It's Easier to Say Goodbye

Goodbyes suck.

Even temporary goodbyes are the worst.

Yet it's often easier to say goodbye.

It's easier to say goodbye to the relationship than to try and make it work. It's easier to walk away from a painful situation than to deal with it. It's easier to say goodbye to the dream than chance never seeing it come to fruition. We love quitting. We love walking away because we hate dealing with emotions and feelings.

It's easier to say goodbye to anyone who disagrees with us than to learn to live in the tension of our differences. To learn and grow from one another.

It's easier to say goodbye. Staying can be more painful than leaving. Staying, quite honestly, can suck. And I'm not saying that there's never a time to leave, because there certainly is. How do we know when God is calling us to stay? How do we stay when every fiber of our being is saying to run?

Learn to hear God's voice.

I grew up in the church. I was at church almost every day. I can't even tell you the number of times I was at awana, Bible studies, youth events, Christian concerts, you name it... I've prayed countless empty prayers, waited in the silence. But I never knew God's voice.

You don't listen for voices you don't know.

If a random person called me, I would have no idea who was talking. If one of my friends called me, I would know who it was immediately without an introduction.

Why do we think we should be able to hear God's voice but not spend any time getting to know Him?

Children know the sound of their father's voice. Because children have learned to hear. They've learned their father's voice in the quiet moments together. Through the bedtime stories, the dinner conversations, the quiet evenings at home. And because they learned to hear his voice in those moments, they can pick it out among the noise. They can distinguish their daddy's voice in a crowd.

Are you spending time in the quiet learning His voice? Spending time in His word, the bedtime story moments with Him. Sharing a meal with Him. Spending quiet evenings together?

Because here is the reality of it.

It will get loud. 

The world is loud. But even more so, our thoughts are loud. Our wants are loud. Our feelings are loud. You need to learn His voice to be able to hear it in those moments. When everything in you screams to run, you need to be able to hear when God says "stay."

One of the hardest things to learn is to distinguish His voice from our feelings. Just because we feel strongly about something, does not mean that it is from God. Don't make decisions from that place. Take the time to step away and get clarity. Take the time to get an answer you may not want to hear. To say, "Okay God, this doesn't feel good. This doesn't feel right. I want to run. I want to just say goodbye... But if you say to stay, I am willing to press into the pain. I'm willing to put forth the effort." If you're spending time with Him outside of those moments, you'll learn to know His voice.

I've run from things my whole life. I don't like emotions, I don't like feeling. The past couple years I've gotten to this place of realizing that I can't live my life running. I don't want to live in this apathetic world. So I have stayed. And I've pressed in. I've learned to focus in on the one voice that matters.

In the moments when my mind refuses to stay, when my body tenses up and starts shutting down, now I can hear His voice. I can hear Him say, "Stay, Erika. This is where you need to be. This is okay. It's okay. Please, stay." So when He says stay, I stay.

I've stayed when it has felt like my world is falling apart.

I've stayed when it felt wrong.

I've stayed when I've been absolutely shattered.

I've stayed because He has proven time and again that He is faithful. He is a good father. He is not asking me to stay to lead to my death.

Because through the brokenness, the pain, and the despair, I've come to find life on the other side.

Staying doesn't always mean everything is okay, but it does mean God has called you to that time and place for a reason. There is a purpose for the relationship. Staying means you trust God knows what He is doing and you entrust yourself to His greater vision.

Pain should never be a decision maker. Let His voice be the voice you listen to.

I can promise you, listening to the Father's voice may not be easier, but it is always better. He sees past the pain, He sees beyond the broken to a beautiful redemption we can't even begin to imagine.

Let Him lead you there.

Freedom

Freedom.

We admire those who fight for it. We seek it. We envy those who seem to have found it. Yet somehow, we often see it as out of reach. Just some fantasy thing in a far-off land, that only the lucky ones ever find.

In the Bible, the Israelites waited for their freedom for so long. You can go back as far as Genesis where God prophesied this freedom.

12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

Genesis 15:12-14

While the Israelites were enslaved, God spoke to Moses through the burning bush and sent him back to Egypt where he would lead the Israelites to their freedom. Even though this freedom was prophesied, it was promised, it even seemed within reach… it wasn’t as simple as just walking out of Egypt. This is a sample of the back and forth between Moses and Pharaoh that went on during the plagues God sent.

27 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. “This time I have sinned,” he said to them. “The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Pray to the Lord, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don’t have to stay any longer." 

29 Moses replied, “When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord. The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so you may know that the earth is the Lord’s. 30 But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the Lord God.”… 

33 Then Moses left Pharaoh and went out of the city. He spread out his hands toward the Lord; the thunder and hail stopped, and the rain no longer poured down on the land. 34 When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts. 35 So Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses.

Exodus 7

Every time God performs the miraculous for Pharaoh, he continues to only be willing to submit to God when he needs something. Pharaoh will ask for forgiveness and repentance when he needs deliverance from the plagues, but once that prayer is answered he decides, "well no, I got what I wanted so I'm not willing to give you your freedom."

