As I was walking the other day, I began to ask God what He wanted to talk about. Soon, I was reminded of my time at a certain church. He reminded me of something I hadn’t thought about in a long time…but if He’s bringing it up then I know this story will be relevant to someone.
I entered that church during a very alive time in my walk with Jesus. I had just moved and before we had, I had been leading worship multiple times a week, teaching youth, writing, leading worship nights at my home, etc. All that to say, it was a time of so much fruitfulness. I felt so alive.
We moved and I thought, “Great! Now I can move forward into this next chapter with all the momentum of the last.” I was mistaken.
From this side of things, I now see that I needed a series of breakings to occur in my own heart. We can only operate at the level that we are taught by God. I had gotten to a certain place, and the only way to move forward in Him and with purity, was to make a pit stop and allow some realigning to occur. But I didn’t know that yet.
Instead, we immediately did what we thought we should and became immersed in a new church. Establishing relationships for our whole family. I felt some hesitations in our choice at the start, but shrugged them off because of the other good things I saw the church could provide. I became very plugged in…still feeling very sharp in my spirit and walk with Jesus. Until I didn’t.
At a certain point I started to feel disconnected from Him. I started to feel dumb. It was weird at the time, although now it’s so obvious. I noticed that during worship there, I was hearing from God less. I thought maybe it was because I had backslidden in some way.
When the Lord told me to leave, I agreed…but was still confused. I felt so much confusion and a dumbness over me.
It wasn’t until later that I realized that church had been pulling me into a deaf and dumb spirit.
When we align ourselves with a body, we align with whatever spirit is covering that place. While it may appear all positive, it might not be. When a place requires blind obedience, not to God, but to the leaders…you have a problem.
There are many operating in the deaf and dumb spirit. They don’t want growing people, they want people to lead. You may be wondering why. Well, it’s simple…they want to control not grow.
It’s such a common thing in any type of organization, and churches are not exempt. It’s easier to lead a group of people who don’t think on their own. It’s easier to lead people who have fallen into a sort of trance of just dumbly following a person.
When Holy Spirit is involved in our lives, we begin to be unpredictable. Many leaders don’t like that. I’ve often heard that when we allow Holy Spirit to move in individuals it creates messes. Most leaders don’t like messes. But messes are completely necessary for growing. Think about it, when you teach a baby to self-feed they first make a huge mess. Then over time they learn the proper way, but the only way for them to learn is to have the opportunity to make messes. The key is to always have someone near to clean up that mess. That’s the rub. In current church culture, leadership is often overwhelmed, so to make life more manageable they control. That shows that maybe they haven’t leaned into God and asked Him to establish their leadership structure, instead they’ve done it on their own.
Think of Moses. When he led the Israelites out of Egypt, at first they exhausted him with their needs. Soon, God brought his father-in-law to visit. He saw this current structure was not going to work, long-term, and he suggested another. When established, this structure created freedom.
God wants to be part of everything. Even the structures that we’re convinced are the only way to do something…simply because that’s what has been done for many years. Duration of a method doesn’t indicate practicality.
I encourage you today to lean into God’s heart for your family structure. Then spend time asking God if you are in a healthy church structure…or have you fallen deaf and dumb for a season. If so, simply repent and ask Him to awaken you. He created us to think. To hear. To listen. To follow Him above all others. Let’s be a people whose God is the Lord.
The beauty of the cross is that God was making a way for us to each have individual relationship with Him. No priest required. He wants to know, love, and guide each person. It’s ok to lean into that. It’s also ok if He leads you in a way that others don’t understand. I’d rather die than stop following Him. He is a jealous God and doesn’t desire that we would place anyone before Him, as God of our lives. It’s time to take a sobered look at who truly leads your life…God or man.
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.” So, I declared on oath in My anger, “They shall never enter My rest.” Psalm 95
365 Days in the Presence 