The Terror of Pause
Dear Reader,
It took a long time for me to believe into practice the truth that God cares about how life affects me. Our heavenly Father loving and faithful as He is was unfortunately on the receiving end of my unconscious doubt that He could care about how the twists and turns and pains of life impacted me. This wasn’t at all due to Him failing to care for or to come through for me, He’s never missed a beat, but it was because the wounds I developed as a child had not been addressed.
I had grown, I had reasoned, I had even moved on, but I hadn’t healed.
There is a space for pause after transitions, whether it be grief or gain, that we must learn to honor. When your world has suddenly become something unfamiliar to you and the unknown is uncomfortable even if it’s necessary, even if it’s due to reward one must take that pause and honor the new. To respond to transition in any other way is arrogant at worst, and ignorant at best.
This idea may seem common practice, but how often have you stopped to identify the new place of intimacy with God after gaining or failing at business, a goal, or a relationship? These pivotal moments easily become pillars in our lives and even change how we see ourselves so they can be difficult for us to unpack due to fear that the pieces we might find will be evidence that we are failures, that we missed God, or that we’re undeserving. An accusation too difficult for any of us to manage alone.
The truth is though that the enemy of our souls loves to hang out in the corners of our hearts and our minds where we hesitate to bring into the light. He has mastered the art of suggestion through shadow casting and learned to manipulate our desire to be ‘okay’ in ways that cause us more harm than you can imagine.
Wherever there is change you should take the time to hear the new sound of God’s presence in that space. If the change brings advancement from harvest or reward, taking a pause after crossing over the new threshold could give you space to exhale, be grateful, turn off autopilot, and seek God for wisdom and grace as you move forward in this new territory. If the change is due to deconstruction, taking a pause is necessary to assess the damage, confront any lies, grieve the end of a thing, and seek God for His perspective on the circumstance, on who you are to Him, and for wisdom and grace as you move forward in the new reality.
The pit is that we so badly want to have mastered what we have never been exposed to because we’re trying to avoid being undeserving or hoping to evade another opportunity for loss or pain. But the place where you can take a step without the counsel and guidance of the Holy Spirit is the place where none of the possibilities available with Christ can be found. Apart from God, even if we do what we think He wants us to do, we cannot choose well. Your pain, fears or insecurities will be a more dominant sound following any transition so it is imperative that you do not force yourself to be an expert or to be back to business as usual when God is calling you to pause with Him.
Wherever you are in this chapter of your life there is something beautiful the Lord wants to get to you, something your heart needs to know about His. I pray that you honor the space for a ‘pause’ in your life and that you resist rushing your process for healing or your celebration of victory. I pray you come to see yourself as God sees you and you grab hold of His unbelievable love even in the midst of unbelievable circumstances.
I am by no means saying it’s easy. Both rushing and pausing will cost you, but the price for rushing is a future backtrack, a deeper and broader wound the Lord is willing to heal. The price for a pause in the presence of God is your ego, your sense of control, your fears, and the discomfort of being stretched while He is revealed.
If you want to be closer to the promises God has made, how much more does He want that for you?
The question is then which of you is better to lead the way?
Grace & Peace,
LORI LaChelle