Happy New Year! I hope that your holiday season has been enjoyable, restful, exciting, busy, family-filled, reflective, bustling, peaceful – exactly what you wanted or needed it to be. Mine has been wonderful. Time with family is especially eventful and fun since our child/nephew/grandson/baby cousin Amir has been added to the mix. He keeps us in stitches.
Some unexpected things have happened during this season; really starting back during Thanksgiving. The Lord began to minister to me about a journey that I am about to take in 2009. Moreover, He has been speaking to me about the things that I will need for this journey – and He has been preparing me for this experience. I have been gathering the tools, and following the instructions for preparation.
The pending journey is not a physical trip. But the preparation has required me to move. Better said, it has required some repositioning. Now I thought I had repositioned out, thanks to Bishop Jakes’ book and message. But, God is now having me reposition further. But you know what ladies – I am SO excited.
The preparation for my journey and the repositioning has required me to move on from some people and places that I truly love and enjoy. It has required that some people that I really love be shifted around in my life. Perhaps not forever, but certainly in this season. And you know what I realized in the midst of this new repositioning season – in this journey preparation season? I realize that I have grown up some more!
When the Lord told me to move, to cut off, to remove, to leave, to stop calling, to let go – I just did it! I did not do it with anger or with resentment. I just heard His voice and responded. Well, why am I saying this – to toot my own horn? No. I did not even fully realize it until I was driving down the street on Christmas Eve and God showed me.
He began to talk to me about how I used to have to wait for the trouble before I would move. You know how it is. The Lord gives you an instruction, for example, to leave a situation. But you do not see anything wrong in the situation. You are comfortable, complacent – or maybe even happy. So instead of moving at His Word, you say that thought must have been from you or from the devil and you stay instead of doing what God said. What usually happens after that? Usually God sends some confirmations about what He said. When you still do not obey, what usually happens? Trouble.
This is when you will usually start going through hell in that situation because God is sending circumstances to get you to obey His command. How many of us have gone through things where it became so unbearable to stay in a situation that we finally move on, and then say to ourselves, “ I should have left when the Lord FIRST told me. I could have avoided all that foolishness!” I am so happy to report that I am getting it – I am learning to move when He SAYS – not based on circumstances. I do not feel compelled to wait for the trouble. Further, I do not find it necessary to give a lot of explanations about my obedience.
I do not know if it is getting older or what. I have heard mature women talk about coming to a place of being truly free of people pleasing. I am for real coming into that place. Oh, I know we say, “I do not care what people think.” But to really live that is another thing. People that are free of people pleasing do not find it necessary to give explanations or excuses for obeying God.
Many of us are in situations, places, relationships, careers, etc.; because we care about what people think. If we were honest with ourselves, God told us a LONG time ago to reposition. But we could not weather the scrutiny. We were unwilling to walk at that level of faith -- to step away from what is familiar, sure or safe. We call it all sorts of things like – “I’m believing God to move in the situation” – “The devil is not going to make me run” – “I’m not weak” – whatever cliché or scripture that we might want to use to affirm our position.
But in some instances, if we can be honest, we have not moved forward because of fear. We are afraid to feel more pain; afraid of failure; afraid of judgment; afraid of being alone – just afraid.
Remember when they would tell us in church, “God ain’t gone tell you to leave unless He tells you exactly where to go!” So much of what we have been taught was just the teachings of men – not based in a clear examination of the Word of God. God most certainly will call you away to a place that He will show you as you journey – to a desert – to the wilderness – to an oasis – to the deep – to any number of places. And while there, if you do what He says, and in some cases connect with what might be unfamiliar, you can learn and grow.
I am not afraid. I look forward to this journey with the Lord to an unfamiliar place. I trust Him. I trust my own judgment – because He has taught me how to reason, how to seek His face and how to hear His voice. If you are holding onto the shore and preparing to go into another year just doing the same old thing, the same old way, and the Lord has told you to go forward or to move out, I encourage you to step out.
In Service for the Master,
Evangelist Lisa Y. Mitchell
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