A few weeks back as I was sitting at my keyboard, meditating on the Psalms, a new prayer began to develop in me.
Lord, let me be like David.
Yes, I know. Many believers pray this.
They aspire to love the Lord as David did and be seen by God as “one after his own heart.”
That is a beautiful prayer, and one I have spoken.
But this prayer that developed in me was different.
Lord, let me be raw like David.
Let me speak of the struggle.
Let me never become someone who can only show the triumph of the victory once I’ve walked through the battle.
I see such power, such beauty, such encouragement in those who are real, raw, and open with their inner world.
I see such humility and groundedness in those who can be transparent about the not-so-pretty stuff that may be perceived as weak, or weird, or wild.
I see the type of woman, writer, and believer I want to be in that way of living and leading.
It is hard to be vulnerable- not as much with my best friend or my husband.
But it feels hard to be vulnerable with many people whose faces I will never see- people who will read my inner world through their own lens, and who will potentially not understand what I have to say.
So it goes, with the life of a writer, I am finding.
Several months ago, the Holy Spirit began to reconcile this reality for me.
He reminded me that to be creative, to open your heart to the world in its messy, wild wonder, is to open yourself to a world of unknown reaction and opinion.
And then He reminded me that the reaction, the opinion, or the ensuing commentary from the outside world is never the point.
I’ve learned this as a radical follower of the Spirit, and now I am learning this as a radical spirit-led writer.
It should never be my concern or my focus to hinder, restrict, or dull down what comes forth in my writing, due to fear of being misunderstood.
Being misunderstood is a big part of being an artist.
Being misunderstood is a big part of following Jesus.
Being misunderstood is a big part of being prophetic.
Therefore, being misunderstood is a big part of my existence.
That has been wildly uncomfortable for someone who has been redeemed from a life of shape-shifting to people’s likes, wants, and needs.
Having the capacity to feel others’ hearts and emotions is something I’ve always possessed.
Outside of submission to Jesus, that got really messy.
Combine a lifetime of wounding that results in needing to be liked, an ability to feel when people do or do not like you, and the propensity of knowing what to do to make them like you… and you get a girl who really cares what people think of her, and focuses on how to show up for them to do so.
That was me.
It has been years of process undoing that, and the liberation has been wonderful, beautiful, powerful.
Only Jesus can do it.
I have surmounted the struggle within my personal day to day life and the people I see face to face.
But when it comes to a life of creating for those I cannot see and do not know personally?
It can begin to feel as if the really raw and unspoken things that start to bubble up within me need to be neatly contained and presented in perfection.
But the Holy Spirit reminds me again and again that to write in the way I have been called to - to live the way I have been called to - is to allow others to see my heart in a very transparent way.
He gave me a vision to drive the point home.
I saw an anatomical heart - my heart - standing upright, enclosed in a glass case, in the middle of an art gallery.
I saw the eyes of many people, peering in, surrounding the case.
They were looking, murmuring, discussing, and processing what was presented.
Putting the raw pieces of your heart on display, through writing or poetry or music or painting or public speaking or even just sharing with a friend, feels very exposing.
You are literally allowing onlookers to view your heart, and there is no way to shape or mold how they will interpret what they witness.
And the beauty of it is that you do not have to.
My mission, my assignment, and the cry of my heart has been to be like David.
The man who wrote laments that would make you cringe if you heard them read in public worship (it is believed the Psalms were sung and read aloud to the assembly).
The man who wrote of the deepest depths and highest heights.
The man who was unconcerned with his dignity or a need to be affirmed.
The man who was truly after God’s own heart.
I can’t help but to understand and ascertain that from the way God describes David, his highest delight is in the people who have the brutally honest, undignified heart towards him.
Those are the ones who carry the heart of God.
Those are the ones who are honest, brave, and courageous in sharing.
Those are the ones who know they will bend, and break, and shatter into a thousand pieces if it is not for the rock of Christ they stand upon.
Those are the ones that bring us to our knees in prayer when we read their words and sing their songs.
Those are the ones who have understood the complex spectrum of human emotion that God does not despise.
And those are the ones I want to consider myself in good company with.
Why?
Because I serve a God who cares about the heart and who uses my inner world to serve those who need to hear his truth- no matter how wild, wacky, or difficult it may be.
My God is not delighting in my perfection or performance, he is delighting in my ability to be honest and forthright so that others may gain from what I am going through.
This is the call of my life.
God sees me and knows me, in the highs and the lows, and my mission is to help you understand he sees you there too.
When I think of what has changed my life- the words, the books, the revelations… It has come from those who have lived heart wide-open, ready to receive the fullness of an existence, here and now, that involves heartbreak and sorrow and pain, laced with the love of a God who brings glitter and gold, peace and power, triumph and testimony.
