I tend to avoid talking too much about this because it can be a source of fear and that’s totally not the point and what God intends…
But when we step up and out in faith and press into God to grow our relationship with Him, as the saying goes ‘New Level, New Devil’. There is a legitimate spirit realm. So often we get so caught up on the concrete and our circumstances but as the 2 Corinthians 4:18 says “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
When we stand up and say ‘I want to be a leader. I want to do more for God’, essentially we’re saying ‘I want to put a larger target on myself for the enemy’ Which could seem scary and could make us want to avoid that…but what the enemy meant as harm, ‘God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.’ (Genesis 50:20)
This life is NOT our own. If we can step out of the natural and ask God to consistently reveal ‘the unseen’ spirit realm, things take on a whole new perspective. I know that I press into God whole-heartedly and have stepped up into leadership roles, so when the stupid crazy stuff in life happens, yeah it can be frustrating in the natural but if my eyes are fixed on the unseen, it’s really no big deal. I can give it to God and say ‘handle it.’
God has given us a huge UN-defeatable weapon in His word. THAT is why reading scripture is so important. It’s not because ‘reading the Bible is what a good Christian should do’…it’s because it’s our sword. If we were watching a battle on tv and saw an army getting slaughtered while their weapons were sitting right there next to them we’d think that was ridiculous right? Yet how often do we put ourselves in the exact. same. position. all the time.
We allow ourselves to get beaten up when the entire time powerful weapons are sitting there for us to use. We can claim with authority that no weapon formed against us shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17). That at the name of Jesus every knee will bow (Philippians 2:10)…the list goes on. There is a specific weapon to fight our every need and circumstance.
Leadership is not for fame or recognition. Leadership can really mess up what we think life should look like. But it’s not our life to begin with. When we say ‘Here am I send me, Lord’, we’re handing every single little detail over to Him to be used for HIS GLORY. None of this stuff on earth matters. Our relationship with Him is a constant journey of laying ourselves down, laying our expectations down and opening ourselves up to the unseen while He teaches us to be HIS WARRIORS. This life is going to be a fight. It can get rough. But His glory revealed in us far surpasses any glory we could ever experience in the natural. And THAT is what makes it worth it.
When we align our thinking with the unseen, and allow God to reveal more of it to us, suddenly our circumstances and the things that have given us the greatest struggle don’t really matter anymore. I’m a 33 year old girl who still doesn’t have a ‘thriving successful career’ or a growing family or a perfectly decorated house or ______ like what ‘the world’ says I should have. Frustrating and discouraging in the natural? Yes. But from the unseen perspective? It’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. My journey has gotten me to this point where I have been able to encourage others in their own ‘is God EVER going to show up’ journeys. There was PURPOSE in my journey just as there is purpose in yours.
God is Alpha and Omega…the beginning and end…all at the same time. He knows where we need to be now, to learn what we need to pick up from this season in order to be ready and to thrive in the next season. There is PURPOSE.
We need to be constantly praying for God to show us His purpose and to show us how to fight. Because there is a battle. And we can either be ripped to shreds or we can stand victorious and revel in the beauty of His victory. Because we know the ending to this story…we win. (even if it doesn’t look like ‘winning’ in the natural 😉 )
Image Credit: Erin Kass Photography