Wanderlust or Just Wandering, Part II - Shaken not Stirred

Offense is a funny thing. Sometimes it sneaks up on you like a cat ready to pounce on its prey; sometimes it is disguised with self-righteousness or blanketed with irritation so you don’t recognize it.

The Lord spent 18 years shaking my foundations to see what remained. Thankfully, very little; but like a California earthquake, I have been tossed and shaken until all I see is rubble. And it was necessary.

There are those that would claim it was the enemy as God doesn't cause earthquakes or catastrophes.

Really?

What about Sodom and Gomorrah?

What about the idolatrous Israelites in the wilderness?

What about David losing his son? Or Peter denying his Lord? Both were shaken to their very core.  Why?

Because God can’t build on a faulty foundation. God’s version of shaking brings down works of the flesh so that only the Spirit remains. Still not convinced? Here are just some of the benefits of shaking:

·         It reveals what our foundation is made of and brings us closer to it.

·         It awakens us.

·         It removes what is dead or useless.

·         Weakness and breaking points are revealed.

So yes, shaking is necessary, and yes shaking is Holy. And by the Grace of God, it will be used to rebuild upon a rock.

Wanderlust, or Just Wandering, Part I

And then many would be offended… Matthew 24:10

I have had many opportunities to be offended in my 51 years: husband, friends, co-workers, bosses, even my parents! Throughout all, I’ve been able to work through my offense – some easier than others – and get back on the road of life merrily on my way.

Yet, unknowing, I have spent the last eighteen years wandering in an erred spiritual desert. Eighteen long years of shuffling my spiritual, dusty feet looking for my lost destiny. Those who know me well, know I have lost many ministry dreams due to another’s decisions.

My heart bled with each loss and I had to work through the pain of my partner’s betrayals, loss of friendships, and loss of dreams. Each time I had to walk the well-traveled path of forgiveness for the offenses, then wait and pray for another dream, another opportunity to serve.

I learned and grew so much during these refining times - until “that day.” I don’t even know what day it was; but something deep died one day and it’s been dead ever since.

On the outside all looked healed, but in my spirit something – a ubiquitous dark place – took up shop unnoticed.

Offense.

Not with a friend, partner, ministry or church, not with family or a co-worker.

I was offended with Jesus.

To the broken heart of a little girl, my Savior, Healer, Father, and Protector did not pick up a sword and fight for my destiny. In this little girl’s heart, she was left bleeding and bruised on the side of the road blaming everyone involved – yet nursing the smallest seed of thought, “Where was my Jesus when I lost my dream? Where was Jesus when I lost my friends? Where was Jesus when His church ignored me because of their offense with my partner’s sin?”

He was standing next to me weeping.

Yet I couldn't feel or see it through my slow-growing, permeating cancerous cell of offense. It took Him eighteen years to open my eyes and heart to the truth. The church, ministry, ex-husband, or Jesus was not responsible for my eighteen-year desert wandering.

I was.

From Enable to Able

One of the hardest titles for me to shed is enabler. It is ingrained into my personality like a strand of DNA. Being raised with an alcoholic, enabling in one way or another became a survival technique.

Where was Al Anon when I was 13!

“At the heart of every enabler is someone with a low sense of self-worth,” according to Angelyn Miller, MA (The Enabler, 1988).

The impostor in me rises in indignation! Me have a low sense of self-worth? Confident, outgoing, loves the spotlight…me?

Yes. Me.

What a surprise revelation that my need to enable someone else’s dysfunctional pattern or addiction points right back at me. It seems rewarding to help people with their problems, so fulfilling to pick up someone else’s burden or dysfunction and help (i.e. enable) them to continue in their self-imposed pattern of implosion.

No wonder I get so tired! This is one title I long to shed like itchy, scaly skin. I wish it were so easy.

What would happen if my friends exercised for me? Lifted weights for me? Or better yet, what if they did my push ups and crunches? The sugar I so love to eat would find a final resting place on my thighs, my friends would grow stronger, and I would grow weak and ill.

This flaking, crusty title must be shed one wise decision at a time. It is so much easier to remain an enabler than reflect the Able one. It is a long, sometimes painful process to shape our character to the one we strive to reflect. But oh how I long to resemble my First Love. The Able One.