I wrote a post about money yesterday, well, it was about a little more than that, and really it was quite good, quite real, quite scripturally backed, in fact fully, authoritatively so, perhaps even pompously, and so –
something within me said no
(even though I certainly wasn’t using that word about it at the time!)
and I just … didn’t publish it.
I thought “oh, I had a busy day, I didn’t get to it is all, and so I’ll send it out this morning. People need to know!”
Do you sometimes find that the things you write, speak, or create, with an insistent edge of ‘people need to know’ are the ones that in the end they LEAST needed to know?
Or perhaps that’s just me 🙂
This morning I got up at 4.30, and my studies turned to passages on contentment, on stilling, on peace that can only come from God, on the true purpose of and reason for wealth (stewardship, anointing, helping and giving, to name a few), and it was a perfect follow on to what I’d been reading yesterday, which was on a broken and contrite spirit.
The breaking OFF,
of what we WERE,
so THAT,
we may be,
how He sees us.
Strangely, by 6am, I felt flatter, tireder, and NOT my usual ‘firing on all cylinders ready to write and then take on the day’, and so I went back to bed. I read a little more, and one concept in particular struck me, which was an authors take on Philippians 4:1, and was talking about contentedness:
“our joy should not rise and fall with what we have”.
I lay in bed for an hour, not sleeping, not not doing so, praying a little, thinking, and just – receiving from God.
He was saying to me, that in place of what I had wanted to SAY or DO or thought I should pour THROUGH to you –
that I should wait
wait
wait
and rest
rest
rest
and strip
strip
strip
and I just knew …
this is a simple and yet oh so real PRACTICE of contentment right now. NOT hitting the mark early before the day begins, but just – stopping. Turning away. And waiting. On Him.
And somewhere in the stillness, in the half dream, I felt to say to you –
I’ve made a lot of mistakes with money. It would be tiresome, and not of interest really, except probably for voyeuristic reasons, to try and list them all, but the biggest and most obvious one would simply be –
I made it part of my identity that I had to have it, abundantly, overtly, enough to keep me safe.
Idolatry, plain and simple.
It became a continued chase to GET, which simultaneously thrilled and excited me in a dopamine-y ‘look how cool this is that you can just decide this’ sort of way, but which also bound and infuriated me. Because I never cared about the stuff in my SPIRIT, in the depths of who I was, all I ever wanted to do was write, speak, pour forth, exude and impart truths.
And so I found a way to do that … which also produced tens of millions of dollars … and I found a way where the money came in the more I did not TRY to make it or concern myself with HOW to make it but instead, as I’ve taught for years, just ‘let the art be the art and the message be the message’.
Which is pretty cool because … money SHOULD show up when we just be. But because I wasn’t rightly planted in GOD in all of this, had Him on the backburner like my passenger or something, and I was planted in ME …
there was still always this air of need need need and what if what if what if and focus focus focus, oh and also – prove prove prove.
Which I had the GREATEST disdain for (as do all my most perfect ideal clients) but yet somehow couldn’t seem to COMPLETELY put aside, because, well – the entire structure required it. lol.
So I made more more more … and did less less less to do so … and found flow flow flow … but hm, well, when would the bit come where I wasn’t always thinking of how to go go go to the next place?
I’m still learning what money looks like for me as God renews me.
The stripping back is not complete, and sometimes, despite feeling as though I’ve been having my flesh torn piece by piece off me most all year now, I wonder if we’ve even really started.
I have to stop and pause and wait quite often, which in and of itself is a practice! An essential one, because I haven’t yet fully reconciled what it means for me personally to know that I am anointed to steward infinitely greater amounts of money than I’ve known or had pass through me …
yet at the same time knowing that my LOOKING to it is still being oh so undone.
That I have a wealth anointing on me, and to pass on … that God will give me a huge evangelical ministry and also blow up my business beyond what my own designs or dreams could ever have imagined …
and yet no,
there is not a message of GETTING to teach.
Nor one of in any way REQUIRING money.
It’s a funny thing to simultaneously believe in your SPIRIT what is true and of God …
and yet have your mind will and emotions jumping up and down like a yippity small dog insisting that that may not be QUITE right, and shouldn’t you just > BLAH BLAH BLAH INSERT DOING ALL THE THINGS.
Which is why …
(and I thank God He so clearly shows me this!)
when He says wait wait wait, and rest rest rest rest, and no no no, and strip strip strip …
I just do.
And inevitably,
the revelation comes.
The thing with walking with God in His rightful place in your life is …
He’s not trying to take every thing you DID actually know in your spirit was always part of the vision for your life, and the destiny you’re here to live into.
He’s just saying …
you’re going to give it all to me anyway. You may as well do it anyway.
Because together,
there’s a whole new way.
And the fact that your mind doesn’t understand yet how that works,
or you’re trying to make sense of knowing you were born to steward and pour forth so much, yet at the same time seeing you need to surrender all of it,
is just …
stop trying to make sense.
And instead,
make room for God to show you.
And for every day,
to be a new dance.
As you finally,
learn what it is to have peace
in simultaneously not knowing any thing
and being shown and given every thing