After several plagues, Pharaoh starts getting more desperate and begins offering snippets of freedom to the Israelites.

He allows just the men their freedom. Moses refuses, knowing that God is promising freedom not just for the men, but the women, children, and flocks as well.

After another plague, Pharaoh becomes more desperate and allows the men, women and children their freedom but refuses to let them take their animals with. Moses again refuses, telling Pharaoh that the flocks must go with as well.

Sometimes, I’m my own Pharaoh. I’m willing to offer myself freedom in certain areas, but still hold control over others. I look at the situation around me and think, “okay, enough!” and when I get some reprieve for the storm, I quickly grab back on to any sense of control. I’ll offer myself freedom in one area, only to hold tighter in another. I let the men, women, and children go, but insist that the flocks stay with me.

Am I really free if parts of me are still enslaved?

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1

He already set us free.

Why do we live like slaves?
Why do we try to put the shackles back on?
Why do we try to keep in bondage what God has set free?

Why do we accept partial freedom instead of insisting on the complete freedom that God promised?

I don’t want to live a life where I take the shackles off my feet, but keep my hands bound. I want to be able to run and fly. To be completely free.

You’re not bound by anxiety.
You’re not bound by brokenness.

You’re free from the destructive thoughts, the voice that whispers in your ears in the dead of night. The voice that says you’re not good enough, that you’ll never be enough.

You’re free from the voice telling you you’ll be happy if you just lose five more pounds, if you can just skip another meal. The voice that knows your biggest insecurities and repeats them again and again.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

For freedom.

That He set us free.

That He set ME free. Freedom is not just for people who have it all together. It’s for me. It’s for you. Fight for your freedom. Don’t hold back, let Him in to every area of your life, because that is when you will truly know freedom. There’s no chain His love can’t break.

Remain in Him.

Embrace freedom.

Dancing in the Dark

I always imagined waking one day to find myself in the middle of my future. That everything I dreamed of would just fall into my lap and one day, I would be there. I mean, sure there was hard work before then, but then, the world would be at my fingertips. 

I never imagined how hard it would really be.

I never imagined that one day I would wake up with my dream in my hands and feel like I'm holding death.

I never imagined that I could feel like I am right where I am supposed to be, but somehow it could still feel so wrong.

And what do you do? What do you do when the lights go out on the dance floor? Do you keep dancing, or call it a night?

I recently dug into Habakkuk in the Bible and was intrigued. Habakkuk was a prophet who looked around at everything around him and all he saw was darkness. He saw pain and destruction. He questions what God is doing, is He even doing anything? God answers and basically tells Habakkuk, "You know what, man? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. You couldn't even begin to comprehend these things." And Habakkuk questions. 

But in the darkness, he chooses to trust. He chooses to continue, even when everything was gone. He chooses to worship in the dark.

Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The Sovereign Lord is my strength
He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights.

                               Habakkuk 3: 17-19 

I don't know much about Habakkuk outside of this book in the Bible, but being that he was a prophet, I imagine he had dreams. He had visions and things that God had promised him. So when he looked around and what he saw didn't line up with what he had envisioned, he questioned. When life felt a lot like death, he cried out. "This doesn't look like full life, God. This isn't how it was supposed to be." I think Habakkuk had a moment where he got so caught up in the dreams God had given him, that he left God behind. He started seeing things only through his eyes, through the eyes of the broken world.

But then he remembers God's goodness. He chooses to worship in the dark. My favorite verse in that passage is this, "He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights." When everything is broken, Habakkuk isn't going to settle for sitting in the meadow. He acknowledges that God gives him the authority to tread upon the heights. To move mountains. He doesn't settle for complacency just because it gets hard. He stops to acknowledge God and His goodness. He takes the time to worship, to praise God even when He doesn't understand. And he continues on where God has called him. Because full life exists in His presence. 

Sometimes, a season looks like abundance. Other times you have to walk through a season of emptiness, when everything looks dead. In those seasons, I don't choose to dance because I know a season of abundance is coming. Because to be honest, I don't know that. In those seasons of barrenness, it doesn't feel like anything will ever grow. It doesn't feel like the dawn is coming. I don't choose to dance because the lights may come on in the future, I choose to dance because God is good NOW. I choose to dance in the dark because He is my light. And it doesn't matter how dark it gets, because when you see grace and when you experience His love, you dance. You dance because its what you were created to do. You dance because His eyes shower you in a spotlight, to twirl for Him alone.

It's easy to feel disappointed when the dreams we held so tightly don't look like we always imagined. When we can't comprehend what God is doing. Or when those dreams come to fruition with thorns that we didn't expect. In those moments, it's so important to lock eyes with His goodness. To stop trying to make sense of things through our earthly view. 

Perspective makes all the difference.

Because when we question, He is there. When everything seems to be falling apart, He's doing something we can't see. When we stumble, it's His hand that reaches out. When we lock eyes with eternity, the darkness of a moment becomes insignificant.

Keep dancing. Keep doing what you were created to do. Just do it with Him, because on our own, dreams start to taste like dust.