Beyond The Horizon – Fruitfulness in Your Barrenness

a talk by Sunithy Verghese, given on 11th January, 2025 for Ashford Christian Women

Over the past couple of months, I have been hearing The Lord say, stretch out, and enlarge your tents. As I prepared for this afternoon with the theme in mind, I felt The Lord telling me that His desire was to see us enlarge our tents and stretch forth in order to have a vision beyond the horizon.  

Our scripture for today is from Isaiah 54. This was a prophecy for the Israelites who were in captivity, as they looked forward to return to Jerusalem. The Israelites were God’s own, separated and special people, and He expected them to carry His light to the nations, they had experienced amazing miracles from the parting of the red sea, turning of bitter water to sweet, manna and quail in the desert and so on, but their walk with The Lord was not consistent.

God had to constantly send them prophets to remind them of their purpose in Him and of how far they had wandered away from Him, contaminating themselves with the culture, practises and sins of the people around them. They were now in captivity, waiting for a release, looking forward to a place in the horizon where they could live in freedom.

Let’s read Isaiah 54:1

“Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the Lord.

Who was God speaking to?

This portion is not addressed to a group of barren women, but is addressed to the Israelites and God is referring to them as barren, those that had not borne fruit.

Barrenness can be in the form of an infertile womb or an impoverished bank account, an unproductive career, a strained relationship, a chronic disability or a loveless prison of a marriage. Barrenness could also be a fruitless life – one without a purpose and without a vision.

He is also calling out to some of us who are going through challenges, some burden or sorrow, - whether it is personal or spiritual, whether it is for ourselves or for someone we love – those that are waiting for a prayer answered and in the meanwhile feel you are walking through a dry and barren land. It is for those who are wanting and waiting for a miracle.

God’s ask of us is that we sing out aloud in our barrenness.

Today, I am here to remind you that:

The Lord definitely sees you in your bareness, but He also sees you in your fruitfulness,

He sees you in the pit, but also sees you in the palace.

He sees you in your defeat, but also sees us in your victory

Do we have eyes to see as God sees?

Can we today, decide to look from the lenses of The Lord at our situation?

The ask is for us who are baren to sing before our miracle. To sing before we experience our breakthrough. As we break forth in singing in our barrenness, The Lord is preparing us for our fruitfulness.

Are you able to sing out aloud and break forth with joy from your place of pain.

Are you able to worship The Lord before you see your miracle?

Let me remind you that your problem, challenge, or barrenness is the beginning of your miracle – so sing out O barren woman, sing out O barren women!

You may ask, what do we sing? sing out in hope, sing out with eyes of faith looking at your place of fruitfulness and answered prayers, we sing out rejoicing and thanking God for what He is going to do.

We sing out because The Lord says that the children of the barren one will be more than the married. The Lord says that your fruitfulness in your barrenness will be more than that of the married one

1.   What did God expect them to do?

I continue to read from our portion,

Isaiah 54:2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes".

The Message translation reads:

“Clear lots of ground for your tents! Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big! Use plenty of rope, drive the tent pegs deep.

Enlarge your tents

1.   Enlarging requires for you to make space in your heart

Enlarging requires space in our heart to love, nurture and minister to the person or people The Lord will bring into this bigger space.

It requires space in your heart for God and His plans to unfold.

The Lord can only use yielded lives and hearts; those who are willing to expand by the power of His Holy Spirit to enlarge and build His Kingdom.

As I was preparing this, The Lord reminded me of a testimony of a dear friend of ours who lost his dad when he was in his high school. He went through some extremely low times at this young age, not having a father figure to nurture him and at the same time going through the hormonal changes of adolescence. A missionary couple who lived close by reached out to him, invited him into their home and hearts, they shared with him meals and also spent many hours speaking into his life, sometimes, late into the night. Each of these meetings had its impact on this young lad’s life, and he gave his life to The Lord, grew up, married and loves The Lord passionately to this day. This missionary couple is none other than our dear Rod and Ruthie who we got to know through this friend of ours, almost 30 years ago.

They made space in their heart for another person, that space would have required for them to have less of a meal they would have prepared for their family, less of the time they would have allocated for other tasks, or even deprived themselves of rest and sleep. The outcome may not have been instant, but God breathed over their inputs and this led to the ripple effect of not just our friend turning to God, but of a family that is now serving the Lord in their individual capacities.

2.   Enlarging is counterintuitive. It requires us to partner in obedience though our circumstances may not be favourable.

