the bitter fruit of disappointments and the sweet taste of His appointments.

freshmen year of college.
one of the best years of my life.
full of life and Spirit and transformation. it's where i found wings to fly spiritually.
it's where by His power and grace-- I broke free.

the walls fell down and my heart became fully open.


fast-forward to this past season.
and here i am,
face to the ground.
crying out..
God, I need to hear Your voice on this.

because when you know how it feels to fly,
there's no mistaking when you're weighed down, held back,
with a heart no longer fully open but shut down.
even if just in a single area. 

and my heart resounded with David,
"Oh that I had wings like a dove then I would fly away and be at rest!" (Psalm 55:6).

and picture after picture would be given to me from the Lord by people,
of birds.
the one I'll always see in my mind was of a bird held in two hands.
unable to fly. held back. restrained. trapped.

and i wondered and i asked and i sought.. who do the hands belong to? What do they represent?
He showed me I was the bird.. but Lord, whose hands are they?
and then He made it clear..
the hands were mine.



now,
I bet if I asked all of us to write down our stories,
there would be one string of commonality throughout every single one.
[disappointments].

we live in a fractured, broken, hurting world-- that's desperate for wholeness.
and so we all have experienced it.
whether it's that loss.
of that loved one.
that relationship.
that opportunity.
that season.

whether it's that place of lack.
that unfulfilled dream.
or desire.
or promise.


for me, it was a combination of more than one.

and with each one I knew the truth in my head of His hand on my life, and I declared that I trusted Him and I'd keep walking.

but over time, it became real obvious.
that my heart was becoming more and more shut down.

And that's when He revealed to me.

I had let my disappointments become a disappointed heart.

[all because--if I'm honest,
He didn't do things the way I wanted. ]and it's a stronghold that's heavy on our generation and our culture.
the sin of self-entitlement.

and the lie that has plagued man from the beginning..
"God is withholding from you..."


and like Eve.. i bit hard into that fruit.

and let me tell you,
I have held on to my disappointments and the way I wanted things to happen so fiercely in a desperate attempt to regain what I had lost or hoped for or envisioned,
that I didn't even realize that what my hands were really gripping were the wings with which my soul once soared.


and as i lay face to the ground,
crying out,
"God, I need to hear Your voice on this".
A picture flashed across my mind.

i scrambled to an old journal,
back from, you guessed it, freshmen year of college.
and there it still was.
a word i saved from a late night meeting at McDonalds with a girl who poured into me.

a word that I had never thought about since until that very moment.

a word that God faithfully gave me in my season of new-found freedom,
that He KNEW i would need in the years to come when that freedom was threatened.

[turn disappointments into His appointments].

and that's when revelation sank in.
and repentance came heavy.
and I made the choice to open my hands to let that bird fly.

and it wasn't just one time.
this thing is continual.

a daily exchange.
turning the sin of self-entitlement into gratitude.

and where Eve and I used to have common ground,
I'm no longer giving that deceptive voice one second thought.
i'm choosing to look at the hundreds of other trees in the garden that God graciously said, Yes! Eat! enjoy, My child.
not the measly one that was kept from me--ultimately for MY GOOD.

and in this place,
of humbling myself before His omniscience,
resting in His goodness..

[He has taught my feet to dance upon disappointment.]

"no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly" (psalm 84:11).

"those who seek the Lord lack no good thing" (Psalm 34:10)


Maybe your disappointments have become a disappointed heart,
or maybe your fears have become a fearful heart, your strivings a striving heart,  your weariness a weary heart,  your doubts a doubting heart..
whatever has caused your heart to shut down, whatever lie you have believed..

receive this word given by a dear friend of mine at church last week,
"strip off the lies.
strip off the assumptions.
I have set you free.
you are free to be what I called you to be.
free to soar.
press into Me.
only you can do what I called you to do. No one else.
so fly. fly free. "


a song that I came across just after He ministered to me through all this.. may He teach you to dance upon your disappointments, fears, doubts, weariness, striving and anything else trying to keep you held back.