KICKING AND SCREAMING
Our repetitive behaviors teach us things about ourselves if we’re brave enough to see.
I have to admit that every single time God is trying to tell me something, my initial reaction is to resist. And it is in that resistance, the height of it really, when the revelation comes that this is not some random moment but a call, a refining moment that has potential for eternal greatness.
I am in the center of a Kicking and Screaming moment now. And I believe you may be too.
Over the last fifteen days I have sought peace in the beauty of the performance of Psalm 34 by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, hundreds of voices joining in the declaration of grace. Yet, even as that assembly of believers seems so powerfully certain and sure, I can’t help thinking that every single person in the room is going through something that sometimes makes them question, even just a little, even with their voices raised.
The room of Consternation is a crowded one.
Pain is not a competition. The things we go through are not big or small…but ours.
To compare our trials, even for a moment with another, disturbs the momentum of healing and revelation that has been set in motion as a singular journey within our own personal destiny.
As a branding expert in my former life, I am compelled to create a title [of sorts] for what is ahead for me. I am calling it, “My free fall encounter with the living God.”
Are you experiencing what feels like a free fall? You are not in it alone. In fact, I am willing to bet that this experience you are pushing through, or away, has actually been orchestrated for your benefit.
My kicking and screaming may be necessary for a moment, but how fast I choose to lean into what is intended determines the pace at which I reach my own personal victory.
Like me, you may be enduring a long season of waiting for something to happen. A shift is coming. Its form may not be to your liking and your initial response may be to look or walk away. But when the work begins there is no stopping it…its pace, the one that feels excruciatingly impossible to match in spirit and agreement, is the first signal that God is in it.
Kicking and screaming is the natural response to the cart that has been pushed over.
Our bounty, the one we have been so careful to assemble, sometimes spills and scatters to the ground. But do not waste those precious first moments attempting to gather all the pieces of what has been lost. Instead, let these words resonate, “Behold, I am doing a new thing.”
Whatever you do, don’t let fear make you hesitate—
the things of the world you value or hold most dear will not be stripped away but rather the desire for them will be replaced with something altogether unexpected and extraordinary. This is the essence of Sanctuary Living.