When Prison Gates don't open just yet

Recap here

When I was 12 years old, my mother thought it fit to buy me a book - 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. She came to my room and placed it on my bed when I was away doing whatever it is 12 year olds do. My return home went like clockwork: Eat dinner rushingly, then head straight for my room. And so I did; only to find a reddish bluish book cover with large font that spelt trouble for me. Yes. The large font read "7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens" but in my eyes, she was calling me trouble and the book was free therapy for her pubescent child. I hissed at it and sucked my teeth and put it on the table in the corner of my room. I purposed not to glorify her warped perception of me by reading the book. And I didn't, for a while...

In the coming days, there was a silence that hung about me, and the book seemed to have a glow about it. I found myself reaching out and holding it.

"I told myself not to read it, but it wouldn't hurt to know what it's about by reading the back cover," I reasoned.

And I did.

"Well that can't be enough. Read the acknowledgements and introduction. Just that," I told myself.

But a few pages led to a few chapters and after some time I was pouring myself into every page. It still is one of the best reads I recommend for teenagers. Of course, when I think about it, my mum, a learner with an insatiable ability to devour books, was simply feeding my inherited hunger to read with a book she thought would be helpful. She must have enjoyed her copy of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" so my getting the book was her desire for me to acquire the same wisdom in a way that would speak to the heart of things in my life. And i'm thankful for it.

That book really opened my mind. I learnt about paradigm shifts. I learnt that I need to seek first before i'm understood when talking with others (the only habit I seem to remember and still need to practice) And most of all, I learnt that life is like an Olympic track field. Everyone has their own lane, only instead of it being open for all to see like the normal ones, each person's lane is separated from another's with high walls.

The lesson was this: It doesn't matter if your lane is littered with hurdles for the next couple of metres. It's your lane designed specifically just for you by God and you should go at your pace because the only one you are competing against is yourself. Even more, that no one helps their race by climbing up the wall to see how another is doing.

But don't we do that all the time?

Don't we look at other people getting into relationships and also hunt down for a companion as if life depends on it?

Don't we look at our friends getting married and feel like time is running out on us?

Don't we look at people having children and starting families and feel an inner sense of incompleteness?

Don't we look at people we know getting jobs so easily left right and centre and wallow in a pit of self condemnation (this one I still struggle with, honestly)

Again, what are we trying to prove and to whom?

Will it ever be enough?

If there's someone who I totally get right now in the Bible, it's Joseph. I just do. Like him, I had wonderful visions of how my life would turn out, but the process of getting there has been so tough. His brothers sold him as a slave to some merchants, but my family just looks at me with eyes that seem to shout, "You're letting yourself waste away. You have nothing to show for your life or education and you're just okay wasting away." And maybe that stings a little. A whole year and I still haven't found the right way to respond to their questions let alone to myself... Even more, in this season, like him, my incessant ache to run has quieted down because prison walls just aren't that big enough a track.

Prison here typifies a season of stillness, and waiting, and separation - just so I don't lose you. It's what I call God pushing pause on your life so that nothing interferes with what He's doing behind the scenes. Yes. Process. So unavoidable yet so necessary.

Anyway, there were times in the beginning of my prison days (LOL I had to) when I was bitter. Times when I felt like I deserved better and that I wasn't supposed to be in that place. I don't know if Joseph complained about being falsely accused by Potiphar's wife and then thrown into prison but I did. And I blamed the world and everything in it.

Weren't my grades great?

Hadn't I found my way back to God?

Wasn't I eager to do something, anything, to fill the "nothingness" (until God told me no)?

I was a battered person. In my definition, a battered person is someone who is going/has gone through a tough situation and survived and is laced with a godly wisdom that lifts up. Like Joseph, God brought on my way people who needed some counsel and advice. We'd talk and I'd encourage them, and their responses would be, "I thank God for using you to tell me this. It's just what I needed." And after a while, like the butler/cup bearer (Genesis 40) God would remove them out of the same funk we were in and into another place and I would be left in the same prison walls. Oh Joseph gets it!

I used to tell God, "Thank You for using me to be someone else's battered person, but can you send a battered person just for me on my way?" As if it is the battered person that elevates!

This remains true: the same God that lifts is the same God that brings low. And it's all for a greater purpose than we can comprehend at the time.

Oh how it broke me! I would hold myself together with tape and glue trying not to cry when God would push play in the lives of other people who were on hold like me. But I could only hold back the tears until the bus stop, and then I would leak on my way home.

The sad reality was that I was not confident in my process. I was not confident that God was working behind the scenes for His glory to bring me closer to the palace. I was elevating my circumstance above God's truth. And so I complained and wept and cried and kicked and screamed and sulked until God told me it does me no good (remember the Israelites in the wilderness?) Even worse, I was afraid to hope. Even when God would speak to me daily to encourage me that I was never alone, I would look at other's lanes and journeys and then at mine and I would doubt. 

"Why then was I less than?"

"Excuse me! Who told you that because it cannot be Me."

"Everything around me. Everything!"

"Have you learnt nothing my child?"

I had asked God sometime in April, "Why do I have to feel so alone and forgotten to know that I am not alone and that I am not forgotten?" Well, the answer to me was that faith has a different set of eyes that are not moved by what we see, hear or feel but by God's voice and His word alone (with an unshakable conviction that makes us say, truly, you are with me Lord)

And I realized my focus was set on everything but Him, and when my gaze would turn to Him, it would be for His Hand to move and rarely for His Heart. Still He kept encouraging me. How bad I need heaven-sight! I was too short sighted focussing on the here and now when that's not how the story begins. Yes. Begins. Not ends.

People were seeing the rain in my life and the flood around me, and I was looking on with them. So like Peter, I would often drown. Here's the thing though, they were not seeing me elevated through it. I was wading. My feet were not touching the ground and it scared me but I need not fear. God was and is right here with me carrying me through it and healing my mind and heart.

I needed to see beyond the lightning in my situation. I needed to listen beyond the howling wind and thunder surrounding me now and hear the Father's voice louder than everything else. That because God is here with me, I will not be moved or shaken.

Wasn't this the anchoring in Christ I so badly desired?

Aren't storms and turbulence what make a sailor sea worthy?

Why was I not inviting Christ to calm the storm raging in me?

Even more, why wasn't I praising?

I was living as though prison was an end in itself when yet it is a preparation of the season God is preparing me to enter into. God brought me low to learn some pertinent things and to form my character before He lifts me to a higher place of responsibility. Even then, life is all about moving forward trusting Him, and knowing that your life will make sense backwards. That's when the process makes sense - when you look back.

My time of lifting is closer than ever, but am I prepared? Joseph was. When Pharaoh called, he first shaved himself, changed his clothes and made himself presentable. He wasn't caught unawares. Why? He knew that he was being ushered into the next season. This was the elevation God had been preparing Him for all that time and he wasn't going to enter into it with the same clothes or the same countenance or mind set. He knew that he was in prison for such a time as this (Genesis 41)

So what do you do when the prison gates don't open just yet? You praise and praise and praise God who is at work behind the scenes. Because as you praise, you rise.

And this truth remains: When the prison gates don't open just yet, praise God. Because you're closer to the palace than ever!