When you invite the Sovereign GOD that created you and knows all about you and your life into a conversation that starts off, “Lord show me what I’m not seeing about me that needs to change …” that says you’re willing to make changes. You admit that what you’re presently doing isn’t working and you’re basically dissatisfied with how things are looking.
Nothing to hide. Fully transparent.
Are you willing to go there?
And quite frankly, Friend, that’s where all hard conversations begin. Whether you are in a place of employment, in the classroom, in a relationship, at the coffee bar or water cooler. By being fully transparent, honest and willing to see things from someone else’s perspective — asking them what they see — is being, well, vulnerable.
Sometimes the mere thought of vulnerability can make the strongest person cringe and shudder.
When allowing the One Who can set our wagon straight and align us with our true purpose (because He planted it in us) and gifts (we’ve got them, but we don’t always recognize them), we are asking for that holy paradigm shift — His Perspective. To choose to only see things through our own limited lens, is to remain stuck.
1 O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
2 You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
3 You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
4 You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
5 You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand! Psalm 139:1-6 NLT
So, here’s the million dollar question: Do you want to get un-stuck?
For many of us, we don’t want to change what we ourselves don’t initiate. In other words, if we don’t see the need to make adjustments, whether in our behavior or treatment of others or our lifestyle habits, or even of our perspective on life in general, we simply disregard the nudging of the Holy Spirit by ignoring or rejecting what we read in the Word. Ouch!
I once heard a preacher say, “We don’t read the Word, it reads us.”
Let that simmer for a bit. What were your initial thoughts when you read those words?
“So, how shall you respond?”
Or did it simply fall flat with you. After all, Friend, if we’re not truly sincere about who we are when the lights go dim and the front door closes — and nobody is looking (or, so we think) — we will think those words pertain to everyone else but us.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. James 1:24-25 ESV
We can deny what we suspect or see of ourselves — and deny what GOD is revealing to us. This one thing we must be prepared to hear: Do you want to be healed? Let me rephrase that: Do you want to be unstuck from your present way of doing and being?
As the Psalmist has declared, GOD knows all even before it happens. He knows the backstory before we confess it. He knows the future because He is GOD and has it all in control. He is fully aware of your situation, the entire story from conception to the grave — because He authored it.
So, why are we reluctant to ask Him to show us where we are missing the mark?
Are we afraid He will ask us to do something we will not want to do? Do we fear that He will point out that habit that has the top priority in our lives is actually ruining our lives? Could it be that we don’t want to get ‘too serious’ about this relationship with Him because it will be viewed as over-the-top among some of our friends? Could we fear losing a relationship with another human being?
Perhaps it’s a matter of keeping our Christian views and lifestyle a ‘private’ issue — unexposed to the viewing world, for fear that we will be rejected or labeled as being overly religious. Did that sting?
Having that hard conversation with GOD leads us first to the doorstep of: “Am I willing to take off more than just my dirty shoes to enter and sit with Him?”
Let’s pause here and ask ourselves this question: “How’s it going for you now? Is what you are doing leading you to a flourishing and growing life? Are you maturing as a Christ Follower?”
Or, are you stuck because you don’t want to bother with change?
Going with the flow may keep the ‘peace’ in temporary circumstances. However, that flow may just lead you further downstream and headed for some rocky collisions. Going with the crowd so that you blend in and don’t cause waves and don’t draw attention to yourself. That compromised response will destroy what little peace you have and tug on you until you change your ways.
8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. James 1:8 NLT
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10 ESV
Getting unstuck may require you to stick out and stand up. It might even ask you to let your living testimony show for all the world to see. You may have to give account of what significance Jesus has in your life. It may even come down to placing a stake in the sand to declare you’re leaving behind some of those old habits and ways that have been sucking the life out of you.
Choose this day whom you will serve. Sound familiar? We either choose to serve the living Christ to Whom we say we belong, or we choose to serve self.
15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Revelations 3:15-16 ESV
I invite you, Sister, to become unstuck and come into the Light. It may sting. Like peeling an onion, there may be tears. And it may require the help of a trusted Christian friend or pastor to point the way. But don’t remain paralyzed in your present conundrum ignoring the life of your soul.
Find that trusted mentor to walk with you through your journey and remain committed to remaining unstuck while sticking to the process of spiritual growth and development in your relationship with the Lord and in the furthering of using your gifts and talents.
For those of us who have lived through this sort of adhesive removal, we know it’s painful. Just as a bandaid that’s been sitting over a wound for too long, it feels like that skin is tearing when it’s peeled off. But the wound needs to breathe in order to heal.
Reach out for opportunity to be freed from the stickiness of trying to please both man and GOD — because you can’t do both.
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 6:24 ESV
As iron sharpens iron, this comes from a friend to a friend. She can honestly say, “Been there, done that, and don’t want you to stay there.”
I love you to Heaven and Back, Girlfriend ~~
LindaRJohnson, TitusTwo Visionary
Titus Two 