Second Class Citizen

I recently decided to quit living as a stranger in a foreign land. For many years, I have had a sense of being on the outside looking in on the great things of the Kingdom. I have watched as those around me have accomplished more than I ever could have hoped for. They were living their dreams while I was trapped by mine. Yearning for more but stuck in the land of mediocrity and unfulfilled longing.

Before long, jealousy began to take root in my heart. Then bitterness. Then worthlessness. I went from being in love with God to feeling rejected by Him and by His people. Why wasn’t I good enough? Why couldn’t I make my life count for something? Why did God give me a dream I would never see come to pass? Was I going to spend the rest of my life on the sidelines, watching God move but never being invited into the game?

I found myself unable to really enter into the family of God. I was too busy comparing myself and my life to everyone around me. Insecurity and inadequacy were my constant companions, preventing me from enjoying the gifts others brought to the table. I had accepted my lot as a second class citizen in the Kingdom.

My vision had been tainted by my experience. I saw that God had two types of children:

Those He was truly proud of and those He simply tolerated.

Those He desired to lavish blessing on and those for whom He provided the bare minimum.

Those who walked in His favor and those who walked in the shadow cast by their siblings.

Those who mattered and those who merely existed.

I tried to overcome my orphan mentality. I tried to believe what the Word said about who I was. I tried to explain it away every time I saw someone walk in the blessing I was seeking. I tried to love God even though He treated me like an unwanted step child instead of a chosen daughter. But my efforts failed.

Nothing I said or did seemed to get my Father’s attention. My broken heart did not seem to break His. My desperate cries fell on deaf ears. My longing was left unfulfilled. My requests were overlooked. I did not belong in this family. God did not choose me, He was stuck with me.

I wish I could tell you that God broke into my life in a powerful, dramatic way and set me free from the prison of my heart and mind. I would love to say that I never struggle with feeling overlooked anymore. If I could, I would share how God released me fully into everything I have been waiting for and I have never looked back.

I can not say any of that. What I can say is that day by day, little by little, my heavenly Father is whispering in my ear about who I am. He is speaking truth into a minefield of lies. Some wounds are deeper than others. Some have been there longer. Some are proving to be more difficult to heal.

Now, I know that I am chosen. I know that I am loved. I may not be walking in everything I have been hoping for, but I am walking in the unfailing love of the One who created me. I am beginning to believe that what He brings is His best, even if it is not what I would have chosen. I am daring to step into the arena and connect with my brothers and sisters again. I am choosing to live like I belong here.

Do you feel like a Kingdom outcast today? Listen to the quiet voice in your heart, telling you: ‘you are chosen, you are loved, you are mine’. Nothing else matters.

Are You Okay?

Are you okay mom? That is becoming a regular question around my home lately as my daughter is noticing that I have just not been myself. Many days, I feel as though I am losing the battle with fear, discouragement and condemnation. Struggles I long believed to have gained victory over have returned to the surface of my heart and mind with a vengeance, often leaving me weak and overwhelmed.

In these moments, every well meaning yet ultimately fruitless piece of advice I have been given over the years begins to run through my mind:

“When the battle is hardest, that is when you must press in to take hold of your victory”.

“You just need to read the Word more.”

“There is a lesson to be learned in this.”

“Maybe you have opened a door to the enemy.”

“I know a formula to break free from the curse you are under.”

“You should take this program, it worked when I was struggling.”

“You wouldn’t be facing this much opposition if you were not heading in the right direction.”

“It is a timing thing.”

“You need to change your heart.”

“If God was going to do it, he would have done it by now.”

And on and on the list goes. The result? I am confused and even more hopeless than I was to begin with. Is there some truth to these words? Perhaps. But I know one thing to be true: when I begin working myself into a frenzy to try and find the solution, I end up frustrated and, often times, angry with God for not coming to my rescue.

When I think He should be speaking clearly, He remains silent. When I seek answers, I am faced with more questions. When I believe my answer is on the way, I am met with yet another season of waiting. The days, months and years pass and still I am left longing for a breakthrough that seems more unattainable now than it ever has.

I don’t need Sunday school answers. I will not be set free by a formula. Answers offered in these times are often offered only because there is nothing else to say.

