Clinging to Your Life

This post will differ from other post in that there are things God has revealed to me during my devotion time that He has asked me to in real time respond on this blog. So, I will be moving prayerfully through this posting and allow my conversation with the Holy Spirit to be on display. This has been the nature of my assignment in this season. Through my walk with the Lord, He is using it to speak to others. So, I view the instruction as not odd but in alignment with what we have been doing thus far. Let's go to work.

I laid down my life completely for the Lord. There was a time when I wasn't just giving the Lord some of my time- an hour a day then just trying to live righteously for the other 23 hours. I decided to give God all of my life and chase after Him with everything I had.

I HAD to break free of sin cycles. I HAD to find out what God was doing in my life. I HAD to find out who I was in Him. There was such a fervor, tenacity, relentless and perseverance.

I gave more time, more dedication, more of me to Him. This grew deeper over time. He then asked me to leave everything behind and it would just be Him and I. I did.

From sleeping in my car, to hostels and shelter, with food, without food, all just depending on God, just Him and I.

What I have to come to know in this process is that dying to self isn't a one-time act. It is a daily, even momentary act that must be intentionally pursued. 

See, I could give up all and live with and in nothingness. It can just be God and I forever but where I struggle is ...

****This is where I realize I have to talk to the Holy Spirit as I am processing in real time****

Lord, you continue to press. You have put this promise of the great thing that I will do, who I will become, how I will live. These things include prosperity in every aspect of my life. YOU have deposited this in my spirit. 

I was content with a simple life in you but you will not allow for such and have aggressively instilled in me the pursuit for the more; the pursuit that leads into destiny.

I do not like to be charged with not spending enough timewith you when you have all of my day and most of my night doing what you have told me I must do.

I do not like that now you are shifting my potential future from one that was full of freedom and a glamorous life of opulence as I serve you to a life of lowly, humble servitude.

What I am bothered by is that I gave of my life to you, and you continue to demand more, shift and move and I can't find stable ground in you.

I do not like the idea of doing the same thing daily without rest. It is causing burnout and an aversion to what you have called me to do.

I am irritated of the lack of fruit in what you have called me to do. It is embarrassing and downright humiliating coupled with the situation I am in with my standard of living, my life has become one clouded in shame.  One for others to pity and serves as an example of what not to do. This irritation increasingly grows as I am producing no fruit from what I have sowed, and you want me to do more; plant more seed.

My greatest fear now is that I am not and will not be happy in the life you give me, in my new identity and way of life in you. I am concerned that joy will never be mine and it has left me with a sense of hopelessness that saddens me and makes me question what was it all for.

I am left feeling manipulated, tricked, and led astray. Was this, is this even you? Or has it been the enemy the entire time?

From the Holy Spirit:

Lots of I's in your statements. Jennifer, what do we what say about I's?

Me: Put your I on the cross and keep your eye on the cross.

Holy Spirit:

What does you rant tell you?

Me: I am not submitted to you.

Holy Spirit:

Somewhere along the line it became less about Me and more about you. To add, my people are not even a factor. See it has become all about you. It is YOU driven. You have risen to the top with Me placed under you and my people nowhere to be seen. Your promise, your future, your happiness, your joy are the focus of your day. This is why you get frustrated, angry, bored and irritated because you are not in service to Me or my people but to yourself. When you are not served you throw a temper tantrum. Perhaps the shifting was meant to expose this.

***Silence************

Me: What am I to do?

Holy Spirit:

Spend time over the next few days to reflect on this. Repent. Allow your time in reflection and in repentance to open up a space for fresh surrender, renewing of the mind, softening returning and opening your heart back to Me. Lay your life down once again. Pick up you cross afresh. Move forward with your first love guiding the way through the rest of time into destiny.

Me:

Deep exhale. Ok.