There is an album by Jason Upton and the Goodland Band that I’ve listened to since 2009. Jason Upton happens to be one of my favorite artists, and many of his songs remind me of when I was a young teen just learning to walk with Jesus. In one of the tracks, “Blinded,” Upton freely worships about being blinded by the truth. He prays,
“Let the world war me, let the world war me until I see you in everything. Let the world war me with the realities of its insufficiencies.”
When I first heard these lyrics, they resonated deep inside my soul. It became my prayer in the years to come because as C.S. Lewis states so well, if “I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” However, when I would pray, I prayed nervously because I was scared how God would answer.
As much as I understand that I’m a foreigner and as much as I yearn for the completeness of being home, I’m not naïve to think that I haven’t adopted some customs and comforts in this world that have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.
Since I first uttered that prayer, God has answered it differently every year. I have seen the “realities of [this earth’s} insufficiencies.” The times I try to fight it, I continue to hear the Holy Spirit say, “This is what you prayed for. Step into the Kingdom.”
The journey hasn’t been pretty people. The world warring you isn’t a simple step. It is a continual deshelling of the views of this world and thinking like the Kingdom of God. It is breaking habits and streams of thinking that you’ve had since you were born.
For me, the world warring me has resulted in wet pillows, rough knees, dramatic sighs, isolation, joy, laughter, immense peace, freedom, but the greatest gift is intimacy with Holy Spirit.
There have been seasons in my life when Holy Spirit has separated me, and I have understood the “The Joy of Solitude” (read that blog). There are others where I have felt absolutely unwanted and not approved, and in those moments, I’ve sensed the war inside of me. The desire for approval being slowly refined out of me so I can come out like gold. There are times He has blinded me and said, “Take the next step. You don’t need to know. You don’t need to prepare. I provide for you. Take the next step.”
“… Cause when I know where I’m going, my eyes keep me from trusting you.”
At times, the war has grated me like sand paper and I’ve learned to lean into it. To lean into the discipline and the pain so Holy Spirit can produce perseverance and good character.
Dear saints, the world will war you. As Todd White says, “Jesus didn’t die so you could go to heaven. He died to get heaven inside of you.” In order for heaven to reside and come fully alive inside of you, the world must be stripped off of you. It must be seared off, and our God is a consuming fire! The hardest battlefield is truly in the mind. My way of thinking has to be completely eradicated if it does not match Kingdom thinking. If we desire to walk like Jesus did, and we can, we have to surrender. It’s not the surrender of lifting your hands at church and singing “I surrender” on Sunday.
It’s the surrender that will cost you relationships, finances, comfort, people approving you, people liking you, people understanding you, and you will look foolish to the world all of your life.
And it’s all worth it.
I’m only 27 years old. I’ve barely lived on this earth. I’ve walked with Holy Spirit for 16 years. Most of those years I lacked a full revelation of what it means to be a daughter in the Kingdom of God. The world has warred me, and it will continue to do so.
However, of this I know and experience, there is no greater joy than intimacy with Holy Spirit. I’ve never known such a friend. I’ve never known such a counselor, and such a comfort. I’ve never known such love.
To be stripped of the world is to learn how to love. It is to be willingly crucified by the world in order to love the world fully, to love God and to love people, and to live a life in which that phrase is more than just a quote on your Instagram profile.
