Follow the Fire

Elizabeth Beisinger lives an unusual life. An author, speaker and natural health practitioner, she founded a ministry in 2009 called The Land of Goshen, a name that seems appropriate considering her close-to-the-earth way of life in the Southern Missouri Ozarks. 

Her ministry name comes from the land where the Jewish people lived in Egypt (see Gen. 45:10-11a). God promised to nourish His people in that place as they were set apart as holy unto Him in the midst of Egypt’s flagrant sin and idol worship.

Goshen symbolizes a place of God’s blessing and abundance, and that’s what Beisinger wants her ministry to be.

But she’s not always serious. She describes herself with a touch of humor.

“I’m a Titus 2 woman,” she says. “I’m an old lady that knows stuff.”

Verses 3-5 of that chapter show women of God how to live in New Testament times as well as today. Titus 2 specifically mentions the need to be both “homemaker” and “teacher,” two words that describe Beisinger well.

Obedient to Direction

Beisinger has made herself at home in Southern Missouri Ozark Mountains, about 100 miles from Branson’s tourist activity. She has mostly lived off the land in a self-sustaining way since moving to a rural area 15 years ago.

About once a month, she heads into town five miles away for some necessities, including one particular item she deems a staple because, she says, “I can’t raise a coffee tree.”

Even when she lived in town in the northern part of the state, she had a speaking and writing ministry. She has maintained those aspects of her ministry and expanded it further in the area where she lives now. The way she moved, however, reveals just how quickly she responds when she believes God is leading her.

“I literally saw a pillar of fire from where I was living,” she says. “The next day for-sale signs were the yard, and I headed toward the direction of the pillar of fire. At the time, I was a fire chaplain, and there was no report of a fire other than what I saw. I had already heard from the Father in the late ’90s. He said He would be relocating me to land with a well, and sure enough, that’s where I am.”

Today she embraces the term “homesteader,” but she didn’t actually know it “until it got a little trendy,” she says.

“I wrote a book several years ago when I was doing a land radio show,” she says. “My book was entitled Simply Abundant, and it was just about living out of the supply that I’ve been provided. I raise milk goats and my own grass-fed beef, and I have a simple and a beautiful garden.”

Her interest in being close to the land comes in part from her focus on the end times and her drive to be ready for whatever may come.

“When we see these things come to pass, look up. Your redemption draws nigh,” she points to Luke 21:28. “We need to lessen our dependency on the things of this world. It’d be really easy to just climb the walls during the pandemic. I can’t imagine being in town right now just climbing the walls. And I’m thinking, people ought to start a little garden. If nothing else, plant something in a flower pot. Do something that gets us back to what humanity did for centuries. I’ve told folks ever since I relocated, ‘I knew I was born again, but now I’ve actually been redeemed back to the garden.'”

Beisinger knows she needs God to supply what she needs. 

“I just feel so blessed because my source is truly the Father,” she says. “If He blesses me with rain, I have a harvest. If I’m not blessed with rain, I need to find out what I’m doing. And I see that my life really does go along that line.”

Dependent on Him

Beisinger’s views on dependency extend beyond the natural world.

“We need to lessen our dependency on the things of this world,” she says. “Paul said the wisdom of man God called foolishness, so I feel like we really need to be seeking the wisdom of God. I truly believe that as far as getting through this life, we need to have our dependency on Him.”

As such, she believes in the power of prayer, but not just any kind of prayer.

“I’ve realized how much more of my prayer time I need to be listening instead of talking,” she says. “God already knows what’s going on. But instead of telling Him how I want it to turn out, I ask Him. I say, ‘I know we’ve got this problem. What do you want me to do to address it in this world?’ instead of just telling Him to fix it. I think a lot of us do that. We go in as advisors instead of servants.”

This also applies to what she sees happening in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic and even beyond.

“I don’t know how it’s going to come out, but I know we’ve been heading a bad direction for a while,” she says. “There’s a lot of things that our society has accepted that we couldn’t have imagined 25 years ago. And I have listened to a lot of people vacillate on what they believe that, to me, the Scripture is very clear on. I feel like there are things we’ve chosen to be silent about, and I think we should go ahead and speak back up, or this country’s going to keep going downhill, because the actual answer to our Heavenly Father changing things is our repentance. I think for a long time, we’ve expected Him to just do whatever we asked for. He needs to bless it. And I don’t think that’s something He does.”

Beisinger also emphasizes walking in holiness, living a set-apart life for the Lord, but she sometimes feels that requires an explanation.

“There’s a big difference between being separate and being separatists among believers,” she says. “Maybe that’s just semantics to a lot of people, but I really believe there’s a difference.”

