What is something you are craving right now? We all know of something we can’t have because we are on the race, or its not within reach that sounds like it will “hit the spot” right now. Am I right?
Is it one night in your bed with clean sheets? Is it a washer and dryer?Is it a hot shower? Is it being alone? Is it a Chipotle chicken burrito, no rice, pinto beans with hot sauce, guacamole, lettuce and cheese with a fountain pepsi?
Not having our regular comforts from home is getting hard. For many of us, its been the longest time without our comfort of home. And we have started to crave time with any sort comfort, “Just for a little bit,” we say or, “At least we have 12 hours in an airport in a month.” For some, its started to consume our thoughts and show up in our conversations and its all we think about. And we have started a paper chain count down: only 8 more months of this until I can be comfortable again.
Or for others, its like the discomfort of ants everywhere, sweat everywhere, rice & beans all day and living in this stinking, tight community has now become a new version of comfortable. Its like we have changed the lens on our camera, “comfortable” looks differently for this setting, for now, until we get a new team or a new country or ultimately get to go home.
We have begun to look past the dirty, nasty bathrooms because our eyes have focused on the fist size tarantula in the corner, and peeing with the door open is security, and not weird at all. We have told ourselves that the tarantula that probably has a family and friends somewhere close is just for one more week, then we can go on to a new ministry, with a new location and probably with new tarantulas.
This new version of comfort has seeped its way into our relationships as well. Right now, we are no longer “new” friends (we have spent hundreds of hours within reach of each other). And we have started to expect things of our teammates simply because we have history of him or her. We know who will do what, when. We get their routines and what they are comfortable with and what they aren’t. We know who is going to voluntarily do things and who won’t. We know who will share their beans and who won’t. And we have begun to get comfortable in our roles as well as allow our teammates to do the same.
So yes, amid the countless things that make us uncomfortable, I am asking you to get uncomfortable again. I am asking you to look past the discomfort of your physical places and get out of that comfortable place in our hearts so we can grow, learn, teach, and respond like Jesus.
Side note: let’s simply look at our Jesus. He came from Heaven with even a greater disparity of riches than the States or our beloved Canada. He chose to not have any of those comforts: He didn’t have couches, beds, carpet, dairy queen, chipotle or even alone time while on this earth. Jesus knew of great and grand feasts, of sweet rest, and of a daily schedule that probably allowed him quiet time where ever, whenever. And I bet the 5 loaves and 2 fish didn’t compare to heaven’s fish fries with pan dulcé. (I don’t know about your team, but my team definitely had some questionable fish a few times.) I also bet there isn’t dust, bugs or dirty feet in Heaven, either. And you know what? He gave it up, didn’t complain about it, didn’t dwell on it, He didn’t count down the days until he got to go back to Heaven, but lived fully present. For our sake. Your sake. For 33 years to boot!! (cough cough that’s longer than 11 months)
So I want you and I to be like Jesus. To get to a place where you don’t put God in a box, you don’t put yourself in a box, you don’t put your teammates in a box and you don’t want to hide in a box when some new thing makes you uncomfortable.
And now all of a sudden you are wondering why you are still reading because this isn’t as fun as you’d hoped. Sorry but just reading for a second.
For a long time I knew God as Father, only. It was like I was a munchkin running around the feet her tall, strong Daddy, playing hide and seek, running off and exploring some, but always in eye contact of her Father. Then one day He asked me to crawl up on His shoulders. It was there, I couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else’s. No one throws random kids on their shoulders. I was His and only His. I could see things differently up there, and I could hear Him better. And bonus: if He got ice cream, I got to lick it.
Then at launch He called me to a new place. He had me read Hosea 2 where it says: 14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her [Israel] and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart.15 There I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor [troubling] to be for her a door of hope and expectation. And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth and as at the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt.16 And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me Ishi [my Husband] and you will not longer call Me Baal [my god]…
Now please know I thought that was a pretty strange move on His part. We have only had Father/Daughter dates, by no means did He didn’t slap a huge rock on my hand, and really, it was quite forward, I thought.
He has been showing me a new identity of Himself and you know what? Its a little uncomfortable. Because His new identity now affected my own. No longer can I play the little girl running and exploring, now I am required to be much more raw, much more dependent, much more intimate with Him. A husband/wife relationship is very different compared to a Father/daughter relationship. And even to talk about it, its weird to say because I have never heard of someone doing this before.
