OCTOBER TEACHING: MAKE ROOM FOR THE NEW
New seasons require new preparation.
“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations. Don’t spare. Lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.” — Isaiah 54:2 (WEB)
There are prayers we have repeated for months, sometimes for years. We ask God for growth, restoration, opportunity, healing, clarity, a new beginning or a different kind of life. Yet it is possible to pray earnestly for something new while leaving no room in our lives to receive it.
We want peace, but our days remain crowded with things that continually disturb it. We ask for healthier relationships, but continue holding on to patterns that keep producing the same pain. We pray for opportunity, but postpone the preparation that opportunity will require. We ask God to enlarge our lives while gripping everything familiar with both hands.
Then October arrives with a quiet question: If God answered the prayer, where would you put the answer?
Isaiah 54 was spoken to people who had known barrenness, disappointment and limitation. Yet before the visible change came, God told them to enlarge the tent, stretch the curtains, lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes. They were asked to prepare for increase while their present circumstances still looked empty.
This is not a message about chasing novelty for its own sake. Not everything old is wrong, and not everything new is from God. This is an invitation to become honest about whether your present life has room for the season you keep asking God to bring.
Your Life May Still Be Arranged Around the Old
Sometimes a season ends outwardly long before it ends within us. The relationship is over, but every decision is still shaped by what happened there. The opportunity passed, but we continue organising our confidence around the rejection. God has forgiven us, but we keep arranging our identity around the mistake. We have left Egypt, yet Egypt still determines what we believe is possible.
Old seasons leave furniture behind: habits, fears, expectations, loyalties, coping mechanisms and ways of seeing ourselves. Some of those things helped us survive. But what protected you in one season may restrict you in another. A person who survived by becoming silent may later need to learn how to speak. Someone who carried everything alone may need to learn how to receive help. A heart that stayed guarded to survive disappointment may need God’s patient help to become open again.
Making room begins with noticing what still occupies the space. Ask yourself gently: What has ended, but is still organising my life? The answer may not be dramatic. It may be a routine, an assumption, an old promise to yourself or a fear you have called wisdom for so long that you no longer question it.
Preparation Can Begin Before Evidence Appears
God told the people to enlarge their tent before the increase was visible. That order matters. Faith often prepares before it possesses. Noah built before rain fell. Joseph stored grain before famine arrived. The widow gathered empty vessels before the oil multiplied. Preparation was not an attempt to manipulate God; it was a practical response to what He had spoken.
There are things we postpone because we do not yet have proof. We say we will become disciplined when the opportunity comes, organise our finances when we earn more, rest when life becomes easier, study when the door opens, or prepare the room when the answer is already standing outside. But preparation is often part of faith.
You do not need to pretend that something has happened when it has not. Faith is not performance. It is simply refusing to use the absence of visible evidence as permission to remain unprepared. Update the document. Learn the skill. Clear the desk. Make the responsible enquiry. Create the boundary. Begin the routine. Pray over what you are building. Your preparation may be the first visible evidence that hope has returned.
Some Things Must Leave to Create Room
We often imagine enlargement as addition. Sometimes it begins with removal.
A wardrobe cannot receive anything new when it is filled with clothes that no longer fit but remain because of guilt, nostalgia or the hope of becoming an old version of yourself again. In the same way, our lives can become crowded with expired responsibilities, one-sided relationships, unnecessary noise, resentment, comparison and commitments we accepted without asking God.
Release is not always rejection. Sometimes it is stewardship. You are not declaring that everything you carried was worthless; you are recognising that it may have completed its assignment. There are things to honour and still put down. There are people to forgive without reopening the same access. There are seasons to remember without trying to live inside them again.
Ask God what must be removed, reduced, completed or released. Do not empty your life recklessly, but do not keep every corner occupied simply because emptiness makes you uncomfortable.
Stretching Is Uncomfortable
Isaiah did not say, “Decorate the tent.” He said, “Enlarge… stretch… lengthen… strengthen.” These are words of movement and tension. Stretching pulls us beyond the dimensions we have become accustomed to.
A new season may require conversations you once avoided, decisions you hoped somebody else would make, discipline you have not yet developed or courage that does not feel natural. It may require you to be seen after years of hiding, to learn after years of being the one with answers, or to begin again without the applause you thought would accompany the beginning.
Discomfort does not automatically mean you are outside God’s will. Sometimes it means your capacity is increasing. A tent being stretched feels tension at the edges. The important question is not merely, “Is this uncomfortable?” but, “Is God using this to make room for greater faithfulness?”
Move prayerfully. Seek wise counsel. Honour your health and real responsibilities. But do not mistake every unfamiliar feeling for a warning to retreat.