Each Christian has his own place in the body of Christ, so we’re not all the same. We each have our own gifts from the Lord and our own responsibilities, so, she says, “Instead of looking for common ground, we need to be sticking to holy ground.”

Most of all, she counts it as a privilege to call the Creator her God.

“We’ve forgotten or overlooked the privilege that He’s allowed us to call Him our God, the Creator of the universe,” she says. “We’ve committed more offenses than even deserve forgiveness. And His Son, Messiah, took on the limitation of humanity to pay the price for us.”

Beisinger fully submitted her life to Christ as an adult.

“I became a covenant believer at the age of 36, but before that, I was a casual Christian,” she says. “It wasn’t like I was robbing liquor stores or anything, but God was not the center of my life. I wasn’t following Messiah in my younger years. And when I really came to grips and He got a hold of me, oh my, I couldn’t go back to the old attitudes or the old way of life. He really changed my life.”

For Beisinger, accepting Christ was more than just lip service.

“To be ‘born again’ is a whole different lifestyle,” she says. “In Hebrews, it speaks of the blood of bulls and rams that just covered sin, but Messiah’s perfect blood washed it away. That’s the covenant I’m walking in. And I love the fact that we’ve got Instructions for life, maybe because I’m a writer, but I love to read the written Word. I didn’t walk on this earth when Messiah did, but I can read about how He walked. I’m very grateful for that. I like things written down and then there’s no mistake. I still think the 10 Commandments are very timely.”

The Sabbath is an important part of her spiritual practice as well. Her grandmother was careful to set aside Sunday as different than the other six, but today, Beisinger rests on Saturday.

“You didn’t go out, you didn’t buy and sell, you didn’t sew, you didn’t do any of that,” Beisinger says. “And so I came to that understanding and then realized the seventh day really didn’t appear to have changed ever. I just embrace the whole Scripture. I don’t consider a difference. If I follow Messiah, I have to look to the Old Testament because the New Testament wasn’t written then.”

Gracious to Others

While being mindful of the whole counsel of God, Beisinger is practical about her faith.

“We’re spiritual beings wrapped in a physical body, and so I really emphasize the practical application of the instruction in the Scripture,” she says. “Once we have been born again, I don’t feel like our spiritual life should just be a couple of hours in the week. And when we pray ‘Thy kingdom come,’ I really believe if we’re willing to walk it out, we can have a taste of that in this life.”

She teaches this kind of application to those who come for a three-day period to Bethesda, her holistic wellness ministry, for two or three people at a time to be discipled in the practical ways of faith and life. Rather than a “retreat,” she thinks of this time away as an “advance” in spiritual warfare.

“They can bring a friend or they can come for just one-on-ones of teaching them natural health and natural application of living a balanced life with Scripture,” she says. “Rather than sprinkle Scripture on top of our busy, busy lives, it’s a matter of putting Scripture in our spirit and then making the rest of life work around that.”

She also relays her Scripture-based and practical teaching through her books, her most recent being We Chose to Believe a Lie: The Legacy of Laodicea. 

“It really addresses the casual attitude so many of us have had regarding our spiritual lives,” she says. “I’ve been kind of casual, and I think a lot more people in this time of hunkering down realize it’s like, ‘Ooh, I need to spend a little extra time praying and a little extra time reading Scripture.’

As with the church of Laodicea, being neither hot or cold but lukewarm is an offense to God, but also, Beisinger cautions, “Everybody’s pretty satisfied in our own way of doing things. And we’ve used Revelation 3:20 for evangelism for a long time, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock.’ But the reality is that was said to the church at Laodicea. Messiah was saying those words to the church. We’ve gotten so busy with our plans and our programs and our agendas that sometimes we have forgotten the real point.”

Another one of her recent books is Grace Is a Superpower.

“We’ve received grace, so it should be flowing out of us,” she says. “We should be overflowing with graciousness. Especially when it comes to trouble, like what we’re facing right now, we have the grace to get through this—and the grace to extend His grace through our lives.”

Although Beisinger wrote the book before the pandemic hit, she finds its message timely, especially in its emphasis on the fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit. 

“Grace is the seed of the fruits of the Spirit,” she adds. “The more we just realize how wonderful His grace truly is, the more it will just overflow through our lives and out of our lives. I compared it to living water. It just flows. And then, of course, I’m a big believer that the gifts of the Spirit are still for us today.”

During this difficult time when we especially need to exercise grace with each other, Beisinger has a simple word of advice and encouragement.

“People should ask the Father, ‘What’s the next step?’ Not too big a leap, but ask, ‘What’s the next step I can take as a servant of the Most High?’ I believe the first step needs to be spiritual, but I believe that will be manifested in the flesh. We’re promised the mind of the Messiah. We could think like Him. If we’ve got our spirit surrendered to the Holy Spirit, we can actually think like Messiah.”