Chris, my husband, and I lived in Dubai for almost 30 years till 2022. About 15 to 20 years ago, Dubai had opened up opportunities for expatriates to buy property, and this was a massive success. People were investing on the water, on sand with projects just being announced and not even conceptualised.

There was much buying and selling and being a banker by profession, I saw colleagues at work become millionaires overnight with minimal investments.

We were not drawn into this frenzy for a long time and finally gave in, and made our first investment, bought and sold a property within a 3-month period and made a considerable amount of money. Now, this was good and easy money, and we were drawn into the whirlpool of investments.

In October 2007, we made one big investment and in a month’s time the world was stuck with the Great Recession. The value of our property fell by over a million, but our monthly mortgage remained the same. The house we bought was rented, but the rental was not enough to pay off the mortgage.

We were repaying mortgage on a house in India, and 2 houses in Dubai, while also paying the rental for the property that we were living in. It was a very big financial strain as we also had a family to run.

On our left and right, we saw people unable to pay their mortgage, falling into bankruptcy. Dubai was in the early years of establishing regulations for mortgages, bankruptcy and so on. Stories of people being put behind bars for failed mortgage payments was common.

We went through an extremely stressful period of our lives. I would wake up in the middle of the night to find Chris sitting up in worry about our situation.

The property value continued to fall, our tenant defaulted on rental for over a year, and the battle in the courts was long and tedious to evict them.

Chris changed jobs at this time considering better prospects, but the new company that he moved into were also going through tough times and failed to pay his salary for months together.

Before this investment saga that we had got ourselves into, we had received word from several people that they saw us in a ministry with young people. We listened to the Word, but were too occupied with our jobs and lives to dwell on it seriously. However, as we continued to pray and seek God’s help to get us out of the mess we were in, the Lord led me to study the book of Haggai.

Let me give you a backdrop on the times when Haggai prophesied,

The Israelites had returned from their exile to Babylon, and were tasked with building the temple. The foundations were built, and they celebrated with much joy. Their joy was short lived because their adversaries came against the construction of the building, and the works were placed on hold.

You can imagine the condition of the Israelites at this time. Their hopes were shattered and they had given up. It was at this time that God sent prophet Haggai to them with a message.

Haggai 1:2-6

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.”  Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

This was our situation. Everything we earned was put into bags of many holes. God was calling us to consider our ways. He very specifically spoke to us from verse 8 of the same chapter - Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.

As we committed to build His house, God opened opportunities for us to be involved in a midnight ministry among people working late into the night in malls and restaurants in Dubai. It was not easy, but the fruit was abundant. He then led us to take on the youth ministry in the church. All that he required from us was a Yes, and we did not have to go looking for opportunities to serve Him, it came to us.

We continued repaying our debt all the way till 2013. When we do the math, it just does not match because we were paying out much more than we earned, but all of our needs, wants and desires were met during this time.

We began 2013 with both Chris and I hearing very clearly from The Lord that He did not want us to be borrowers, but lenders. We had no clue how this would happen, but one by one The Lord enabled us to settle each of our debts. This meant selling the properties in Dubai at a value much lower than our purchase price and then using all our savings, even selling some good value shares that I had been awarded by the Bank that I was working for to pay up the difference. By September 2013, we were debt free. Yes, we were left with no savings but had much peace and joy from The Lord. We felt as if a noose had been taken off our necks. We were in a broad place.

ALL THAT GOD REQUIRED FROM US WAS TO CONSIDER OUR WAYS, BUILD HIS HOUSE AND ENLARGE FROM OUR PLACE OF PAIN

3.   Enlarging & stretching the curtains of your habitations will require adjustments – Enlarging your tents would require some adjustments for you and those around you.

Imagine a pregnant woman, enlarging in size to accommodate the baby or babies in her womb. The house will require more space, space for the extra baby bed, the pram, the high chair, the diapers and the list goes on.

Are you willing to make those adjustments for enlarging?

The call may be:

- To open your home to someone in need,

- Take time for a coffee with a lonely person despite the numerous tasks that you have in hand,

- It may be for you to get deeper in your relationship with God by being disciplined in your daily time with Him.

This may require that you wake up a few hours early, or that you keep your phone in another room to kill the temptation of dead scrolling or even giving up on some daily activity to pray and study The Word.

You will surely hear the soft voice of the Holy Spirit nudging you in the direction that you need to enlarge – for some others, it may be a loud clear confirmation. The method is not important, your response is.

