Lately in the McClarren household, things have been hectic. Not a constant obvious type hectic, but Teagan and I's life has been in a state of slow ongoing tumult. In the time while I have been away (internet presence-wise) Teagan and I have dealt with a very sick puppy, less than fair treatment by our last landlord, a slight job change, loss of privacy, and just general transition. If there ever was a proverbial fan, in April, it was being hit with some difficult stuff. It has been tough, testing, and most of all, tiring. But I realize now that what we have been doing is going through our own personal Exodus.
In many areas in our lives, it was time to move on. Our house was okay, but we were quickly growing out of it. Teagan's job was also, okay, but it was becoming a wrong fit. Two (just two that I have mentioned) rather important things in our lives were becoming less and less of a fit until it was simply time to be done with them. In hindsight, even though it as been a tough transition, I can clearly identify the "Pharaohs" that were over us in our lives. It is obvious that we were merely existing, rather than living in God's best.
Even though the time that we have been going through has brought about many good things, it has been difficult. Having to live with in laws until the house you've found is available is difficult. Even when you have in laws as awesome as Teagan and I do, it is still tough to be uprooted from your nice, personalized, private abode and thrust into someone else's house. Having to switch jobs, even when it is the best thing for you, presents a whole new list of challenges that had never even crossed your mind. Transition is tough. But because of what Jesus did on the cross, we can still be more than conquerers.
So where does that leave those of us who are in the midst of our Exodus? It's tough, yes. But coming to terms with the light of your situation does little to help it. I have found out firsthand that if all we do is relish in the satisfaction of the fact that we are indeed going through something, we will soon meet the twin brother of admitting difficulty: self pity. So in an attempt to help us all avoid or get out of a transitional funk, here are some things that I have discovered while having my life dumped out like a messy purse in need of organizing:
A Crash Course for Your Exodus
1. Abandon the Need to Analyze Everything
If you're anything like me, you prefer to be multiple steps ahead of any given situation. This, of course, is a rather unachievable attitude to have given the sporadic way that life dances. That's not to say that planning in general in your life isn't good, but you can't out plan your entire life. There will be some things that hit that you will have had no way of predicting or planning for aside from God. When things that you weren't prepared for happen, our only choice is to lean into God for provision and guidance. You can either trust and rely on God's strength rather than your own, or you can do as I was tempted to do many days and try to figure out why all of this was happening.
Don't try to figure out the why. We live in a fallen world. Sin has entered the world because man, who has free will, chose sin. Things will likely happen, and when they do, the liar will try to convince you that only someone worthy of guilt and shame would be going through what you are going through. Don't believe any of that. It is a lie. God sees us a righteous. We are under his grace.
2. Take Time for Rest
When going through a time of rather difficult transition, it is easy to become physically and emotionally exhausted. We are creatures of habit, and when our habits are disrupted, it is difficult to find a way back to the regular swing of things. But God is, or at least should be, our source, and he will provide spiritual, emotional rest and restoration. In Psalms, David gives us picture after picture of what it is to wait and rest in the Lord. Psalm 62:5-7 says,
"5 For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
6 He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
7 On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God."
Let me tell you, if you are weary from your current situation, the way to gain back energy and emotional strength is to stay rooted in God. Isaiah 40:29 says, "He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength." Psalms 34:18 reads, "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." God is in the business of refreshing those who are beat down by the world.
If you are feeling tattered and worn by the journey that you have been on, plug into God. Get in the word and allow yourself to be built up by the truths about who he is and what he has done for you. True restoration is from God alone. Real strength for life's journeys is found only in our Father Creator. Don't be fooled by claims or ideas that tell you that that extra hour of sleep, that extra cup of coffee, that time at the gym is what will do it for you. Get filled up on the life changing truth of the word, then go on your workout.
3. It's Time to Exercise Real Trust in God
Trusting God is hard. Things that you see and hear often skew contrary to the word of God. Even people in church sometimes will lend themselves to the deceiver as tools to convince you that you are down and out for the count. How many times do we hear gloom and doom passed around a conversation as if it were salt at the table? But we are in God's reality. We are redeemed and can walk in the supernatural provision that God has.
When Teagan and I got the notice of non renewal (landlord speak to get out in the next two months) it would have been easy to really break down and consider ourselves done. In the natural we were about to be homeless. The house that we had applied to (and gotten. Yay!) would not be available until August. A full two months away from the date that we had to be out of our house. We were going to need to find some way to house not only ourselves, but also two dogs, a cat, and a house-worth of possessions.
But God was at work. While our landlord was being given to his pride (the notice was signed the same day that our past-landlord received the call from the house that we wanted asking about what kind of tenants we were. What a coincidence!) God was using the situation to his glory. We were able to rapidly, and I mean in the course of one Sunday evening, move into my in law's house where we would be able to stay and save for several months. What was meant for our destruction was turned back around and ended up benefiting us!
And while I would love to say that in all this time I have been one hundred percent on track with trusting whole heartedly in the Lord, I must admit that there were some stressful unsure times along the way. But God's grace is enough. Not your money, your strength, your power, or your level headedness is enough- but God's grace is enough. Whenever my heart is weighed down, and I feel like a whole has been worn in my trust, I know that all I have to do is ask for help. In that moment, God will fill us up so that we are able to do the one thing that we can do, be still and know that he is God.
