a life of transition
I always joke that my expiration date is 3 months, so ‘don’t get too attached.’ Ever since I left for my race in September 2019 this has held true. Three months in Guatemala, 3 months in Ethiopia, an intermission in Thailand before getting sent home because of Covid. 3 months in shelter in place, then I left to work at camp, visit my sister in California and my best friend Anna in Colorado. Now I am back on the field in Gainesville, Georgia as an Alumni Team Leader for (you guessed it) 3 months! The next year looks similar as in the spring I am going to Huntington beach, California for a YWAM discipleship training school called Circuit Riders (read this blog for more info on next year) the whole program is 5 months, but we are in Huntington for *drum roll* 3 months and then we go on ‘tour’ for 2 months. I’m not sure what my plans for the summer are yet, but you can bet I will be in a new location.
By fall 2021 I will have moved every 3 months for the last 2 years! When I made this realization I cried out ‘why GOD!!’ ‘Why can’t you let me form relationships that are close in proximity?! That I can bring flowers to on a rainy day, or go grab coffee after work. I can’t get involved with a church because I’m constantly moving. No one even knows me because I never stick around long enough. What about my photography business? How am I going to fundraise when I am never places long enough to build a portfolio?! All my friends are going to school and going on dates and living their lives, I am living in a TENT and bucket showering by CHOICE – why GOD? ’ an abundance of questions tainted with lies of the enemy ran through my head. What was truth? What could I hold onto?
After a week of feeling like I had no roots anywhere Allie Jordan gave me a sweet message of a verse she had felt the Lord speaking over me. The verse was 2 Samuel 7:13, after reading it I felt I needed more context and ended up reading the whole chapter. Essentially what’s happening is David arrives with the Israelites into the city of David as their new king. He moves into a house after being on the road for some time and is resting from his enemies when he thinks to himself, “see now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent” (v. 2). The ark of the covenant was where God’s holy presence dwelled and each time the Israelites moved, they brought the ark with them and set up a new tent. David felt it was only fitting for God to also have a house of cedar if he, a servant of God, lived in a house. Makes sense right? God almighty living in a tent doesn’t seem ‘fitting.’ But, to David’s surprise, God spoke through Nathan the profit saying, “’Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people of Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’”(v. 5-7) God goes on to make a covenant with David promising that he would make a (metaphorical) house for David (v. 11). And establish his kingdom forever through his ancestors (v. 12-13).
In my mind God is like, ‘son, David, I never asked you to build me a house. In fact, I love being able to move around in this portable tent. Yes there will be a day that comes when a house is necessary, but I will build it and it will be in my heavenly kingdom and there I will establish myself for forever. Don’t assume you know the needs of God, a dwelling place, structure and safety are humanly constructs that I don’t abide by. Although a tent seems penetrable and dangerous to you, a sign of a traveler. To me it is a place of access and mobility. I will never be satisfied by an earthly dwelling so I promise to you that through your ancestors I will raise up a permanent dwelling place, a home of sorts, for my spirit, and there I will establish my home forever.
I had been spending so much time pleading with God to let me build a home with stability and consistency, that I had forgot the promise he made to build a home within me through his holy spirit.
I wanted to pin him down in Guatemala
I wanted to pin him down in Ethiopia
I wanted to pin him down in Thailand
I wanted to pin him down in College Station
I wanted to pin him down in Georgia
I see so much of myself in David, “but God wouldn’t this be a great place to build your house? Ohh, what about this place? How about here? Oh God can we please just settle down?” But he is content in the transition – why am I not?
One day there will be a season where I find myself in one place for more than 3 months, but my feeling of being rooted shouldn’t be dependent on a timeline, but on my depth of relationship with him.
Here is a poem I read the other day that brought a lot of peace:
I’m afraid I might fall in love with a new place
And these sapling roots will be moved once again
And I know that my God has said
I will live a life of transition
And I wonder if that will keep me
Rooted only in him.
We have all been through seasons of transition, whether you’re starting a new job, you just got married, a loved one passed away, you’re celebrating a new child, you moved to a new city, you started going to a new church, you are discovering Jesus for the first time, or you moved your life into a tent to pour into 6 women for the next semester, wherever you’re at in your life you have or will go through transition and my prayer is that you would find your roots not in the world but in the Kingdom, in Jesus, so that when you are moved, you’re roots would stay steady and your identity would remain firm.
learning to be still amidst constant movement
From one human to another,
El