When I think of what has filled my heart and spoken to the deep places- it has been the spirit-breathed words of David.
The man after God’s own heart, by learning to be real with his own.
We do not need more picture perfect Christians.
We do not need more ministry performances that rarely talk about the struggle so they can pretend it’s powerful to be without it.
My heart screams out “where are the real ones? Where are the ones who will speak of the struggle? Where are those who have learned what it means to be truly seen by God and model that for others to learn?”
I prayed that prayer, and found myself recognizing that place of struggle within a month.
Words begin to form inside the struggle, and I have heard the whisper of the Holy Spirit, edging me to be brave, be courageous, and be raw- for this is what you’ve prayed for.
When God asks you to do something different than usual, most people will not understand.
A year ago, God asked me to lay down my online health coaching business and any notion of a part-time job.
My entire adult life I had worked as an entrepreneur while keeping part-time jobs to supplement my life. Barista was my main vocation, outside of health-coaching.
During a year of debilitating sickness, I was no longer able to work outside my home. I focused my efforts online and continued to coach women. God used this season to transition me into mentoring rather than coaching.
As the sickness began to dissipate, I planned to move back to St. Louis and marry my now-husband. I also began planning to get another part-time job.
This was the routine.
Move to another city, get another job.
I started discussing it with my husband- I could serve at a restaurant again?
Or maybe even go back to the last coffee shop I was working at in the city?
I took it to prayer, and to my shock, God began to emphatically say no.
That season had passed, he said, and it was time to transition into a different vocation and life altogether.
In my time of refining, God had revealed that I was to write.
Writing, not my coaching business, was to be my primary focus.
It took a lot of healing and encouragement from the Lord to listen and obey what He was asking of me.
Writing? Something I loved to do? Something that allowed me space and time to dream and think and impact hearts in a powerful way?
Too good to be true, was my first thought.
I was initially unable to accept or receive that not only did my calling have weight for others’ lives and faith- but that God was so loving and good- it would be something that would also satisfy me to the utmost in the process.
He truly does give us the desires of our heart.
I had previously believed the lie that my “work” for the Lord had to be grueling and unpleasant. It had to be something I “earned” through years of hard serving and difficulty.
The truth is, sometimes writing and releasing what God has asked me to is hard and unpleasant.
And my ministry “training” didn’t look like how it might for others- it happened through intimate inner healing sessions with women, deep evangelistic encounters in coffee shops, a season of pain and suffering, and an unwavering commitment to obey God no matter the circumstance.
Ultimately, it is God who called me, equipped me, and gave me the grace to do what He has in mind for me.
I am qualified because He says so, not because I say so.
I am qualified because He says so, not because someone in my life says so.
I am qualified because He says so, not because I have thousands of social media followers.
The reception of this beautiful gift and honor from the Lord, was the difficult part for me.
It was only possible through his affirmation and encouragement.
In this circumstance, among many others, he displayed his magnificent love for me- by teaching me to receive good things from His hand without second-guessing or turning away in fear.
But I wrestled and wrestled and wrestled with this idea of not getting another part-time job.
Am I lazy? Am I really sure this is what God is saying?
Doubt, in the midst of discernment, can often be my biggest enemy.
I remember God affirming to me over and over again that this was his will, his plan, and his directive.
Spend your time with me- writing, praying, learning, listening, teaching.
Take care of your home, take care of your husband.
Little did I know at this point that in the months to come I would also end up co-laboring with my best friend and colleague to lead a women’s mentorship group, known as Head & Heart.
During this wrestle with believing what God was saying, I remember listening to a minister give a mini-sermon on not quitting your part-time job too quickly when God calls you into ministry. All my fears brimmed to the top of my heart.
What! See! Too soon! He said so!
That experience ended up being another perfect reminder that God’s voice must be the primary one I listen to, because you can easily find a sermon, advice, or wisdom on any topic and apply it to your situation- even when God is saying the opposite in your season.
I continued to wrestle, as I sometimes do with God.
I’ve found that wrestling has been such an important, gritty part of my relationship with the Lord.
It has taught me honesty, trust, and faith.
It has given me wisdom.
It has enabled me to trust his voice, his direction, his movement in my life above anything I can see, hear, or feel.
It has developed me in many ways.
I began to realize that the true fear all along was not that I was not hearing correctly or that I was possibly desiring something out of selfish gain- but that I was actually just afraid of what it would look like to no longer have the “security” of a part-time job.
I was still stepping out of a life of striving and providing for myself.
I was also still learning to let go of who I had been, to embrace who God was calling me to be.
That death of self continued in the coming weeks when He then asked me to lay down the online business I had been building for years.
