I’ve been working my way through an amazing book called Raised to Stay by Natalie Runion. In her chapter titled “Cancel the Quitting Culture,” Natalie writes:
Worship became one of my greatest tools in fighting off the enemy. I knew how to go into the enemy’s camp and take back what he had stolen. I wasn’t afraid; I wasn’t scared. It was who I was and what I did.
But I learned that my weapon of worship had become my identity.
My weapon had become an idol.
Raised to Stay, p.212-213
I found I needed to spend some time with this idea, because something inside resonated and I needed to pick it apart.
Since I was in 8th grade, I have had a dream of writing a book and being published. I worked hard on that dream in the early years, writing all kinds of stories that my current self cringes a little when I come across those manuscripts. Practice is important and I don’t want to ever shame my younger self for those stories, because I do admire the imagination put into them.
However, what had happened was that I had made this dream into an idol. I focused on it, dreamed about it, imagined little scenarios about how I would handle my life and fame. God had another plan, and because of the direction He took me, I ended up taking this dream and setting it first on the back burner and then in the freezer entirely for a period of time.
That time was a desert season, I can now look back and see. I felt lost without it and yet I knew that it was not the time for me to pursue this dream. I had to surrender it.
There is nothing wrong with making a plan for your life. Habakkuk 2:2 says: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
In Bible times, news and such was shared from place to place by runners, who would literally read out the news while running through a place. The news had to be written in such a way that it could be read while the runner was in motion. I have a note on my mirror, taken from a study I did once up on a time, that says, “Write a vision and make it plain, so that a runner can read it. 1) Write it down, 2) Rehearse it, 3) Remember it.”
When making a plan, it is a good idea to write it down, practice it, and remember it. But also when making a plan, it’s important to check that plan with Proverbs 16:9: “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.”
Additionally, Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.”
God desires to be not only part of your plan-making, but to be greater than your plan altogether. He designed us to dream and create, but to never place those dreams and creations above Him, the Creator.
When He brought the Israelites out of Egypt and gave them the Ten Commandments, keeping Himself as their first priority is reflected at the very beginning of the Commandments:
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…
Exodus 20:2-5
It’s easy for us here to look at the word “idol” and think of the statues used in ancient culture to symbolize the old gods and goddesses. We think about big teeth and weird eyes and terrifying faces. We file them in our history books and think, “We don’t have those. We’re good. We don’t worship idols.”
But idols can be anything from those silver statues to jobs and people to the ideas that we focus on more than we focus on God and His direction in our life.
It’s easy to do. I fell into this trap once, and was forced to accept surrendering my dream of writing until I understood the order of things in my life: God first, and all others after Him. Writing and dreaming of being an author is not an evil thing in and of itself. But when I focused on that more than I focused on pursuing God and making sure my desires aligned with His, then it became an idol.
In this world, we often get the order of things wrong. We place the created thing above the Creator, and then everything gets out of whack because God isn’t in first place guiding and directing like He should be.
Isaiah 64:8 says, “Yet You, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.” He is first; we are not. He desires our surrender.
The Lord, in His goodness to us, will ask us to hand over anything and everything that we exalt over Him and His will. He gives us the choice to surrender it or have Him pry it from our cold, dead hands. I’ve learned surrender is the better option. If I’m honest, it’s been a long season learning how to use new weaponry, but let me tell you something I wish I had known:
He is training our hands for warfare, so the more weapons, the more tools in our belt, the sharper we become in using the old and learning the new. He is waking us up with new strategy, giving us new vision, and making us more creative in how we use our gifts by His grace, not our personal talent.
Natalie Runion, Raised to Stay p.213
I was extremely grudging at first, but I surrendered the gift of words He had given me. Yes, I doubted sometimes, thinking maybe I was wrong after all, maybe I don’t actually have this gift and it was all in my head. That is very easy to do in such a desert season. Satan wants us to doubt ourselves and doubt what God has placed in us, which is what he did at the very beginning with Eve: “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” (Genesis 3)
I am now grateful for that desert season. It opened my eyes to other callings I have, such as worship, prayer, and speaking. God added new weapons to my arsenal, ones that I can use in conjunction with my original dream and gift of writing, so that I land in the next season even stronger. I also got back in touch with my emotions and senses, which had taken a beating during my years of chronic illness, and being in touch with all those things together has proven to be a big help now that I wield words once again.
And now, here I sit writing a blog every week, as well as working on two other projects right now, and I am free from the worst of the doubt (doubt rarely leaves completely–the temptation to doubt will always be there). I know I have a gift with words! Like every other gift, it needs use and practice, and may not be perfect the first time through. But all these gifts are still second place to the Almighty God who gave them to me.
What might God be asking you to surrender in this current season? It could be something that is good, but that you have placed in the incorrect order in your life. It could be an actual toxic idol, that is not serving the purpose you were created for: glorifying God.
As humans, as the final crowning creation on earth, we are called to glorify God, and we cannot do that unless we keep Him first. I have shared my story so that you can see what happens when we are unwilling to keep God first. One way or another, He will teach you. It is better to be a willing pupil.
Consider this an invitation to look at your life and see what you are actually putting above God. He is inviting you to surrender those things that are distracting you from your true purpose in Him. He loves you, and desires that you live your life fully committed to Him first so that all other things fall into place under His dominion. The season of surrender may not be forever. What He is asking you to give up may only be for a time, or it may be forever. The length of time does not matter. What does matter is that you are willing to give Him what He is asking of you. You may find there is something even better in store for you when you place this thing in His hands and surrender.
Blessings,
~Lynne
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