I have encountered far too many people over the years that are living beneath the dignity of their calling. Like an invisible chain connecting them to their past, life is going on without them. All around people they know and interact with daily are growing and progressing. They, on the other hand, are get passed. They are not stepping up they way they need to and everybody knows it.
I often wonder how it happens. Is it the frustration of a delayed dream that becomes so overwhelming they quit? Did they just not have enough grit in them to stand up and fight? They didn’t get “picked,” so they stopped? Others did not open the doors for them that were promised? Were they mistreated or misrepresented? Did they think it would be easier than it actually is?
Then it hit me.
Usually, it is not the external factors that tranquilize passion, but the internal ones. I am now convinced that most problems stem from unresolved pain that we do not process correctly. It is not about what happened to you; it’s about how you handled what happened to you. We avoid it, or ignore it, or meditate on it, or get angry about it, etc. The responses are various and sundry. But the point is, we do whatever we have to in order to keep from staring it in the eye and dealing with it.
Instead, we pack it in. We hide it. The only problem is, pain cannot be hidden for very long. It starts coming out in all kinds of ways. Everything in your life goes south since your last traumatic event, and you don’t know why. Your entire persona is the outworking of something internal; be it good or bad.
Here is the bottom line: you cannot change what you will not confront, and you cannot confront what you will not identify.
Instead of pretending to be strong and avoiding it, instead of burying it in your memory and calling it “forgiveness,” instead of blaming others… look it in the eye. It’s time to deal with it. It’s time to be honest and say that traumatic experience rocked your world, and you haven’t recovered. They hurt you so deep, you were so disappointed, you feel so jaded, etc.
Then take it to God, with remarkable candor, and get yourself set free. Quit waiting on a word or a service, and for sure don’t use it as justification for being critical or carnal. Go to your prayer closet. Face it, then replace it. Your destiny is waiting on you.
So, what’s holding YOU back?
This is confirmation for me for recent events in my life past month.
Thank you.
Glad it helped you. Face it, then replace it ;) Be blessed as you move forward!
Do you ever begin to read a man’s revelation and think, I know someone this would apply to! And then God reveals that YOUR the person this applys to? Thanks for the iron :)
Glad it helped sharpen you Ian. Stay in the fire.
Thank you…
Such a good word. Thanks for sharing!
As always, a great word brother. This really really hit home for me. I let a lot of frustration and bitterness about rejection, not being used to my fullest potential, and having to juggle time with 90 percent of things that I didn’t really want to do. This is a realization I had to come to in order to get my life straightened out and be back on the right track. God knows exactly what He is doing and when it’s time for God to move you to your next level, He is going to do it because He will give you favor with the people you need favor with in order to move you. Sometimes we just have to be taught that it’s in the secret place where nobody knows our name or face that we are really being developed. Even in the house of Potiphar, in slavery, and in prison, Joseph remained faithful to God, maintained his integrity, and was true to who God made him to be. Thanks for the great word and God bless you and your ministry at the Ramp and elsewhere.
Gotta just love it when God uses EVERYTHING to push you out of your comfort zone, even a blog. So, I have faced the pain that was holding me back…took a really long, hard year to do that…but I am moving forward thanks to people who keep pouring into me when those that caused the pain to begin with had walked out long ago. Now I find myself having to learn things like trust…in people, in God mostly…whew…talk about scary. BUT…I am also learning more and more that God CAN be trusted, even if things get tough or don’t look “good”…because He defines good and He sees the other side of it all! So, with that I just want to take another step toward everything I am in God! Thanks for the insight…because of it I can see how far I really have come this past year!
This is so amazing! Exactly where I am at in my life! Thank you!