But I want you to explore Who is God to you? What side of you Him do you know and understand without a doubt? Who Has he told you He is that you need to seek out more? What is the attribute you have heard of but you don’t KNOW with all your heart because you have yet to experience it? Ask him to make you uncomfortable and show you the sides of Himself that are new to you.
You can start with the Word, its got a lot of names of God that help point towards His identity.
He is: Father God, God of Strength & Might, Creator, Provider,Healer, Shepherd, God of Peace, Everlasting,
I AM
and Jesus is called: Author and Perfecter of Faith, Word as flesh, Deliver, Bread of Life,Bridegroom,
Resurrection and Life, Truth, andSavior.
But as a heads up: When His identity changes, that directly affects YOUR IDENTITY and it may not be comfortable.
Let’s check out a few identity crisis’ that surprised me in the Old Testament:
Lets look at little Miss Hannah in 1 Samuel 1. She was one of 2 wives of a man named Elkanah and the Lord had given her no children. This embarrassed and grieved her and the other wife, Peninnah (Penni for short) picked on her continually. At family parties and where they worshipped and sacrificed, Penni would harass Hannah until she wept and she didn’t eat!
In verse 10 it says, “Hannah was in distress of soul, praying to the Lord and weeping bitterly.” As you read, she calls herself, “a woman of sorrowful spirit.” (Those are her words, not mine, not God’s.) In verse 16 she admitted to complaining and bitter prodding. In those days having a son didn’t mean you had a cute baby to hold and show off and teach tricks, but that your lineage could be passed on, having a son was very important and would ensure you had provision. But Hannah had none, and it had become her identity.
She was so distraught one night Eli, the priest, thought she had drank too much, but she was just that upset. This poor girl was hysterical. But (1 Samuel 1:17) Eli heard her, then told her, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant your petition which you have asked of Him.” Now let’s dissect this a bit.
1. Eli was the priest that represented what God was telling the nation of Israel
2. He said, “Go in peace” – This is the first thing he said because this is the only way she will hear what he has to say next. She needed peace to be on the forefront of her thought process like in Colossians 3:15 (go read it)
3. Then He said, “The God of Israel” – The God of Israel means the God of Abraham and Isaac. Everyone at that time knew those stories and were told over and over about how God promised Abraham a son and called him a father of a multitude. They all knew how that very multitude was delivered out of bondage in Egypt and how that God provided for them the full 4o years. These stories were shared countless times not because it was a part of the history credit they needed to be considered Israelites but because God told them to recount what He did. They all knew these stories, its like us knowing who Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne and the Ninja Turtles are. His promises are recounted over and over so that its nearly impossible to forget what He did and Who He is. 4. When Eli told Hannah that the God of Israel “heard her request,” she knew that this God of fulfilled promises heard her request, the God of deliverance heard her request. She started to focus her attention on His identity rather than her barrenness.
Ok so lets read 1 Samuel 1:18 and beginning of 19. “Hannah said, Let your handmaid find grace in your sight. So she went her way and ate, her countenance no longer sad. The family rose early the next morning, worshipped before Lord.”
I need you to catch something here: Hannah knew the God of Israel, the God of Promises and Deliverances heard her. THEN her countenance changed, THEN she went on her way, THEN she ate and got up early to worship. She didn’t wait until she was pregnant, she didn’t wait until she had a baby in her arms. She focused on the identity of her God and knowing her request was heard by a God that makes miracle babies like Isaac THAT’S when everything changed about her.
That’s the definition of uncomfortable, she had NOTHING of tangible evidence that proved she would get what she wanted or that anything at all would change on her behalf, yet she changed her countenance and worshipped and got her eyes off of HER IDENTITY and started focusing on HIS IDENTITY. Her actions proved that she knew the identity of Her God.
I am happy to share that the next 2 verses basically said that Hannah and Elkanah, her hubby, did husband and wife things and she got pregnant. She named her son, Samuel, which actually means heard of God. She let His identity permeate her so much that she named her son after it.
Whew good stuff, huh?