Strengthen Your Stakes
Enlargement without strengthening can become collapse. A wider tent needs deeper, firmer stakes. God is not only concerned about bringing increase; He also cares about the life that must carry it.
Before asking for more, look at your foundations. How is your prayer life? Are you rooted in Scripture or surviving on occasional inspiration? Are your finances organised? Are your boundaries clear? Is your body receiving the care and rest it needs? Do you have people who can tell you the truth? Are you building systems, or depending on exhaustion and last-minute rescue?
Strengthening is not glamorous work. Stakes are mostly hidden in the ground. Yet when the wind comes, hidden preparation becomes visible stability. Private prayer, integrity, consistency, accountability and wise planning may not attract attention, but they help a person remain standing when the answer becomes heavier than the request.
Do not despise the strengthening season. God may be answering your prayer by making you able to carry what you asked Him to give.
Bring God Empty Vessels
In 2 Kings 4, a widow came to Elisha in desperate need. She had a small jar of oil and a debt she could not pay. Elisha told her to borrow empty vessels from her neighbours—and not just a few. She brought the emptiness into the house, shut the door and began to pour. The oil continued flowing until there were no more vessels.
The miracle did not begin with abundance in her hands. It began with honest need, a small thing surrendered and room prepared to receive what God would do.
We sometimes hide our empty places because they make us feel inadequate. We fill silence with noise, loneliness with unsuitable company, uncertainty with hurried decisions and weariness with more activity. But an empty vessel is not useless when it is placed before God. Emptiness can become capacity.
Bring Him the part of your life where you do not have an answer. Bring the unfinished plan, the depleted strength, the room you do not know how to fill and the need you cannot meet alone. You do not have to manufacture oil. Your part is to bring the vessel, obey the instruction and keep pouring what God provides.
Do Not Fill Every Empty Space Too Quickly
Making room can feel unsettling because empty space exposes us to waiting. Once something has been released, we often rush to replace it. We end one relationship and immediately search for another. We leave a demanding commitment and fill the free hour with a different demand. We receive clarity about what is wrong, but cannot tolerate the quiet required to discover what is right.
Not every empty space is a problem. Some spaces are sacred. They allow grief to settle, wisdom to speak, the body to recover and desire to become honest. They give God room to redirect us without competing with the noise of what we hurriedly chose.
Waiting is not the same as wasting. A field resting between seasons is not abandoned. A room being cleared is not permanently empty. Resist the pressure to prove that you have moved on by filling the space before you understand its purpose.
What Does Making Room Look Like for You?
For one person, making room will mean saying no without writing a long defence. For another, it will mean returning to prayer after disappointment made silence feel safer. It may mean clearing a physical space, completing an abandoned course, creating a budget, seeking counselling, repairing a relationship, delegating responsibility or finally beginning the work you have discussed for years.
It may look very ordinary. Most preparation does. You may not feel a dramatic shift while organising your documents, going to bed earlier, removing distractions or keeping one small promise to yourself. But ordinary obedience creates space for a different kind of life.
Do not copy somebody else’s preparation. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the room your own life needs. The new season God is preparing for you must fit your calling, your responsibilities, your healing and the pace of grace—not somebody else’s photograph.
A Word for October
This October, make room.
Make room for God to answer differently from the picture you rehearsed. Make room for healthier patterns, honest conversations, disciplined preparation and quiet joy. Make room for rest without guilt and for hope without embarrassment. Make room for the person God is forming, not only the thing you want Him to bring.
You may not yet see the increase. The tent may still look like the same tent. But if God is asking you to stretch, do not wait for visible overflow before you obey. Lengthen the cords. Strengthen the stakes. Clear what has expired. Protect what is being built. Bring Him empty vessels.
The new thing may begin quietly: with one decision, one boundary, one prayer, one cleared space, one act of courage or one faithful step. Honour the beginning. God does not need noise to begin something lasting.
There is more ahead, but more will require room. May October find you open, prepared and willing to stretch with God.
Prayer
Father, thank You for every new thing You are preparing, even the things I cannot yet see. Show me where my life is still arranged around an old season. Give me courage to release what has completed its purpose, wisdom to prepare faithfully and patience not to fill every empty space too quickly.
Stretch my faith without allowing me to neglect my foundations. Strengthen the hidden places of my life—my prayer, character, discipline, boundaries and trust in You. Help me recognise the practical steps obedience requires and give me grace to take them.
I bring You my empty vessels: the needs I cannot meet, the questions I cannot answer and the places where my strength has run out. Fill what You desire to fill, close what You desire to close and prepare me to carry every answer in a way that honours You.
I make room for Your will, Your timing and Your presence. Lead me into this new season with wisdom, courage and peace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
SEPTEMBER TEACHING: DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE PLOUGH
Keep moving. Keep believing. Keep your eyes on Jesus.