What do I need?

I need to wrestle with God. I need to ask the difficult and painful questions and find out if I am content with never getting the answers I am looking for. I need to face my fear. I need to look years of guilt and regret in the face and decide if I will continue to dwell or pick up and move on.

I need to settle in my own heart the issue of the goodness of God. If I never get what I long for, is God still good? Has he allowed me to waste ten years of my life hoping and waiting for a promise that was never mine to have? Is He truly willing to take the rubble of my life and turn it into something worth living for? Or has He withheld everything good from me?

I need to stop looking to people to fix me. I am not broken. I am not a project. I am a child of God. I struggle. I fail. I cry. I doubt. I judge. I quit. I screw up. And deep down, I hope.

I hope that I have not fallen too far to be redeemed. I hope that despite appearances and the opinions of others, my dreams will still come true. I hope that all the waiting and trying and struggling have not been in vain. I hope that breakthrough, as far off as it seems, has not eluded me.

Am I okay? As long as I never quit wrestling, I will always be okay.

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Waiting Sucks…Is It Worth It?

You’re still reading so I can only assume that, like me, you are fed up with being robbed of the best experiences life has to offer just because you can’t have everything you want exactly when you want it. I also gather that you desire change; to begin transforming from a broken, bitter shell of who you were meant to be to the real thing. Dreams, desires and future intact. To have hope restored to your heart even if your circumstances remain unchanged. To realize that much of life is spent waiting so you might as well learn how to do it well. Maybe even with a little joy. To do that, you will need to take a journey. There will be questions you need to ask yourself and you will be required to answer them honestly. If you are not happy with the answers, you will have to work to change them.

We all have to wait. We have to wait for our food to cook before we can eat it. We have to wait to turn 16 before we can drive. We wait in lines at amusement parks, grocery stories and movie theaters. If we really need or want something, we will wait for it. That becomes the deciding factor for all of us on the path to pursuing our dreams. Do we desire what we claim to desire enough to wait for it? If your answer is no, that’s ok. You should probably take that as an indication that there is something else out there for you that you really believe is worth pursuing with everything you are and everything you have no matter how long you have to wait or how many obstacles get thrown in your path. If you do not have that resolve in your heart, the waiting process will wear you down. So before you move on, answer a few questions

1. Do you believe that your dream is from God? The Bible says that God will give us the desires of our hearts but we need to realize the condition is that we delight ourselves in him first. When we truly delight in Him, we begin to desire that which He desires for us. Many dreams and desires are clearly what He would desire. Healing, salvation for loved ones and restored relationships to name a few. But then there are those that are not so black and white. Do I adopt or keep trying to have a baby? Am I really called to be a Pastor, writer, singer, teacher, politician etc? If you have truly submitted your dreams to God and still have a strong longing to see them come to fruition, keeping praying for them and following His leadership.
2. Is your dream of God? When you picture yourself living the dream, is everything about it pointing to God? Is the glory His? Selfish dreams lead to selfish lives. We were created for the glory of God and everything He calls us to do needs to be about Him.
3. Is your dream for God? There is nothing that we could ever do, no matter how big our dream is to repay God. But He does ask us to partner with Him for the sake of His dream. A passionate, pure church, children who follow Him wholeheartedly and a world that is being offered hope through Christ. Is your dream for Him or for you?

These are not always easy questions to answer and they might take some time. They are worth mulling over even if you are not proud of the answers you come up with. Realizing that my vision for my life was largely about me is a big part of what caused me to examine the path I was on and allow God to give me dream that was really worth waiting for.

Waiting Sucks…Don’t Make It Worse

Waiting can have a strange effect on people. Depending on our personalities and how we choose to deal with it, we can end up in the best place of our lives or the worst. We can be tested in the place of waiting and be found to be faithful and persistent or we can quit, get bitter and betray our passions. I have reacted in all of the preceding ways. In the midst of certain seasons in my life, I have become almost unrecognizable to myself and others. I have allowed jealousy, bitterness and doubt to creep in and take over. My self pity was disgusting even to me. It was impossible for me to enjoy the talents of others without asking “What about me?” I refused to attend events, conferences or services because I couldn’t handle the fact that someone else was speaking and I wasn’t. I know, it makes me sound like a spoiled rotten twelve year old who refuses to attend a birthday party because the person throwing it wouldn’t come to mine. Sadly, however, that was my life for longer than I care to admit.

