Have you ever had something happen, where you thought you knew the answer, but it turned out Gods’ answer looks completely different to your solution?
Typically for me it’s when He decides that I need to embrace His freedom in a more complete way, or deal with my attitude, because the way I see things is where the issue lies, not where I consider the origin of the problem to be.
I have an issue with freedom for women within the church and the world. There is not enough of it.
Everywhere we turn, there is a block, a subtle turning away, the glass ceiling, the ‘right and proper order’, even violence, deliberate suppression, repression and holding down.
It is one of the things which is incendiary for me, and I tend to turn my ire on those who would perpetuate it- which is unholy, and serves only to assist in people seeing the need for keeping women “under control”… Whoops! Sorry Ladies!
I go through seasons it seems where God speaks His most pertinent words to me in different places. For a long time, it was in the bathroom, then it was while we were gardening. At the moment, it’s while we’re driving somewhere, probably because He has a captive audience!
One day I’m driving along, and I am again banging on to Jesus about the freedom for women within the church. I think He got tired of hearing me alternately whine, get angry and demand He do something about it.
In the middle of one of my rants, He stopped me and said:
“Stop asking for permission to be who I made you to be and do what I have called you to do.” That’s all He said.
For three & a half hours I drove with that reverbing around my head.
All of a sudden the situation I have been fired up about is not about things external to me, but about my own behaviour.
I have been operating under the glass ceiling, allowing myself to be influenced by things that have no authority over Jesus, allowing myself to be ruled by conventions that are just conventions, not Holy Spirits voice.
I think I have just been reminded “There is no spoon…” (for all you fans of The Matrix out there).
Free yourself from the chains on your neck, Daughter Zion, now a captive. Isaiah 52:2 (NIV)
The only one who can tell us what to do, or how to live is Jesus. We don’t need to ask permission from anyone else to do or be anything He has called us to. If you know me, you know I advocate fellowship, and Godly groups of people we can be accountable with.
I believe Jesus just told me the person who has been holding me back- holding us back, is ourselves. If we choose to ignore convention, then it is ignored. It doesn’t exist.
Cultural rules and norms are mostly made-up things that we collectively feel or think, they often aren’t real, they often aren’t written down, and they are often ‘enforced’ simply by the majority following them, or by suggestion.
This is peer-pressure, or bullying. It isn’t Kingdom of God.
If one person is higher than another, that isn’t Kingdom of God. If one person has more rights than another, that isn’t Kingdom of God.
If I choose to allow another person to tell me what parts of my calling, my gifts, my ministry are allowed, or not allowed to be utilised in a particular setting- that’s not Kingdom of God.
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10 (NIV)
There is a significant shift when you go from seeing things as someone elses’ fault, to seeing it as your own problem. I think Jesus has firmly told me this was my problem. I was externalising when I should have been looking at my own behaviour.
I can continue to look at all the ways the world keeps me in my “place”, and continue to allow it to do so, or I can look at Jesus.
No-one is higher than Jesus.
When He walked here in body, He engaged with women the same way He engaged with men. This has not changed because He has departed to be with the Father.
I am a woman in a first world nation in intimate relationship with The God Of All Things. I am indwelt by two parts of the triune God-head.
The Lord announces the word, and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng: “Kings and armies flee in haste; the women at home divide the plunder. Even while you sleep among the sheep pens, the wings of my dove are sheathed with silver, its feathers with shining gold.” Psalm 68:11-13 (NIV)
If God Himself holds me equal to any other person, and holds all people equal to me- who am I to live any differently.
For myself; in the spirit of the ultimate Servant, Jesus, I choose to live equally with all people, giving no person permission to live unequally with me, neither above, nor below. I also choose to serve the Body of Christ as Christ served the church, both those who know Him and those who don’t yet know Him. I know I can only do this with your help Holy Spirit.
What is Jesus revealing to you about this?
How will this change things for you in your life, in your daily walk with those you love, those you work with, those you fellowship with, those you are called to love in Jesus Name?
Email me. Tell me how I can pray with you, how I can pray for you.
We know the world is changed when women rise.
Rise.
Rise.
God Bless You Very Much
Anita