“But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’” — Luke 9:62 (NKJV)
Welcome to September
Welcome to the month of September, and welcome to our very first teaching here at Margaret Nwakaego Usio Ministries.There is something deeply meaningful about beginning here. Not with what has gone wrong or what you have lost. This is not even about how long you have been waiting.
But with where you are going.
Perhaps the year has not unfolded exactly as you expected. Perhaps January began with plans written down, prayers prayed, goals carefully considered and expectations carried quietly in your heart.
Now it is September… Some of those prayers have been answered while some are still being answered.
And some may look exactly the same as they did when you first brought them before God.But I want to remind you of something as we enter this new month. The year is not over. God is not finished.
This is not the time to take your hands off the plough.
There are moments when faith looks like celebration. There are moments when doors fly open, prayers are answered suddenly, and you can clearly see the hand of God. But there are other moments when faith looks remarkably ordinary. Like getting up again, praying again, applying again. Trying again. Believing again. Showing up again.
And refusing to turn around simply because you have not yet seen what you are believing God for. If that is where you are today, this message is for you.
Why Jesus Spoke About a Plough
When Jesus spoke the words recorded in Luke 9:62, His listeners understood the picture.
Ancient ploughing was demanding work. The farmer did not sit comfortably inside a machine that moved in a predetermined direction. He worked behind an animal, often an ox, guiding a relatively simple plough through the soil. His hands had work to do too. His whole body has to remain engaged in his work for success to be achieved.
The ox provided the pulling power, but the person guiding the plough had to pay attention to where they were going. Uneven ground, stones, roots and changes in the soil could affect the course. A farmer who continually turned around could lose his line. And once the direction shifted, the furrow shifts with it.
Jesus used an agricultural picture His audience could immediately understand to communicate something much deeper about discipleship: You cannot move faithfully towards what is ahead while continually turning your attention towards what is behind. And that principle reaches into so many areas of our lives.
You cannot build tomorrow while constantly measuring it against yesterday. You cannot fully embrace where God is leading you while continually romanticising what He brought you out of. You cannot walk confidently in your own assignment while constantly looking sideways at somebody else’s field. Sometimes the greatest threat to progress is not that we have stopped walking. It is that our feet are moving forward while our attention is somewhere else.
THE DANGER OF LOOKING BACK
The Bible gives us sobering examples of people who allowed what was behind them or around them, to compete with where God was taking them.
Lot’s Wife. She left Sodom, but her heart looked back. Genesis 19 tells us about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot and his family were being led out. They had been warned. “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you…” Genesis 19:17. The instruction was clear. Keep going.
But Genesis 19:26 records one devastating sentence…
“But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” She had physically left Sodom. But she looked back. We are not given a detailed explanation of everything happening inside her heart, so we should be careful not to invent one. But Scripture deliberately records the backward look after a direct command not to look back.
And Jesus Himself later used her as a warning: “Remember Lot’s wife.” — Luke 17:32. Sometimes God is taking us somewhere new, but something behind us still has our attention. An old relationship. An old identity. A season when life felt easier. A mistake we cannot forgive ourselves for. A disappointment we keep replaying. An opportunity we lost. Even a version of ourselves that no longer belongs where God is taking us.
There are things you can leave physically and still carry emotionally. Sometimes moving forward requires more than changing location.
Your heart must leave too.
Then there was Israel. They had prayed for deliverance. God heard them. They watched Pharaoh’s power break. They walked out of slavery. They crossed the Red Sea. They saw miracles many of us can scarcely imagine witnessing today.
And when the journey became uncomfortable, suddenly Egypt began appearing in their conversations again. In Numbers 14, after hearing the report concerning Canaan, fear spread through the camp. The people said: “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.” Numbers 14:4.
Think about that.
They were willing to return to the place where they had once cried to God for deliverance. Why? Because sometimes what is familiar feels safer than what requires faith. We do this too. You prayed for a new beginning, but the new beginning is harder than you expected.
You asked God for growth, but growth requires discipline. You wanted the business, but now you are carrying the responsibility. You prayed for the opportunity, but now you are frightened that you are not qualified enough. You left an unhealthy relationship, but loneliness makes you remember only the good days. You committed yourself to God, but old habits still call your name.
Difficulty on the road ahead does not automatically mean you took the wrong road. Sometimes you are simply in the uncomfortable space between what God brought you out of and what you have not yet entered. Do not turn the wilderness into evidence that God has abandoned you.
Scripture also gives us people who had every reason to abandon the field but continued forward.
God promised Abraham descendants. Then years passed. Abraham grew older and Sarah also grew older. The natural circumstances became increasingly impossible. Romans 4 describes Abraham’s faith beautifully. He considered the reality of his circumstances, but he did not allow those circumstances to cancel what God had said. “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.” Romans 4:20.