Maybe for you, the effect waiting has had is more subtle. Maybe you are a bigger person than me and have handled it with more grace and maturity. Outwardly. You still attend the birthday parties of your children’s friends even though you remain childless. You smile, take pictures and bring gifts all the while feeling empty and inadequate. You have watched as friend after friend has walked blissfully down the aisle. You wish them well, welcome their new love into your circle of friends and then go home and cry yourself to sleep, wondering why no one has chosen you. You congratulate your siblings when they get promoted at work. You tell them you are happy for them and always knew they had it in them to be a real success in life. You say they deserve the big house, the new cars, the exotic trips. Then you go home, look around your tiny, cluttered home and think to yourself “I deserve it so much more than her. I work harder, sacrifice more and I am better person all the way around. Why can’t I catch a break like that?” It’s shocking to see it in black in white, isn’t it?

I know the feeling. I will never forget what it felt like to have God begin to reveal the true state of my heart to me. When I began to realize who I was becoming, it broke my heart. How much time had I wasted being miserable? How much did I miss out on? Did my lousy attitude extend my waiting period? Could others see how selfish and unhappy I was? I blamed God for my lack of success and began to grow cold towards him. I was letting the most important relationships in my life slip away. I was so far from the person I wanted to be that I had no idea how to get back. Slowly, though, I am getting back. I am passionate about God again. I can enjoy the gifts others bring to the party. I don’t wake up aching every single morning. Jealousy and bitterness are no longer my constant companions. It isn’t easy but it’s worth it. First, though, I had to get fed up with living the way I was. If you are fed up with being a miserable waiter, read tomorrow and start the road to recovery.

Waiting Sucks…Dream Anyway

No matter how many times I tell myself that the opinions of others don’t matter and that I do not need their approval, there is always a little part of me that hopes to be thought well of and supported by others anyway. After all, as a writer and speaker it will be a little difficult for me to make any progress or break any ground if no one likes me. Would you go listen to someone you can’t stand tell you how to live? I didn’t think so. However, on the days that I choose to focus on my seemingly endless line of people who have rejected or overlooked me, I tend to slip down into a place of hopelessness and sadness. I wonder what is wrong with me that others do not seem to see the value in who I am and what I offer. Why will they support the speaker in the next city over who basically has the same message as I do? Why doesn’t the phone ring? Where are all the emails inviting me to speak at this conference or that camp? What is it going to take to get my foot in the door?

Sound familiar? If you are a musician, artist or speaker with a call on your life and a burning desire to reach your church, community or nation with the message God has given you, I have no doubt that you have felt this way at one time or another. Maybe you have even given up the hope of ever seeing your dreams fulfilled as year after year, others who are younger, less experienced and have not waited or worked for it nearly as long as you have are finding their place and developing their platform. Doors are opening to them that you could only dream of and while you wish you could be happy for them, you’re not. You are discouraged, disappointed and possibly even fearful. You have waited for so long, prayed so hard, worked so diligently and dreamed so freely. Was it all for nothing?

I have felt every one of those emotions and asked every one of those questions. To this day many of them remained unanswered. The thing about a dream (any dream worth dreaming, any way), is that it will require risk on your part. If you have been waiting and it still has not come, do not grow discouraged or fearful. The One who promised is faithful. If you have prayed through it, trusted God with it and surrendered it, you will see it if you do not give up. How do I know? Because even though I am still waiting to see mine come, I know that the dreams I have are from God, of God and for God. If you can say the same, it is worth waiting for. God will bring those who need your message into your life at exactly the right time and all the time you spent longing for your dream will be a memory. Dreaming the right dream is always worth it.  Favor will be yours and you will leave a mark that can not be erased. Keep dreaming.

Waiting on God is not a favorite topic, but it is a necessary one. Next week I will be continuing the series Waiting Sucks…If you have been waiting for what seems like forever to see God move, join me and I will do my best to share with you everything He has taught me (some things I really would have rather not learned) in the place of waiting.