Imagine you were living in a tent and you had to physically enlarge the place of your tent. You would have to check out the area around the tent, there may be overgrowth that you need to clear or it may be stones and rocks that need to be removed and the ground levelled.

Today, consider what kind of realignments and rearrangements the Lord is requiring from you to enable the enlarging of your tents. While I was preparing this Word, the Lord gave me a picture of some of you elbowing your way through in order to enlarge the place of your tent.

Do we have any clean-up to do? Are there hidden sins to put off or some difficult decisions to make with the power of the Holy Spirit? Do we need some conversations with loved ones, realign friendships or even give up on some activities?

When we enlarge our tents in the midst of our challenges, time constraints and with our limited resources and abilities, we are offering to The Lord our wrinkles, for Him to straighten out with His power.

Our curtains are being stretched out as an offering for which we are paying a price, and it becomes a sweet-smelling incense unto the Lord.

Stretching out the curtains of your habitation in your pain and challenges is like ironing out wrinkles on a crumpled shirt with heat on it. The heat removes the wrinkles and similarly, the stretching will bring out the best in you. It will enable you to be fruitful in your pain to be a sweet offering to The Lord, and in that burning and pain, The Lord will bring out much harvest.

Lengthening your cords

The cords of a tent provide structure and stability to the tent, protecting it from leakage, ensuring it is stretched out well enough and kept in shape.

When we are willing to enlarge our tents, we need to lengthen the cords of our relationship with The Lord proportionately. This would take desire and discipline. Desire for more of God, more of His Holy Spirit, more of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and power. The desire should be backed with our discipline of living a life in fellowship with God every day. This should be our lifestyle, a presence filled lifestyle.

Strengthening our stakes

We can strengthen our stakes only when our tent poles are dug deep in The Lord, in His Word and in the power of His Holy Spirit. We need to partner with The One who is bigger than us to accomplish the task that is bigger than us.

A God instruction requires a God ability to back your obedience. Our willingness to obey God will require us to yield to the Holy Spirit’s work in us. We can strengthen our stakes only if we have our tent poles deep.

In Jan 2021, I was in my garden asking God to give me a Word to pray through the year over our family. He lead me to Isaiah 43:18, 19 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert".

What I heard in a very assertive tone from The Lord was ‘Do you not perceive it?’ I had no clue what He meant by it, but knew that I was going to see it unfold during the year.

By April, Chris went through a difficult situation at work, where he was framed, leading to him losing his job. He was down and out, wondering how the Lord would vindicate him because his company, though an international one, was closing operations in Dubai.

I was going through some very stressful times at work, working almost 14 to 16 hours a day. We waited for a job for Chris, but in Dubai terms, he was old and nearing retirement, and no doors were opening.

In October the same year, I had a lady walk up to me in church telling me that she had a Word from the Lord for me. I had never met her before nor seen her later. She told me that The Lord says that there is a book inside of you – write it. She also prayed that I would have the time and resources that I would need for it to happen. I understood the need for time, but did not fully understand the prayer for the resources as I had a job that paid reasonably well.

Being a banker by profession, the task at hand looked quite scary. I had no clue where and how I would begin.

Dubai has a process of Emaritizing positions especially in Banks where positions held by expatriates are taken over by local UAE Nationals. For the 30 years that I lived in Dubai, God had protected my position from being emaritized.

In November 2021, I was informed that my job would be taken over by a UAE National. I was confident that God had brought me into this job and if I had to be removed, it required His hand.

In a couple of weeks after them giving me the news, they came back to me with an offer of reducing my grade and my salary by 20% and retaining my job since the person they had recruited was not able to handle the full profile of my job description.

With Chris not having a job in hand, I accepted the offer which they said would come to effect from Jan 2022.

In two weeks, in the first week of December, Chris was called by the UK offices of his company offering him a job in UK. This job offer moved so fast that in another couple of weeks, we had our offer letter, followed by our visa to come into the UK. He was vindicated before all those who worked against him because the company closed down in Dubai with them losing their jobs, and Chris having a job in UK at his age nearing retirement.

I was able to walk up to my General Manager with my head held high and submit my resignation even before the salary and grade reduction could hit me.

God moved us as a family to the UK.  Our daughters had studied here and were already looking for jobs here.

He gave me the resources through Chris’ job, and a time of rest and peace which I used to write my first book – Carpe Diem. He led me to write a daily devotional with short readings and now I understand why. One testimony was received of a boy in a prison in UAE who received screen shots of the devotions and who would follow up if the person who sent it to him delayed on any day.

