Leaving God

by Heather Gent

I looked around the room at all the furniture I was leaving behind. Pictures. Books. My daughter's crib. My own bed.  Many of my son's belongings.  Everything I owned was about to fade into nothing more than a distant memory.  Let it go I heard my Father whisper.  I struggled, not with starting over again, but with leaving behind my books, Bibles, and Christian wall art, the plaques that had Scripture written out on them.  Hanging crosses that I hung carefully throughout every home I've ever lived.  My reminders of God's presence. A white piece of wood that had the word hope written across it in gold.  A table cross that bore one of my favorite verses, Proverbs 3:5-6.  I reasoned a hundred times that the Lord wanted me to make room for these things, but each time I tried I was quickly rebuked by the Holy Spirit within me.   I didn't understand because they were my reminders of Him after all.  They were, to me, symbols of God Himself.  Shouldn't I keep them close? Leaving them all behind felt wrong, felt saddening.  It felt like I was leaving God.

It has been over month now since the day I described above.  I left Philadelphia to return to California with nothing more than what would fit in my car.  No U-haul accompanied me this time and it was both liberating and worrisome.  Buckled in with my 10 month old daughter and 13 year old son, we drove away with only the clothes on our backs and the precious few items that were sized appropriately for storage in my trunk or back seats. I would later learn a valuable lesson about possessions and material wealth, namely that they don't last and that I had been dangerously close to idolatry with every bit of it.  Though my heart was in the right place for wanting to be surrounded by reminders of God's presence near me, His lesson to me was to walk in the awareness of His Spirit within me.  1 Corinthians 3:16 says "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" and Acts 17:28 says that "in Him we live and move and have our being," so ask yourself what you would do if God asked you to leave everything you own behind (Luke 18:22).   Would you go?  

I faced a lot of judgment and criticism when people learned that I was moving for the third time in less than a year.  I even had one acquaintance shake her head and tell me she hoped I find what I'm looking for.  Presuming that I was somehow lost, she had no idea what my life's journey consists of or what I've been called by God to do, yet she summed up my existence in that moment with an assumption that l was missing something somewhere.  And I almost agreed with her, but then I remembered that my journey isn't hers.  It's mine and I'm right where I'm meant to be.  To the outside world, your own journey may look misguided or misinformed or absent of some ingredient, but God hasn't called you to blend in. You don't need to worry unless your story does look like everyone else's.   Matthew 5:14 says we are the "light of the world" and can't be hidden among the darkness.  We are to stand out, shine light, and salt the world (Matthew 5:13) with flavor.  The last couple of months have been incredibly challenging on an unsurpassed level.  I've fought new devils and battled towering giants, but I wouldn't trade the adventure of it all for anything.  James 1:2-4 says to "consider it pure joy when you face trials," and I have faced many, but I get it now.  I get the joy.  I get the outcome.  I understand the reason he is able to utter this utterly absurd statement about considering trials joy.  I have found pockets of joy and happiness in the most difficult days, I've seen the spiritual rainbow in my mind's heaviest thunderstorms.  The light that comes at the end of the tunnel has dawned, and the ocean that tried to drown me was no match for the hand of God that reached down into the waves to save me.  

I didn't leave God; like Peter (Matthew 14:29), I stepped out of the boat and gained Him on a whole new level.  I don't have my table cross, but I am filled with the Savior who died on it (Acts 13:52).  I can't look up at the wall in front of me and see the decorative Bible verse hanging on it, but I have the same word permanently written on my mind and heart.  Jeremiah 31:33 says  God "will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people," and if your journey captures the ridicule or scorn of others, know that Matthew 5:11 says "blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me," so if you don't have at least a little bit of this in your life from time time time then it may be necessary to ask yourself who and what you're following.  Don't get too comfortable blending in.  Have you left everything to gain more of Him?  Is your heart tied to His Spirit or to a symbol of His presence?  Do you want the Giver more than the gift or are you more devoted to the possession than you are to the Lover of your soul?  Mark 8:36 says "what good is it if you gain the whole world but lose your soul," and a time may arise in your own life when you're faced with giving up everything you own to follow Him.  Will you go?  Consider it earnestly and then take the risk.  Make the move.  Face your own giants. Go on the adventure, go the distance, and know that He is with you wherever you are (Deuteronomy 31:8).  Walk in boldness and courage (Joshua 1:9) and most of all, be willing to leave everything to follow Him.  (Mark 10:29-30).  

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This post was authored by a good friend, Heather Gent. You can check out her blog here ----> The Next Step
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