How Freedom Draws People Together. UNITE Link-Up

I sit, front and center. At a writing conference.  Frantically typing in my name.  The night before.

Being “different”.  A writer.  Something I have wrestled with. Not in flesh and blood.  But, in Spirit.

As the speaker bridges this division.  “Do not despise being an elbow.  All of us, as writers, are elbows.”

I look down.  Thinking I would have rather.  Been able to choose.  What part of the body I wanted to be.

And he goes on.  “There is an enemy.  Fighting to keep back ‘faith words’, given to us by the Father.  Has anyone else struggled with doubt?  Anyone else hear the enemy trying to get you to stop….writing.”

I am in the second row.  I want to stand.  Shout an enthusiastic, “amen”.  But, I look around.  Faces look somber.  And I begin to wonder, if I am the only one.

Still as the week goes on, I find Moses wherever I go.  The one leading the Israelites out of the slavery of Egypt.  The story almost taunts me.  At church.  In reading, at story time with my daughter. On the radio.

Everywhere…Moses.

So, I dig.  For when God prompts and picks.  And directs.  It is our job to answer.  Our job to hear. And keep hearing.  Until what He has for us is so clear.  We digest it fully, completely, so utterly.  That no matter what happens, we will never let it go.

I find Pharaoh.  And an oppressed.  Enslaved.  People.  Crying out for God to deliver them. And oh how, I can relate.

They remain frozen.  Stagnant in Egypt.  In hopes of a Redeemer to save them from their life of slavery.

Yet, when Moses comes.  After his burning bush experience. They grumble through the wilderness.  Despising the journey.  Wanting only simplicity and reward instead.

And these words.  Of grumbling….in a desert.  Strike me.  Like the whispers spoken to me as I sit at that conference.

“Why was I not back home.  Tending to my children?  Why was I here?  What benefit could I gain in a room full of other people,  like me?”

After all, they all had business cards.  I only had my pen-scratch.  And a leather bound folder filled with nothing.

“Wouldn’t it be better back home?  At least there I have a title.  A purpose.  A mission.”

And as I sift these thoughts through my mind.  I see the Israelite who left Egypt. Shouting the same thing.  Wanting the chains of nowhere.  Preferring stagnant.  Than any hopes of His promise.  Waiting in the unknown.

And why is it…God’s ways often led us to the material “known”?  Require us to be dependent on, alone.  A God who doesn’t forsake.  While chains in Egypt.  Brings captivity, but abundance?

Why is it we would rather feel safe? Stable?  Predictable?  Than leave what we know…..in hopes of true freedom?

And me and the Israelites soon become fast friends.  Me sympathizing…instead of criticizing their lack of dependence on a Sovereign God.

A few weeks ago.  A friend, comes to visit expectantly   She was adopted by a white mom, though she is African America.  (Much like the dynamics of me & my daughter).

She shares about her movie. “CLOSURE”.  Recently finishing a documentary of finding her birth mother.  She shares about trans-racial adoption and is presenting in film festivals around the region.

Her story, touching other peoples stories, which is impacting other people’s live, so they too can courageously be free from their past.

And I thank God. She gets it.  Our past is a story meant not just for us…but for others to find deliverance.

I mean, if the Israelites had never been bound, how could they differentiate between the one true God…and those just posing as promises.

And the Word says….it was more than the Israelites that left that day Pharaoh momentarily let them go.

And I find it funny.  Truth can bring writers together.  People traveling the desert.  Freedom allowing a friend to share her story around the nation.  To help others.

And I don’t want to be stuck.  Sitting stomping mud.  Oppressed out of fear of, “what if”, the days in the wilderness aren’t better.

I want to “go”.  Keep moving.  Leave the figs and delicacies of earthly pleasures….and know a God.  Trust upon Him.  For my daily bread.

Yes, I want to be like my friend.  Using my testimony, as a way to bring freedom to those who might understand, these deep, sometimes heavy laden words.

I want to travel together.  UNITED with fellow sojourners.  Those who are sick and tired of the wrath of those oppressing a people meant to be free.

Yes, I want to walk in unknown land.  Keep writing.  Keep being, an elbow in the body.

For together.  This mixed multitude is stronger.  Wiser.  More capable of making it to the promise land….

(linking with Jen @ Finding Heaven, Titus{2})