Abraham’s faith was not ignorance of reality.He knew his age. He knew Sarah’s age. He knew how long they had waited, but he also knew Who had made the promise. And Isaac came.
Sometimes faith means: I can see the facts. I understand the numbers. I know how long this has taken, but I will not make my circumstances bigger than my God.
Joseph received a dream while he was young. What followed did not look like fulfilment. He was betrayed, sold, taken away from home. Falsely accused. Imprisoned and forgotten. If Joseph had judged God’s faithfulness by his immediate circumstances, he would have had many opportunities to conclude that the dream meant nothing, but Joseph kept serving. In Potiphar’s house, he served. In prison, he still served.
When another man’s dream needed interpretation, Joseph used the gift God had given him even while his own dream appeared unanswered. Then Genesis 41 records one of the great reversals in Scripture.
Joseph went from prison to standing before Pharaoh.
Eventually, the man who had once been sold by his brothers became instrumental in preserving lives during famine, including the lives of the very family from whom he had been separated. Joseph teaches us something powerful: Do not stop using what God put inside you simply because your present environment does not resemble your promise. The prison did not cancel the dream.
WHAT IS PULLING YOUR EYES AWAY FROM YOUR FIELD?
Maybe nobody reading this is standing behind an ox with an actual plough. But we all have fields. Your field may be your family, your ministry, your marriage, education and more.
It might be a dream you are building, a habit you are trying to break. A prayer you have carried quietly before God for years, yet modern life gives us countless opportunities to look away.
We look at other people’s lives through our phones.We see the announcement .The promotion. The ministry that appears to be growing overnight. And suddenly we look at our own field and wonder why there is still so much soil.
But you do not know how long somebody else has been ploughing. You do not know what their field cost them. And most importantly, rheir field is not your assignment. Keep your eyes on what God has placed before you.
SEPTEMBER IS NOT TOO LATE
Maybe you entered this year expecting certain things to have happened by now. And yet, September has arrived.
There is a temptation, when a year begins moving towards its final months, to mentally postpone hope.
Maybe next year. Maybe another time. Maybe I missed it. No. You don’t know what God can do with the time remaining. You don’t know which conversation will change something. Which connection will be made.
But expectation must not become passivity.
A farmer who expects harvest does not stare at the field. He works it. So if you are believing God for employment, pray and send the application. If you are believing God concerning your finances, pray, and begin making wise decisions with what is already in your hands. If you are believing God concerning your family, pray, and become intentional about the relationships God has entrusted to you.
Faith is not sitting beside the plough waiting for God to plough the field for you. Sometimes faith is putting your hands back on it.
KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOUGH
There is something else I want you to notice. Jesus did not say, “Look at how much field is left.” He spoke about the person at the plough. Why? Because your responsibility is not to control everything that happens next. Your responsibility is faithfulness. God handles what you cannot. You handle what He has placed in your hands.
So this September, do not abandon the prayer because it has taken longer than expected. Do not abandon the assignment because it is harder than you imagined. Do not return to something God delivered you from simply because moving forward feels unfamiliar. Do not allow comparison to make you despise your own progress. Do not let fear convince you that the storm is greater than the One who called you. And do not mistake silence for absence.
There are seeds underground that make no noise while they are growing. There are things God can be arranging that you know absolutely nothing about. There are doors you have not reached yet. There are people you have not met yet. There are answers you cannot see yet. Your inability to see the whole road does not mean there is no road ahead.
WELCOME TO SEPTEMBER
So we begin our very first teaching on this website with a simple charge: Face forward.
There is more ahead of you than what you have left behind. Take your eyes off the calendar. Do not compare yourself to anyone. Take your eyes off the voices telling you that it is too late. Do not dwell on mistakes God has already forgiven.
And put your hands firmly back on the plough.
September may not be the month when every question in your life receives an answer. But it can be the month when you decide you are not turning back. It can be the month you pray again. The month you try again.The month you believe again. The month you return wholeheartedly to God. The month you stop staring at somebody else’s field and begin tending faithfully to your own.
And perhaps, somewhere ahead, closer than you realise, is the answer you have been praying for. So keep going. The God who met you at the beginning is still God in the middle. The God who gave you strength for yesterday has not run out of strength for tomorrow.
And the Jesus who called you forward has not changed His mind because the road became difficult. Your story is still being written. Your field is still before you, there is still work to do. There is still reason to hope. There is still room for God to surprise you.
Keep your hands on the plough. Keep your eyes on Jesus. And whatever you do, do not look back.
Welcome to September. May this be a month of renewed strength, restored expectation, courageous obedience and fresh faith. And may you look back one day, not because you turned around, but because you finally arrived far enough ahead to see just how faithfully God carried you. Keep going. There is more ahead.