I heard a sermon recently about leaving things behind and growing up. It was about leaving never land. We all know the story of Peter Pan. Not wanting to grow up and face the real world. He wanted to stay stuck in the season of his youth.Seasons always come to an end and the race is just another season I’ve gone through. After being home almost a week I feel as though sometimes I’m running away from reality, I feel like avoiding leaving never land.
I’ve heard people ask, when are you going to stop playing around and get a real job? It’s time to grow up, you can’t just travel the rest of your life pretending to save the world. How are you going to pay your bills, when are you going to get married and have kids?
I admit I’m somewhat of a recovering Peter Pan. I spend a lot of time focusing on the things of the past, living in a distant land where all the world seems right. Before I left for the race I had what seemed to be everything I needed in life (minus my husband) I had the job, the house, a decent paycheck, and a job at a church with kids I adore. I was in never land. Then God asked me to grow up. The race has had its share of difficulties but there were so many moments of freedom, excitement, and relaxation. At times, I never wanted to come home. I just wanted to spend the rest of my life falling in love with new places and new people. The race became my new never land.
But I’ve learned if we focus on things in the past we will miss the things God is calling us into. If I would of stayed settled in my old life, I would not of experienced all the blessings the race offered. Likewise if I stay stuck in a World Race state of mind, I’ll miss all that the next chapter holds.
The lost boys never wanted to leave never land. They had it all. They didn’t have plans or need to worry about things of the future. The just wanted to live forever young. It was their place of comfort.
A similar film to Peter Pan that I love is called Hook. Hook is about rediscovering the joy of growing up. Peter Pan leaves never land and experiences all the joys and blessings being an adult has to offer. He learned the true greatest joy of life is actually growing up. Sometimes accepting the changing seasons is a good things.
After hearing this sermon I started to reflect on my Peter Pan tendencies…
It’s so easy to camp out in a good experience or that spiritual high. A conference, a retreat, a fun week at camp, or a mission trip…
For the past year I have been in a Christian bubble, doing Christian things, with Christian people. Reality check- we don’t live in a very Christian world. I can’t expect everything at home to be as it was this last year. But if I’m being completely honest- I am having a hard time leaving my new never land.
What holds us back from leaving never land…? The fear of it not working out Or looking different than an old season. I recently posted a blog about my fears of coming home. If we spent our lives living in fear of everything, we would never truly live.
God has so much more outside of never land -out of our comfort zone. But we have to leave some things behind. Maybe something that is hindering us from moving from one season to the next?
God might be saying, you can’t bring that with you where I’m taking you. The things you’re holding on to won’t make it in the next season. It’s time to let go.
1 Corinthians 12:11 when I was a child I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man I put the ways of childhood behind me.
What would it look like for us to grow up and leave never land? How much more would we truly experience if we trusted God in the next season he is calling us into?
The sermon I heard gave 6 basic tools needed to help us leave never land.
1. Learn to let go. What does he want you to let go of? What is holding you back from leaving?
This was hard for me to answer.
For so long youth ministry was such a huge important part of my life. It was my life for a while. Then God asked me to trade in sleepovers and lock ins for a sleeping pad and a year overseas.
Before I left I had a great job at a level one trauma center in the ER. The medical field was my ministry. It was where I thrived. I made good money and met lots of incredible people. But God asked me to give that up, be unemployed, make no money, and be a full time missionary.
For years I imagined I would live, work, and grow old in Wakulla county where I previously lived. It’s such a quaint, country hometown and it will forever hold a piece of my heart.
Coming home I realize these things may not be my reality or the things God is calling me back to.
Maybe all of these things were for a season.
Ecclesiastes says “there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the sun.” Maybe these seasons are over for me, and upon returning they will just be a part of my past.
I also learned recently, you can still love those things of the past, but it doesn’t mean you have to stay in that season. Sometimes God gives and he takes away. Maybe it’s even good things…but God wants us to let go.
If we don’t let it go, we’re going to miss the better thing He has planned for us.
We want the next best thing, but we’re not willing to let go of the things in our current season.
You cant grab ahold of something new, if your hands already have a firm grip on something else.
2. Take responsibility. Stop blaming everyone and everything for where you are right now.
We often blame our relationships, our friends, siblings and our parents for where we ended up. We play the blame game and sit in the victims circle as we point fingers at those who we think got us where we are.
At some point we need to accept our choices and decisions despite what happened to us in our past. We don’t have to let the cycle of our families continue. .
Yes I agree my child hood may of been tough, but I don’t have to continue the cycle of my parents and previous generations. They can’t control the outcome of my life. I need to forgive them and choose to live my life. I can’t stay cooped up in my Christian bubble blaming everything and everyone for not being what I need it/them to be.
3. Break up with insecurity.
1 Corinthians 14:20 says “stop thinking like children and be adults in your ways of thinking.”
Grow up in the way you think of yourself, the fears on the inside. The ways people “think of you.”
Do you remember Mia from The Princess Diaries?
Mia was not popular, she didn’t have many friends or much going for her. Turns out her father was a prince in Genovia, he had passed away and she was now the legal heir. In the movie she is convinced she can’t fulfill her duties as princess and declines the offer. She reads an old letter from her dad whom affirmed her – Mia you have what it takes. She is encouraged and decides to grow up and take her throne.
She broke up with her insecurities.
Coming on the race I had insecurities I wouldn’t be “good enough” or spiritual enough. I didn’t think I’d be a “good” missionary. Now I’m at home and I have insecurities that I am not living up to my peers expectations, that I won’t be good enough to be employed, or good enough to marry. People are expecting me to grow up and join the real world- but what if God isn’t calling me down that road? What will people say about me?
I can’t care about that anymore- what God wants of me is more important than what the world wants of me.
4. Embrace the pain of change but don’t major on it.
There will be pain. New seasons bring pain, but they also bring joy. For example childbirth. I’ve never had a child but I’ve heard the pain is excruciating. But the pain is temporary- the joy that supersedes that pain is eternal. The pain will dissipate and soon be a distant memory. Leaving you with a lifetime of joy.
Embrace the pain.
Major on the good things not the times of pain.
As hard as this race was- there were far more moments of joy than that of pain. And there are far better things that lie ahead than those we leave behind. As painful as it was at times I would not of traded my race experience for the world, it was one of the best seasons of my life.
5. Stop being selfish.
The opposite of selfishness is servant hood. Our job as believers and Christ followers is to serve others.
Serve others over yourself.
Let nothing be done in selfish ambition or conceit. Instead of here I am, say – there you are.
2 Philippians 2:3-4 do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility value others above yourselves; not looking to your own interests but the interests of others.
6. Believe your future is bright.
{My best days are right in front of me, my greatest memories are yet to be made.}
I couldn’t dream of what God has me doing right now. I can’t imagine what is next. How much better could it possibly get?
Isaiah 43: 18 thus says the lord. Do not remember the former things, do not dwell in the past. Don’t you see? I am doing a new thing.
He is doing a new thing. One we can not perceive. The next season will be more Glorious than your current season. The greatest adventure of all is stepping into the person that God has called you to be. Sometimes that means leaving your comfort zone. Leaving never land and the things he’s given you, to receive better things he has for you. It may look a little different than you planned, and it will probably be hard. But he doesn’t promise it is easy, he just says it will be worth it.
Leaving never land means letting go of what is- to experience what could be. But first first we must let go. We must leave.
Dreams do come true. If only we wish hard enough. You can have anything you want in life if you are willing to sacrifice everything for it. -Peter Pan
