This morning, the Lord hit me with a revelation of his word that left me in absolute awe. It just makes so much sense and I can’t believe I never saw this before. This revelation is new and fresh to me, so I may stumble my way through sharing it with you. My prayer is that you will hear God loud and clear as well and receive precisely what you need for where you are on your journey.
We all have something we’re waiting on – something that’s taking too long. Something that’s not getting better so you’re getting discouraged. Something that still hurts when you just don’t want to hurt anymore. Something that you desperately want to change, but it’s just been continuing, so to self-protect you’ve disconnected.
Do you see how you’ve done that? You’ve distanced yourself in this wait because the constant struggle just eats at you. So, you’ve separated yourself from what your heart most desires so that your heart won’t be continually hurt.
If it’s your marriage, you’ve distanced yourself so that his refusal to change won’t be so painful. If it’s your wayward child, you’ve disconnected from their chaos because otherwise it will just break you. If it’s infertility, you stopped getting your hopes up because every passing month without getting pregnant is like a slap in the face. What’s your story? We all have one.
This is precisely what I’ve done. I have something in my life that I’ve been waiting 6 years on. It’s my youngest daughter. For 6 years she’s been away from our family. Disconnected. Wandering. Struggling. Suffering.
This prolonged disconnect has created a roller coaster ride in my life of ups filled with hope of re-connection, then downs filled with deafening silence and rejection. And I realize to protect myself, I’ve just stopped trying so hard. I’ve released her in a sense of trust in God, but I’ve also kinda given up in a sense of hopelessness. You know why? Because I don’t want to hurt anymore.
Can you relate? When the years just keep passing without the change you desire, the discouragement seeps into your soul and you disconnect. They can’t hurt you so bad if you don’t care about them so much. That failed dream of yours can’t crush you if you just give up on it and let it go.
Distance. It’s what we do. We distance ourselves.
We literally create our own wilderness.
Now, here’s what God showed me this morning: You know how God’s people were given a promise of a future land they would posses? They were promised they wouldn’t suffer forever in the land of Egypt where they were slaves. They would live in freedom and blessings. They would be surrounded by goodness in an abundance. It was a promise over their lives. God had it waiting for them. Aligned. Destined.
But on their journey from Egypt to their land of promise, they had to go through the wilderness. The wilderness was NOT what the children of God were expecting. It was a disappointment to their weary souls. The journey was hard.
And just when they were exhausted and regretting even trying to leave Egypt, they learned the land they were trying to possess was filled with giant people who would certainly fight them. And this is when they gave up.
They began telling themselves they didn’t really want the land God had promised them that bad. In their disappointment, they distanced themselves from the hope of a better future. They disconnected from the whole purpose of staying in the fight.
That’s precisely what we do.
Isn’t that what you’ve done? You’ve disconnected. You’ve told yourself you don’t want it that bad. In your disappointment, you’ve distanced yourself from the hope you once had. And you know what that does?