So let’s look at my second favorite person in the Old Testament, Gideon. In Judges 6 and 7 Israelites were under oppression from the Midianites and Gideon was the youngest son in the poorest family (his words not mine, and again not God’s). But before we even see Gideon’s name a prophet visited the Israelites and said this, (Judges 6:8-9) “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I brought you up from Egypt and brought you forth out of the house of bondage. And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of ALL WHO OPPRESSED you, and drove them out from before you and gave you their land’.”
Next verse: An Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon while hiding and beating wheat in a wine press (I don’t even think you can do that, but I know nothing of the two) and said, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of [fearless] courage”.Other versions say “mighty man of valor” or “mighty hero”. God saw him as this, while he was hiding. (cough cough foreshadowing)
Now Gideon knew of the stories. Like Hannah, he knew that God had given the Israelites the land He had promised and he knew it was by God and not my any man that they had gotten out of oppression. But Gideon was still a little skeptical because he saw that they were being oppressed. He basically said, “So how can the God who delivered us in the past still be with us now? How can God still be the same yesterday, today, and forever; because it sure doesn’t look like He is.” Gideon asked God to perform a sign to prove that indeed He was all about him being the one that smites the Midianites. God put on a miniature show for Gideon that proved that yes, it was the God of Israel who wanted him. Gideon built an alter to God and in doing that consented to be on board with what God was going to do. Then Judges 6:23 says “And the Lord said to him, ‘Peace be to you, do not fear; you shall not die’.” (There’s that peace again, like with Miss Hannah, God seems to really like peace.)
So now Gideon knows it was God that sent him, knows what that God is famous for, and now Gideon’s identity starts to change when he says yes to the task ahead.
His first assignment: God told him to take down his father’s alter to Baal and to replace it with an alter to Himself.
Now isn’t it interesting how God who called Gideon a mighty hero had his first job to take down an alter of a false god and rebuild one to Himself. Sounds pretty wimpy for a hero, huh? He didn’t ask him to put on armor, or to practice slaying someone, or start lifting weights. No. “Gideon I am gonna need you to put down that ‘bulk-up’ protein and go in the backyard, take down that alter, and make one for Me.”
I think this may be one of the first steps in allowing God’s identity to affect yours. The Bible explains that an alter the place where people took sacrifices and worshipped their gods. You have to assess what you are worshipping? What holds more value than God? Where do you get energy? What are your thoughts focused on? Who or what is your source?
This started the transformation for Gideon but then God finished the job by doing something big: Judges 6:34 “But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon with Himself and took possession of him…” God’s identity literally became his own, and if you continue to read it shows that doubt still existed, lack of confidence still existed, but through that, God remained the same.
Then we see it manifested in Judges 8:18 where a few men were talking to Gideon about people they had triumphed over. They said, “They were like you, each of them resembled the son of a king.” Now that’s an identity change. He went from youngest of the poorest to being recognized as a son of a king.
The story goes that God fulfilled His identity and delivered Israel from the Midianites in only a way that He can. You should read it, really, its good. Its like the original version of the movie “300.” If you have seen it, then you know what I am talking about but if you haven’t its not worth it, in my opinion.
Just knowing God’s identity changed how Hannah and Gideon approached life and their actions proved it. Everything changed. They treated family differently, fought literal and figurative battles differently, stopped complaining, etc…
What part of God’s identity is affecting your actions or how you approach life? We know God is Love so are you loving your team because you are loved and He first loved you, or are you loving to be loved by them in return?
We have seen through Hannah that God is a Provider. Are we providing for others because you are provided for or so that they can pay you back? Or are we constantly checking our support account?
Or like me, where God is my new Husband, but am I still trying to find a man? or listen to sappy country love songs that make me want to cuddle someone or am I choosing to be intimate with Him, prefer Him, and live like my heart is spoken for?
Adjust your lens, get uncomfortable and get your eyes off of yourself, and focus them on God and His identity. It may require you to change your countenance or to take down an alter, or invest in the teammate that drives you nuts, or be the only one that does the dishes, or give up the comfortable spot for someone else, or be uncomfortable with praying for someone even when you don’t have the words.
But when peace is your umpire and you know His identity, it doesn’t become about you at all, and we are right where we are supposed to be: Bringing glory and praise to God.