Another testimony was heard of a boy who was going through depression, and was a social recluse. His mother was gifted this book by someone, and just placed it on her book shelf without reading it. Many months later, the boy happened to pick up the book and read through a few pages. He asked his mum to connect him to a church, began attending a youth group, gave his life to The Lord and is now leading worship there.

It was considering these new testimonies that The Lord led me to write my second devotional Intentional Renewal which is from the Life and letters of Paul. I believe that the transformational change from a persecutor to a preacher would touch and challenge young and old to live intentionally with The Lord.

Let me ask you what is in the vision of your horizon right now?

As I considered this question, personally for me, it was the immediate issues that needed my attention, the prayers that I was waiting for an answer and so on. If you ask me to look too far away into the horizon, my view is interrupted with these obstacles of my life.

At the time when I prepared for today, my immediate horizon was a situation that my daughter was in. She had a job that gave her a visa to live and work in UK, and on 1st October, she was informed that her company was closing down – she was given a month’s notice and was out of her job. Her continuing to live in the UK required for her to get a job with a company that is able to sponsor her and here she was, looking to The Lord for a job. Almost 3 months went by with absolutely no response to any of her job applications (let me tell you, she must have sent over hundred such applications). I watch her stand in faith, declaring her confidence in the Lord as time passed by. She continues to grow deeper in the ministries in her church and confidently declaring that The Lord will come through. She was to have a 60-day timeline from the day she received her letter from the home office. God performed the first miracle of delaying this letter, hence giving her over 60 days in the UK. As I prayed for God to give me this miracle before I spoke to the ACW, I heard the Lord ask me, do you want to speak the topic of fruitfulness in your barrenness out of your barrenness or your fruitfulness?

As I stand here, I continue to wait for the miracle, but believe that The Lord’s got it. He will come through, and we will soon rejoice!

When we walk with The Lord, He expects our horizon to be at the place where heaven meets earth, a place where the veil has been torn and we have access to the King of kings and live victoriously with a heavenly perspective here on earth.

If you are standing by the sea shore, your horizon is uninterrupted and your vision scans vast distances. However, every day, in our daily circumstances, our vision ceases where our problems begin. Today, The Lord is challenging us to allow heaven to meet earth in our every situation. Allow our problems to be the beginning of our miracle, sing out from our barrenness, enlarge our tent poles and stretch out for Him to bring heaven into our situations.

What happens when I enlarge my tent?

Let me declare 10 blessings from Isaiah 54 over each of you and pray that you will receive it as your promise from The Lord for 2025.

1.   The aroma of God’s presence will spread all over through you – you will take over nations in your ministry as your children will possess the nations.

2.   God assures you that there is no need for you to be afraid or discouraged. He will not allow your head to hang in shame. He will not short change you.

3.   He will bring you to a place of forgetting your pain of the past

4.   The Lord will be your husband, The Lord of hosts, The Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel, God of the whole earth is the One who welcomes you and invites you into a relationship with Him.

5.   You may have felt that The Lord has abandoned you, but He promises that with enormous compassion He is bringing you back and caring for you with tender love

6.   Just as He promised Noah that He would never cover the earth with floods, He assures you that He will not let out His anger over you, but instead will shower you with love.

7.    He has made a covenant of peace with you that will never be broken

8.   He will rebuild you with precious jewels

9.   He will be your teacher, and He will establish you in righteousness.

10.   NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST YOU will prosper and NO ACCUSATION MADE AGAINST YOU will come to life.

I close with a promise for you all from

Haggai 2: 4-9 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. (AND I PARAPHRASE, BE STRONG, O ASHFORD CHRISTIAN WOMEN!)

Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts.  The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.  The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’”

Sunithy is a banker by profession and has worked in Dubai for almost 30 years. She has known Jesus as Lord of her life for 40 years and has experienced His favour leading her through the mountains and valleys in her life. In Dubai, she had the privilege of working with young people, leading them to Christ and mentoring them to find their purpose for life. More recently she has written two devotional books, Carpe Diem, with daily readings to seize the day and Intentional Renewal, which journeys through the life and lessons from Paul – due to be released soon! She and her husband, Chris live in Norwich and are involved in a prayer ministry, believing that God has brought them there to engage with Him in His plans for the UK. They have 2 beautiful daughters who live in London!