noise of my soul so that I can be ready.

And in all this, this is what I hear the Lord saying to me:

You are right where I need you to be. There’s no mistake I won’t cover, no error I can’t erase, no matter I cannot restore. You are exactly where you need to be: close to Me. This is all you need.

It’s simple. It’s always simple.

It’s the tendency of my own flesh to overcomplicate, to want to create a religious system out of what He always intended to be simple. Listen. Listen to His voice. Listen to the rhythm of His Spirit that lives inside of you: the unique rhythm that lives inside of you. It is a rhythm that only lives in you because only you can fulfill the assignment He’s given you.

Here I am, Lord. I am ready to go. I am ready for my next assignment. I won’t hold you to the former season. I will learn new habits, new rhythms, new dance moves— whatever I need to do to obey you.

Here I am, Lord. I am ready for the persecution. I am ready to be misunderstood. I am ready to bless my enemies.

Here I am, Lord. I am ready to despise the shame of my calling. I am ready to surrender all. I am ready to look to the joy set before me.

Here I am, Lord. You are my one pursuit. You are all I am after.

Here I am, Lord, running after you again.

Would you meet me at the finish line? Would you tell me “well done”?

Here I am, Lord, waiting on you again. Come restore my soul. Come give me the strength to do what you have called me to do. Grant me the wisdom to lead your people, and most importantly, grant me the grace to never lose my first love in you.

You are my pride and joy. You are my refuge, my shield. My source of strength, My helper. The shepherd of my soul.

Here I am, Lord, completely yours.

Sincerely,

Your Daughter

Apostle Nicole Elizabeth Williams