Day 23 – Issue 21

Be Still Know

Matthew 2:13 NLT

After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

When I think of a journey, I often imagine travelling to a destination. Yet, it is equally likely that the journey may be [itals]away[end itals] from something, much as countless thousands risk everything to flee war and terror. Here the ability to discern God’s voice is paramount. Had Joseph dismissed the angel’s message, Jesus wouldn’t have made it to his first birthday.

My life learning has revealed to my cost that I’m incapable of operating within organisational life. While I am gifted and then entrusted with a measure of leadership, I cannot manage my own sense of independent leadership. Rather than settling to my designated role, I respond to an internal compass that tells me what needs to happen for the best interests of the whole organisation and its customers. This alienates those with whom I need to work, and leads to my swift fall from grace and departure.

As I review my organisational roles, I can identify a pattern. I am not the team player I imagine myself to be, indeed would like to be. I am independent in thought and action. Once I heard God that I am better on my own for his purpose of hermit, where I pray, and from that prayer write for others to consider, then I am protected from the worst aspect of my fractured self. This has brought me comfort and peace. While it may feel like a foreign soil, this is only by contrast to what I was conditioned to expect from my working life. It is in journeying away from my assumptions that I have found peace and self-realisation.

QUESTION: What habits do you need to journey from in order to reach your destination?

PRAYER: Lord, I know that you are leading me from a land of spiritual slavery to a place of freedom and goodness. Thank you.