It's a reasonable question.
It's been well over a month since we made the news of our move official to the public; and far longer than that since God spoke the direction over us and we committed to follow.
We heard a clear command, and took definitive steps - we've been saying goodbyes; we listed our house for sale; I stepped down from my role leading the student ministry that I love so much; and we announced to all the earth ... God said go.
Because He did.
But in the days and weeks following His Word over our next season - there has been far more stillness and anticipation than there has been action and movement.
We naturally long for direction to be immediately met by opportunity and big action;
but far more frequently we find that it's met by stillness and quiet preparation.
What we see in and throughout scripture is that there is quite often a period of time between the anointing and the appointing.
Often times; people are given a glimpse of the path being prepared ahead of them - but then there's this space between the glimpse, and the grasp.
There's a pause between the reveal, and the release.
Many times, it isn't immediate...and I believe that is intentional.
David was a shepherd boy, and God anointed Him as the future king of Israel.
But it was 15 years between the anointing and the appointing.
God gave Joseph a vision in a dream about the position of influence and authority he would have one day, and how his brothers would bow.
But it was 14 years between the dream and the delivery.
The list goes on, all throughout various accounts of the character of God on display in the lives of His people.
And we see the pattern further here and now in our daily lives.
In His grace, He lets us in on pieces of direction and small sightings of what is to come,
AND in His grace - He doesn't give it to us all at once.
We get to experience the blessing and the gift of waiting, often uncomfortably, on the hand of God.
For us - there has been infinitely more discomfort in this season than there has been apparent movement;
Where we had anticipated a quick shift of focus from here to there -
Instead we have found a holding space,
A time of being no longer where we were, of being removed from what had been so comfortable and so good for so long... but not yet brought to what we know is ahead. Just caught in-between.
In a place of listening;
of being humbled;
of being taught new lessons and reminded of old ones.
And I've found myself so torn in emotion over what the last couple months have held -
constantly resisting the time of "pause" in my flesh, while simultaneously soaking it up with wonder in my spirit.
I find myself both wanting to rush ahead, and also never wanting to leave this moment.
The waiting space is hard, and fruitful.
It's uncomfortable, and full of glory.
It's confusing, and unknown, and it rips from us absolutely all illusion of control -
And that is it's greatest provision.
Never in my life, have I experienced a greater understanding of my dependency on the God who gives and sustains life - than as I sit in this place of waiting and realize that it is Him alone who opens and closes doors, and that with as many things as can go wrong; He is the ONLY way that anything goes right.
My dependency is fully on Him.
Never have I stood so amazed by His magnitude and His grandeur, and never have I fully understood just how much this life is NOT about me - as I have while I spent the last several weeks studying His Word while looking at my circumstances and surroundings. The contrast is bold.
When you begin to realize even the slightest portions of the fullness of a perfect, holy, and eternal God...who always has been, is, and always will be - it highlights your own smallness.
When you read of the environment of worship happening in this very moment around His throne in Heaven.... the fact that He desires our hearts and our hallelujahs... it's mind-blowing.
There's just this crazy perspective shift that happens when we zoom out from looking at life with ourselves as the center, and recognize that all things are created for Him and by Him.
We don't even get our next breath, unless He allows it.
All goodness from Him and all brokenness in His redemptive hands. Nothing outside of His reach.
It's all for His glory and through His power - so how can I even think to make anything about myself?
My life is fully about Him.
Dependency, and dying to self are concepts I thought I understood - but I have never realized just how much I didn't get it.
How much I still don't get it. I have so far to go.
Never have I had more opportunity to bask in His sovereignty quite like in this season where fear and uncertainty seem to hide around every. single. corner.
Honestly, I can't begin to recount to you how many ways my heart has fallen into incredibly gripping and deep places of fear over so many different things in this season, as we wait.
Infertility to pregnancy
Serving for Him to sitting before Him
Virginia to Florida
In each transition there's a million more reasons to sing that to fear - but in each transition, somehow, I have found constant new ways or reasons to be afraid.
I had no idea just how much my heart had listened to fear for so very long, that it had become habit - and toxic - like a cancer deep in my bones.
And I think that's secretly why we, as humans, hate waiting -
because waiting often comes with stillness
and stillness comes with silence
and silence gives us space to listen
and when we listen we find that our ears and hearts have been tuned in to lies, to fear, to doubt, to self-focus, to self-hatred, to insecurity, and to the world around us - and we have completely tuned out the voice of God.
Worse - as we hear those outside voices, we can convince ourselves we are still listening to Him...
Sometimes, without conscious acknowledgement, our motives are so self seeking and our hearts so set after the gifts instead of the giver - that it is easy to think we are following His voice, but in truth, we have been leading ourselves astray and listening to a source other than His perfect truth over us.
but then..
Waiting, stillness, silence -
This place magnifies whatever voice we have turned our ears to; and so we hate waiting... because we hate recognizing that the voice we are most connected to, is often not one we were built to receive.
It goes against the grains created in our souls and it grates on our humanity and it feels uncomfortable, as we are sanded down and reshaped and refined for His purposes.
So, the absolute beauty between the anointing and the appointing - is the opportunity to change the source of your reception, to re-tune your heart, and to re-train your mind where to find truth.
That way, when we are brought out of the holding space;
we are built in the moments of stillness, rather than burdened by them.
And through His power and His process of making us new - we are ready then, prepared, for whatever is ahead in the season we are led to.
So to answer your question -
I have no idea when we are moving.
It could be weeks, it could be months.
And that statement used to drive me crazy (honesty - it still does many days)
But I'm also learning that whatever period of time we are held in the waiting, it is weighty - not wasted.
It has eternal purpose, and I require it in order to be made a vessel and an acceptable offering for His Kingdom.
The gift of the promise doesn't get fulfilled without the experience of the preparation - they are a package deal; one that requires obedience and surrender.
So far, we are at two and a half months in this stillness -
We said our official "yes" to God towards the end of July of this year.
And there's been a lot of circumstantial reasons it has taken this long, but what it all boils down to is - it has not been within the will and timing of God to release us from the holding place just yet.
So we wait - and, as we wait, we petition Him to teach us how to be faithful stewards of the time that we feel confused by and anxious to move past.
We plead to learn how to celebrate it and let it lead us to deeper habits of true worship.
Of clearer perspective that is eternal rather than self focused and fleeting.
We fail, we are redeemed, refreshed, and we seek Him all the more.
Here, in Florida, in ministry, in motherhood, in finances, in jobs, in much and in little all the same. The highs, the lows, and in all the places in between -
I'll gladly wait forever if it provides more opportunity to see less of myself and more of Him.
To know Him deeper.
Nothing else will do.
