Abandonment; Brokenness; Dependence; Empowerment; Calling; Confirmation.
These are the stages of a Kingdom Journey as described by Seth Barnes in his book of the same name.
Abandonment happens first, in that moment when you say yes. When I packed my bag, when I hugged goodbye, when I boarded the plane. I said yes, we said yes. We gave it all up for something bigger and better. We said yes, because we believed that there was more for us out there, there was a life unlived, there was a world untouched, and there was a God unknown. I agreed to abandon the life I had because I believed the life I would acquire would be far greater. You can ask me at the end of this journey if it was worth it.
Brokenness comes when the abandonment settles in. When you realize those things you left behind are really and truly behind you. That soft bed isn’t coming back, that warm shower is gone. When you’re stressed you can’t lay down on the couch with your dogs, when you miss your mom, or your best friend, or your boyfriend you can’t snuggle up with them and watch a movie. When you begin to get stretched beyond your limits, and you realize your comforts are no longer there to catch you, you begin to enter brokenness. That part hurts. Boy does that part hurt. You’re forced to actually confront the pains and emotions you are feeling. You can’t hide behind your comforts and distractions. You begin to experience a lot of pain and it builds up on top of itself. One frustration builds on top of another, heartbreak after heartbreak, stress after stress. You get knocked down again and again. Your friend can’t pick you up, your mom can’t pick you up, drugs, alcohol, your cell phone, nothing. None of it can help you in that moment, not when you agreed to abandon.
In that moment, when you’re on your knees, when you have nobody to help you, when you are overwhelmed by the stress and the hurt, when you are overwhelmed by the anxiety and frustration, that’s when you make the biggest decision of all. Are you going to give it up to the Lord, or are you going to run back to your old pleasures? The latter is easy. The latter is like hitting ‘quit’, and ‘restart’. The relief is instantaneous. You are immediately relieved of all stress and frustration. But at the end of the day the hurt is still there, brewing beneath the surface. You haven’t fixed anything, you just went back to the beginning. However, if you choose the former, if you choose to give it up to the Lord, you’ve chosen Dependence on Him. By choosing Dependence you’ve declared two things into existence; one, unfortunately the journeys not over, dependence allows the process to continue, meaning there are more stages to be had. But two, you’ve chosen to continue to move forward, you’ve chosen to propel yourself into a more peaceful future, instead of resorting to your destructive past, to the life you’ve already tried, the life that left you wanting more in the first place, you instead step out in faith and courage, and pursue a new life; you pursue a new you. More honestly, you pursue the real you; the you that the Lord created you to be in the first place, the you that the Lord had in mind when He wove you together in your mother’s womb. In that moment, of choosing Dependence, you open yourself up to a life and a future far more fulfilling than you could have ever imagined.
That’s the moment I find myself in right now.
I signed yes for abandonment, I’ve experienced weeks and months of brokenness, and now I must decide, now I must trust, and depend.
The irony is, I’ve been depending on God all month. We’ve had to, there’s been no other choice. This month we’ve been asked to identify new ministries we’ve never heard of, while living in a new city we’ve never been in. We don’t know where we are, we don’t know how to get around, we don’t know a soul who lives here. We have no church, we have no car, we have no starting point. All we have is God. Literally all we can do is trust that He put us here, that He put us in this position for a reason, and that He will guide us where we need to go. Acknowledging that and walking out in faith is the epitome of dependence.
We did it though; we started each morning with a half an hour of listening prayer. We offered our day up to the Lord and we asked Him to guide us, and He delivered in a big way. By abiding in His words and images, He brought us into the hands of an incredible contact. By following His suggestion, we pursued leads on a daily basis, by trusting in His provision, we had peace while waiting for a response, and by relying on His faithfulness and love for us, we experienced the pure joy and transcendence when ministries ultimately came our way. This month taught us, taught me, how to depend on God when I have nothing else. He taught me how to obey Him when all else fails, and He showed me that He is always faithful to provide. This month has been ‘Dependence Training’, God prepping me for the big decision, for the real decision and the real test.
It’s easy to depend on the Lord when you have absolutely nothing else to turn to, but saying yes to dependence is far more difficult when opportunities for control and comfort surround you. My God, my Papa, has gone out of His way this month to show me that when I depend on Him, He always provides. He posed the question, and He made His case. Now its up to me to drop the hammer and give the verdict; to either cower and return to my old life of control and comfort, or to lay my brokenness down before Him, and trust.
