I'm writing for Five Minute Friday and this week's prompt word is LEAVE.
I've just spent two nights at this beautiful place. It's now a YWAM base but it was a Bible College for decades. For me, it was the place where I first met Jesus, though I'd heard about Him for years as a child.
I was 12 and I got a revelation at this place that I was indeed a sinner and needed Him to save me, so I surrendered my life to Him in this very building.
I came back every summer for a camp, and at 14, in this place, I decided I was going to get serious about being a Christian at school, no easy feat at our high school.
Every summer, I soaked up the fellowship, the sense of family, the teaching, and the haven that it all was from normal life. My normal life was dysfunctional and draining and damaging. This place was my 'safe place'.
Each year, at the end of summer camp, I would leave with such a heavy heart.
I used to think that I was leaving Him behind, that He could only be found in this place or in church or youth group, or where two or three others were gathered.
I wanted this sense of family, belonging, healthy relationships, and His presence, to remain.
But I had to go back. What I didn't realise then, and for a long time afterwards, whenever I would have to leave a place or season of fellowship and 'family', is that HE doesn't leave me.
His presence doesn't leave. He promises to never leave nor forsake us.
For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Heb 13:5
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Ps 91:1
I knew that, in my head, but in my heart I did not. In my heart, I lived 'alone' even in the midst of family responsibilities and surrounded by people, big and little.
My heart was still well and truly walled up because of the damage of abuse and neglect and rejection. I hadn't learnt the secret of abiding in the secret place, because I had my own secret place that I had had to build to survive. You can read here how that became my prison and was eventually surrendered.
This time, driving out that gate, it wasn't hard to leave this place because I didn't leave alone. I know His presence like I never have before. And it's a growing thing, or rather, a deepening thing. It's a deepening knowing, or comprehending, in the innermost place.
.....that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Eph 3:16-19
This time, as I was leaving, there was no heavy heart.
I knew, and I know, that I didn't leave Him behind.
I knew, and I know, that His presence doesn't leave me alone.
I've known loneliness and what it is to be alone, and I'm in a season of 'alone' now, but now I know His presence in the innermost place. He has fought hard to bring me to a place of knowing that I'm not alone, that He never leaves. It was hard won and it was won because He pursued me, relentlessly, like the waves on the shore.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me (pursue, chase me down)
All the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever. Ps 23:6
And this time, it was easy to leave because this time, I left WITH the family He's placed me in.
These beautiful ladies came with me to The Gathering conference near Newcastle. And these beautiful ladies are all dear friends, mentors, sisters - family. And they represent the wider family that God has set this lonely person in. Three of them are married to men who have become my big brothers, one of whom is my pastor. And there are many others in my church family that I get to do life with on a regular basis.
A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows,
Is God in His holy habitation.
God sets the solitary in families;
He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; Ps 68:5-6
He doesn't leave.
But we do. And even after all my aloneness, I have to be intentional about following hard after Him, about pursuing Him, and putting Him first.
Because You have been my help,
Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.
My soul follows close behind You; (follows hard after You)
Your right hand upholds me. Ps 63:7,8
I have to choose not to be merely satisfied with the healing, but to pursue the Healer.
He doesn't leave, but I can and sometimes do. I sometimes get busy, like Martha, and leave my place at His feet, seeking His face and His wisdom and His peace.
We often leave His presence to fulfil our desires with other things, more easily attained but not truly filling or fulfilling.
We leave His presence to serve Him, like Martha.
We leave His presence to avoid conviction.
We leave His presence to be busy with earning a living or just working because it needs doing.
If we leave Him behind then something is wrong with what we're doing or how we're doing it or why we're doing it.
Something is wrong with our understanding of who He is.
Something is wrong with how we want to live our lives - busy and independent of Him.
Something is wrong with our understanding of whose life it is.
Something is wrong with our understanding of what He wants for us.
We don't need to leave His presence. We can and should take His presence with us wherever we go.
We can do it with Him, carrying the yoke He gives us, walking in the rhythms of grace He has for us, doing the work He has given us to do.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matt 11:28-30 MSG
When we do that, we can leave the overwhelm, the loneliness, the pain, the resentments, and so much more, at His feet, and receive instead all He has to give us.
He doesn't leave and we don't have to.
When this broken world is breaking me downWhen my tears and knees both fall to the groundWhen my questions make me doubt You more than everYou remind me that Your answer is always neverNever forgottenNever forsakenNever abandonedNot for a secondI am safe in Your handsAlways and foreverYou're never not workingMy heart is the proofThere's not a broken too broken for YouWill there ever come a day when You're not holding me together?You say never
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