All at once, I was left with a blank slate of what the season at hand would look like.
And that is exactly where God wanted me to be.
Then, as I was reading Leviticus, the Holy Spirit began to highlight the deeper struggle I was wrestling with.
Yup. Leviticus. Let it be known the Spirit of God speaks through ALL scripture- even the seemingly boring parts!
I was reading the laws God had set in place, and when it came to the law of Sabbath, the scripture said that he told them “to deny themselves” by practicing Sabbath.
Deny themselves? By not working?
Previously, my metric for crucifying my flesh and denying myself did not have to do with rest.. It had more to do with obedience, not indulging in sin I was drawn to, and disciplining myself to read my Bible more.
But here, in the laws of old, the Spirit began to deepen my understanding that to strive in ways God has not asked us to is a work of the flesh that he wants us to deny.
It was my striving flesh nature that was trying to take over and convince me that I had to work a conventional job while also pursuing what God asked of me.
But just like Samuel told Saul, “partial obedience is not obedience.”
For some, obedience will mean getting a job they may not really want as God develops character and discipline in them.
For others, it will be stopping to rest on the weekends even though you can make more money if you just keep grinding.
And for me, it was laying down all of the “jobs” that were in the way of the vocation and ministry God was asking me to take hold of.
I would like to note here that I like the way John Mark Comer speaks to the idea and verbiage of “full-time” ministry. He says that no matter where you work or what you do, you always have a full-time ministry. Everything is spiritual when you follow Jesus and you must see it as such. It’s spiritual to serve with the heart of Christ wherever you are and whatever you do.
True dat.
I actually never desired a life of “full-time” ministry. It wasn’t even on my radar.
I desired to serve Jesus, be exactly who he called me to be, and in tandem- show others’ who he is and how much he loves them.
I thought I was going to be a health coach teaching people to cook and get healthy.
But God had something different for me, and it is the joy of a lifetime to walk in the fullness of what I was created for.
Committing, in my heart, to do what God had asked was only a portion of the battle.
Since then there has also been struggle around faith in finances, spiritual warfare, and working out practical things like not seeing or talking to as many people as I did when I worked in close contact with others every day.
Most of those I expected to come.
The struggle I did not expect would be the commentary and judgment I would receive from the people around me.
Family members, friends, and acquaintances.
In the beginning it sounded like this:
“What? No job? How will you make it?”
“Well, don’t you think you should just do a little something?”
“What will you do all day?”
As time went on, it transitioned into this:
“It must be so nice to stay home all day.”
“Some of us don’t get to just be at home all day and do nothing like you.”
“Can you do x,y,z for me? Since you’re home and not busy?”
Which then turned into…
“Do you guys need money? Are you okay?”
“Should you get food stamps?”
“I mean… how are you making it though?”
Some of the most loving, supportive people in my life have made comments and assumptions about the trajectory God has placed me on simply because they do not understand.
Others have allowed their envy and frustration at their own life circumstances to ooze out from internal wounds that God is still working out in them.
Many times, I have been able to brush these comments off- secure and confident in what God has asked of me.
Other times, these words and assumptions have stung me.
But ultimately, the important lesson I have learned is that obedience unto God will be mostly misunderstood by those around you.
Either by ignorance, envy, or confusion - I have come to realize that these outside comments are a natural by-product of my choice to live in faith.
You cannot completely avoid controversy, and you cannot expect everyone to understand the assignment and calling you are tasked with.
You can only come back to the Father for the affirmation, encouragement, and courage to move forward.
You will be judged.
You will be misunderstood.
And you will be blessed in the midst of it all.
That is part of the cross you must carry to live sold-out to Jesus.
My personal journey, currently, is becoming more and more comfortable with being misunderstood as my life is witnessed in comparison to the conventional way of doing things.
God is fortifying me in fresh ways.
And the fruit of my faithfulness has been exponential.
Why do I say that?
Because if you read this and resonate, I want you to know that operating in faith is always worth it.
I have seen incredible ways that God has provided monetarily for me and my husband during this past year.
I have grown more in love and respect for my husband as he has powerfully supported my decision and believed in what God has called me to.
I have been blessed to lead a women’s mentorship community where I see women healed, delivered, and empowered every month.
I have felt the delight and honor of King Jesus, who I long to please in all my ways.
I have become more understanding of my need for silence, solitude, and reflection in relation to my writing.
I have been available to set things aside and serve people in my life God has called me to, in tangible ways, simply because I have time and space to do so.
I have walked through deeper consecration and dedicated myself to times of intercession.
I have grown in the knowledge of who God is through studying the Word.
And ultimately, I have denied my flesh and chosen the better portion in Christ.
That will always be enough for me.