Hidden

Hidden is the best way to describe my life right now. It is like God has led my family and I to the outskirts of the desert and put us in a cave and commanded us to wait and be still. “But God!” I scream, “I have so much to offer, so much to do, so much to say. Why must I wait here alone in the dark?” Silence. Nothing. No reason is clear. So here we are in a place of obscurity. To our friends and family we look like failures. We don’t go to a church, we don’t have a lot of friends, we work menial jobs with educations going to waste, we don’t have money, and we’ve drawn out of established ministry. Yes, we do have gifts and talents, intelligence, and the motivation to have all of those things. However, every time we step out in our own strength to pursue what others would expect us to, everything in us dies. So instead, we obey and wait alone in the dark.

As I sit here living a very quiet existence, I can’t help but feel frustrated as I watch others starting businesses and ministries, buying homes, and using the gifts and talents God gave them. It feels like I am a bunch of grapes God left on the vine when every other bunch was picked, made into wine, and poured out for His glory. So have I fallen away? Am I off in my walk with God? Did I do something wrong? In my flesh these misgivings are very real. Yet, in my spirit I know that God is in this hidden place with us teaching us about Him.

His lessons are humbling. He has put me in a place of insignificance yet specifically filled me up with the vision that I am so much more than what I see. He is rending my flesh; violently separating who I am from who I am not. I am bleeding brokenness. I am shattered by blows to the core of it all. What motivates me? Binds me? Skews me? Kills me? God’s hand is grabbing a hold of it and firmly resisting against what resists. If pressure molds the clay, I am a completely new pot. I am transformed by the heat and pressure of trials and dreams deferred. In the hidden place a big God with a big heart has slowed me down enough to love me to life on His terms.

In the eyes of the world we're not a huge success. We have even failed our Christian culture at times. But we chose to give our lives to the Lord and not to the world and to follow where His Spirit leads. So if He leads us into obscurity in the eyes of others will we follow? If He leads us through the darkness without choosing to tell us why or where we are going will we follow? If he leads us down a path of loss and lack will we follow? If he leads us to the hidden place where we go unseen and unrecognized but known by Him will we follow? If this is the test, then yes we will follow because we trust that through this process He will bring forth our purpose in His perfect time. It is in the hidden place where I find that I have become hidden in Him and that makes enduring this quiet solitude worth every moment.

A Blossom in the Desert

If only I could convey the emotion I feel as I start this blog. It has been so long since I've written anything like this. Writing to me isn't necessarily something I do for my own entertainment. It's not for money. It's not for anyone else's sake. When I write it is to connect with my Creator and to intimately process with Him the transformation He began in me when I invited Him into my life. At times my writing is singing Him love songs or pouring out to Him my darkest pain. It's real and raw and violent. It's how I release the gift of God in me.

With that said, it has been three long years since I've written anything besides a few desperate lines here or there recorded in a nearly empty journal. Before this drought started I would regularly pour out thoughts, prophecies and love songs like a torrential rain. But seasons change as we all know and my husband and I have been in a dry place for a while now. It's not that inspiration is lacking. It's just that the inner workings of the Holy Spirit are so deep that the words are hard to draw out.

The desert place with the Lord isn't a popular sermon topic. It is a season of trials and testing, when His voice and presence are nothing but a fond memory, and what used to make our spirits come alive doesn't anymore. It's a time when loss and lack are abundant and we are forced to evaluate what moves us, rules us, and commands our attention. It is a raw and vulnerable place. But if our hearts are open and we are brave enough to endure, it is also a time like no other when the Holy Spirit strips us down to our foundation and builds us back up into Him.

So here I begin writing once again. Seasons are shifting. The desert has started to bloom here and there. It's still sparse but I feel in my spirit its time to release what has been simmering inside me during this tough but rewarding season of deep maturation in the Lord. It's time for me to start processing all that the Lord has shown me and taught me in the desert and it's time for me to start moving forward into the next season: the hidden place.