In January of 2020, the Lord asked Jan and me to withdraw into an extended season of sabbatical. This sabbatical meant we would need to disconnect across the board from the familiar. We were already in that place of isolation when the pandemic lockdown was imposed. 

We asked the Lord to define our sabbatical assignment. He told us to take a place on the wall of the culture and the Church as prophetic watchmen. Our primary task was to look for the coming of the Lord. He told us as we watched for His approach, we would also see what was blinding the eyes of people to the reality of Satan’s agenda, a vastly lesser agenda than God’s redemptive plan. Only in seeing the Lord’s approach could we see more clearly the finely crafted tactics of deception employed by the enemy that, as Paul said, “try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth” (Ephesians 4:14).

The role of a watchman is not to be fueled by suspicion, conspiracy, or alarmism. These are methods employed by the immature and insecure. They are also terms used by some to prematurely dismiss the watchman’s message before engaging the reality of the deception taking place from a spiritual perspective, rather than a human intellect or a group-think posture. We also realize our perspective, no matter how accurate we might feel that perspective to be, is itself, only part of a much larger image. This is why we need a variety of watchmen positioned on different parts of the wall to see in concert a much larger picture. No individual revelation is complete or absolute.

Isaiah the prophet wrote, “O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray day and night continually” (Isaiah 62:6). The watchman’s primary assignment is prayer. It is in prayer that the approach of the Lord is revealed. It is in prayer that spiritually blind eyes are opened to see spiritual realities, some of which are dark in substance. This kind of prayer is where the plans of the enemy are discovered and dismantled before they arrive and begin to sow death and discord, but more importantly, it is in prayer where we see the approach of the Faithful One who will never leave us or forsake us in our time of peril.