Peace.
I think we have been fooled. Our culture has led us astray for so long that we have been tricked into believing what we need to seek is peace when in reality we are seeking rest from the choices we made in our lack of maturity. Our lack of maturity is the belief that we are called to become something more than what we are at a pace that was too rapid for the blessings God desires for us. Making us bypass the walk of God that would allow us the maturity to be able to not just receive but hold and care for the blessings God wanted us to have.
In bypassing parts of the walk, we miss opportunities to develop key elements within ourselves to maintain what is needed so that blessings we were promised now do not become potential burdens.
I hear a lot of talk about manifestations. This is no different than what I’m describing. We “manifest” something into our lives, thinking it will give us happiness, and it does for a while. Then we are met with the responsibility of what it takes to actually maintain what we desired for. In other words we are humbled. Most miss the humbling due to our ignorance -an unnoticed part of the process where we don’t or can’t see what we missed. And then we try again and again, missing the point so many times that what should have or could have been a blessing now becomes a burden ultimately leading to deeper disappointments.
This is the curse of “seeking peace”.
What we don’t realize is in our searching for peace that this is the humbling process and where what you think is a place of respite is actually a place for healing. Here’s the trick, we encourage one another to seek peace but then shift gears into settling in too soon by seeking something less than what God wanted for us. So what you think was peace is actually rest (from your own ignorance). When we rest you are supposed to be filling your cup and seeking mature clarity, healing, and then new growth with respect to what God told you.
Unfortunately most of you won’t be able acknowledge the emptiness that was driving you because it was a sense of motivation from an unresolved place in your heart. And we as a culture praise motivation as if it’s passion. It is on some contexts but without first acknowledging if this is an emptiness or a blessing we get mis directed. The answer is it’s both! Which is what creates disappointment and dissatisfaction that causes you to seek peace. Here is where your heart posture is important, most times after you’ve become resentful in the chase to go get your blessings you experience loss and forget to check in with God, and instead with you lack of wisdom creating more losses. Then this feeling of entitlement creeps in and it’s a subtle slow death to your heart’s posture.
You can’t feel entitlement but you can hear it in your story as to why you feel deserving of your blessings. It usually sounds like a suffering compromise rather than a sacrificial growth. It’s a sneaky lie. And humbling yourself in a peaceful place exposes that.
Sometimes “peace” means mourning. Mourning your old ideas your old ways of thinking that may have served you in one season of life and because it worked and moved you into a better place or even out of a bad space, you will carry this version of you into your new season and because it got you there (to a new place in life) you won’t recognize that the same thing that saved you is now destroying you in your new place. And this version of YOU is now your enemy keeping you from receiving with the correct heart posture or level of maturity that is required and God wants you to thank this version of yourself, and then let them go because this version of you is killing you blessings.
Most people see it. Self sabotage or destruction is what it is, you see it but can’t reconcile the idea of it because that version of you that was being protective can’t recognize in the place you wanted to feel safe is now, you closing off. You didn’t change, your environment did. But you still feel unsafe because you won’t allow yourself to see what your past version leveraged you to. So you bring them with you and they (which is actually you) is the one killing your peace by being closed off where there is love you wanted. This is why we mourn in our peace.
Here’s is the cultural lie! We are encouraging one another to seek peace by holding our walls up against our hearts rather than letting them down to let God in. And when we don’t let God in we are comfortable with control when we should be letting go so we can be who we need to be for our blessings.
Let me be honest. This is not a comfortable process so we think we are losing peace, but we are losing pieces of ourselves that not longer serve us.
The good news is that there is clarity and comfort on the backside, when we do the work to see what is on our hearts. And that is what brings us to our blessings. Not manifest it towards us. (There is a difference!)
Each person’s process and walk is a different one based on their on their own personal needs. Some may mourn longer needing time to shed tears and heaviness, while others may figure it out one day at a time. Grieving isn’t on a timeline, it is a walk into a new life. One worth living.
“God I pray that anyone seeking peace, seeks you in that place. I pray that they allow themselves to have the courage skip the spiritual bypassing that makes them feel comfortable and seek what you say they need knowing that You are with them all the while. I pray that in the dis-regulated feelings that they experience they know that this is you doing work from within and they have the courage to continue to sit with you as you shake the unnecessary pieces out of them while knowing they are still safe. Help them understand they have not lost themselves (which is the control) but help them understand they are walking with you. Because you do not take control, instead we submit and you give us territory to steward over instead because you trust us. I pray that they have the courage to mourn appropriately understanding that the seed you plant in our hearts is watered and nourished by the tears they fight back. Let them understand it’s what creates new growth and that it is ok to feel. Allow them to release their tears. Touch is Lord. First in our hearts and then others we come into contact with. Allow them to have compassion for themselves, to forgive, to love, to under you God. God be with them and lead them through mourning. Because it is part of peace. Let them know this is called “good mourning”.
Amen
Lead By Wonder 