Character Confession: I Choose the Floor
What? Choosing the floor?
I’m finally comfortable being what I call a misfit toy. I get that there is normal, and there is me.
Normal people would go on a tropical vacation and read lighter fare. In fact, I passed beach chair after beach chair and Harlequin has to be doing well. There was a lot of their covers opened.
But me, I read deep stuff. Not philosophical or history, but testimonies and challenges from authors who want people to live not only free in Christ, but to join Him in an intimate journey. I can’t get enough of books like that.
And when I’m on vacation, I don’t take a thinking break either. I tend to hear from the Lord when I’m around water and sand, and He shares such deep treasures even if I was tempted to take the credit, I couldn’t. I could never be so smart.
For instance, the one sentence that came to me while reading and analyzing the last few months hit me hard, and hasn’t stopped. It’s deep, it’s good, it’s convicting, it’s inspiring. I also test when I’m about to say this is a God thing by making sure it is a statement that gives glory to Him and is about advancing His Kingdom. If anything is focused on me, I doubt it’s a God thing.
This was a God thing. Although my choice was part of the statement, ultimately it was about Him. Advancing His Kingdom. And I’m more than happy to give Him the glory.
Here it is:
“These things that traumatize can be your ceiling–or your floor– to the next level of knowing Me.”
This is what I shared on Facebook to unpack it a bit:
Stopping the journey out of emotion and/or exhaustion caps my experience. Keeping on keeping on allows me to move on up in my intimacy with Him.
It’s been a tough season, and it’s gone on longer than a natural season like winter. It’s not the first season of adversity or valley experience, and I know it won’t be the last. But before our vacation the grief felt endless and the fog it brought caused me to scrape my car. I made it clear to the Lord I was done. I appreciated the journey, but I was done. Staying in faith where I was. Erecting invisible walls to guard myself from leaving the comfort zone. Whatever vow it took to say no more, I went there.
And on the beach that deep thought hit me just like my surroundings. Wave after wave after wave.
Quitting, stopping where I was, choosing to stay put in faith was the same as choosing the ceiling. I’d feel safe, but like Abraham’s father Terah, I’d only journey part way to the Promised Land. Haran was where Terah died. Half way. Canaan should have been the destination, but he chose to make Haran his ceiling.
Making this season my floor means I can rise above. Keep learning. Sharing what I find along the way. Growing stronger and closer in my relationship with Christ.
But it is a choice.
And like that beach vacation where the coral cut into toes, the sun burned my chest, and the sand made my steps slippery and challenging, I kept walking, and I made a choice. I decided to see the beach as a place where I re grouped and made a new commitment.
I’m choosing the floor.