4. Resist the Urge to Complain and Become Short Sighted
Even when change is good, it can also be very hard. The discomfort of transition is why most people don't get past a certain point in their life, but what everyone else has is not what God has planned for our lives. God has so much more than we can even imagine planned for us. And it is going to take trusting and leaning in him to get where he desires us to be. So when God takes us out of situations that are less than his best (i.e. your own personal Egypt), we may be tempted to follow in the footsteps of the Israelites and whine to be allowed back to the place God purposefully brought us out of.
Exodus 16: 2-3 reads, "2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 3 and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” They had been slaves in Egypt! The Israelite people had been oppressed. There was even a law in Egypt that any baby boy born to them must be killed! And yet, they could not see far enough past the hunger that they were experiencing to notice that they were finally a free people. We mustn't let the our current trouble drown out the miracle that God just performed in our lives.
But let us not consider ourselves so above the Israelites. There have been many times that I have been tempted to long for what I have left because my current situation was less than ideal. Friends, sometimes we will experience a time of transition before we get to what God ultimately wants us to have. It may feel out of place, awkward, and even a little painful at times. The past may appear to glean more brightly than the present. But God is always with us, and he will provide all that we need. Complaining and taking our eyes off of God will only prolong the experience. Keep your mind on what God has done, and what his word says that he will do. Know who God is. Know who you are in Christ! We are more than conquerors through Christ. No "wilderness situation" can ever cancel out who we are in Christ.
5. Praise God
Praise points our attention back to God, and it wins warfare in the spiritual realms. We must praise while we are in the midst of the situation that we would like to be able to walk out of instead of waiting until we feel like their is something worthy of thanksgiving and praise. When we give God the glory instead of meditating on exactly what mountain it is that we are dealing with in our lives, those mountains have a tendency to get thrown into the sea.
Psalm 8:2 says,
" Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger."
Giving God the glory while we are sill in the wilderness is powerful. When you feel like you have given it all that you have, and things are still not budging, invite the miraculous realms of God's presence by taking the time to praise.
6. Let Go
Because of the time of exodus that Teagan and I have been going through, I have had my eyes opened to the many objects, people, or activities I had been relying on instead of God. When I took a break from writing, I slowly sank into a state of confusion and turmoil. This, as the Holy Spirit had revealed to me, was because I was trying to get my joy and peace from writing instead of God. I felt like God had called me to write, which I still believe he had, but I had entered into a place where if I didn't write, I felt guilty.
Finally, one Sunday morning, after a few weeks of pitiful moping, God spoke to me saying that he still delighted in me, and I still was able to approach the throne boldly. It was like someone turned the lights back on inside of me! I knew that all of that was true, but I was not letting myself accept it for my own personal life. Because of the change in my life, I was able to take a step back and realize that I was not walking as someone who was free. When all the distractions were gone as my life experienced being stripped down, God was finally able to pierce through my busy day to day and speak life into the places where I had gradually filed his goodness away.
Transition has a way of doing that. I was lamenting to my husband not too long ago about how stressed out I had become. "My life feels like a purse that has been dumped out", I whined. After verbally worrying a little more to Teagan, he pointed out that maybe it was time that things were a little less in my control and more in God's. Ouch, hubby! (God picked a keeper, now didn't he?)
Isn't that so true, though? When everything is in our control and under our command, it can feel very safe. But safe is all it tends to be. A life of caution is alluring, but it leaves out God. When we leave out God, we stop progressing. We become still, and eventually stagnant. Don't do what I did and continue to grasp so tightly to what you do have that all life is squeezed out of it. Seek God, and when he puts something on your heart that feels too out of control to even attempt, go for it. Let God reveal to you what can be abandoned during your Exodus.
7. Find Your All in God
This is probably one that you have heard before. Maybe you have heard it so many times that it no longer holds meaning. But finding your all in God really meets the road when you come face to face with a situation that saps you of your joy and peace. Being rooted in God is not necessarily about how you feel when you're in a time of peace. Our reliance on God is most evident when we find ourselves in situations in which, if we don't have peace and joy from God, we will have none at all.
If you are feeling absolutely drained of all joy and peace, get in the word. Look up verses about who God is. Spend time reading and listening to the word. Fill yourself up. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says,
whose trust is the Lord.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”"
Send your roots out into the stream. Be constantly planted by the river of God's word. The word of God is not just words either. In a society that is constantly on the internet, we are bombarded with an onslaught of texts and articles. But God's word is not like the other mere literature that we read. The word of God is full of mountain moving, world creating power! Hebrews 4: 12 says, "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Do you feel like you are running below empty? Fill up. Read the word of God.
My exodus has not been quite as hectic as the one depicted in the Bible, but it has not been a cake walk. God has been teaching me and refining me throughout this entire time. It is a wonderful process, but at the same time, it is a trying one. All in all, if you find yourself in similar circumstances, remember that you are not alone. God is always with us waiting for us to ask for help. We don't need to despair, and we don't have to loose hope. God does have great things in store for absolutely every single one of us. We are more than conquerors, we can approach the throne, and we are righteous through Christ! Situations may be tough, but we are not overcome. So if we feel like our options are exhausted, with slavery behind us and hunger ahead of us, all we really need to do is be still and know that he is God. He is mighty, and mighty to deliver us.
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Thank you for taking the time to read! Have you experienced an exodus season of your own? I would love to hear your thoughts! If you'd like to receive more Scrawltastic, then what doth hinder you? Subscribe by email, or find me on Facebook! I would love to get to know you!
All in all, you must know that you are loved, and you never have to spruce up for God!
Have a great Wednesday!
