The Next Faith Journey: Learning to rest in my identity

Well the journey continues! And as seems to be the case for the Petrees, it is a crazy ride! Last week we had three OFFERS in one day! We were so pumped and felt sure this was the reason for the delay! Three offers would mean a higher sales price. Well, you would think so! I think we may be the only people in history that can have three offers in one day and end up with no contract! We had one offer negotiated and were just waiting on the signed contract with the new conditions to be sent to us. Instead, 12 hours later, they decided to reduce their offer by $20,000! We had things going on that left even the buyers' realtors stunned! This all started last weekend...and the last of the three offers left the table of negotiation Friday.

There are all kinds of emotions and thoughts that go through your heart and head during a week like that! Most of them not good! However, the one that kept coming up and took me totally by surprise was fear. I mean like knots in your stomach, heart racing, fast breathing fear. Fear is not something I have ever really struggled with. I was a worrier in high school, but God really worked in me even with that at a pretty young age. You don't take two families to an African nation you have never been to yourself and navigate their legal system and the US immigration system for the first time to bring home 5 children with fear as a companion! Relying on God in circumstances like that had come even at a pretty low level of spiritual maturity for me....because it had to in order to do what God had called me to. So this feeling that would come over me several times a day had me puzzled! And looking for the cause and solution because I didn't like it!

Friday afternoon after John had let me know the last offer wasn't going to pan out either, I just cried out to God and asked if we were still supposed to move? I had been holding tight to promises and moving forward in faith crashing anything that threatened to stand in the way! But after last week, I was left thinking maybe I was crashing through so hard that I was missing God's redirection. I never want circumstances to dictate what God is telling me or allow them to be "signs" as to whether or not God is calling me to something, but at the same time, if God was putting up road blocks to keep us from a mistake, I wanted to back down and regroup. God didn't necessarily answer that cry with new words, but  He did remind me of the promises of the move..and he reminded me of sermons and different bits of information that he had provided throughout the process at times of discouragement. It was like he was reminding me that every time we faced doubt or discouragement on this journey, he had provided some little nugget that kept us moving in the right direction...kind of like the breadcrumbs left on a trail to lead us to the end! And with that I put doubt to rest. But the fact still remained we cannot move until our house sells....and our timeline for being able to move before school starts in order to have the kids in their new school at the beginning of the year is getting really tight! So why is our house not selling?!

John sent me a text not long after I had cried out to God and put doubt to rest. He was doing some things around the house, and God had spoken to him that we would have been settling. It had been very clear that the last offer would have been very difficult to deal with, and probably not where we wanted to be on price. So God just asked John, "Why do you want to settle? Why do you not want all that I have for you?" Well, that's a great question! Bottom line, we don't....but we do still have to sell our house. So we went into the weekend somewhat encouraged and looking forward to showings being booked. And yet, we had not a single showing on Saturday or Sunday....but that was ok because God had given me a revelation Saturday morning.

I listen to the sermons out of Bethel in Redding on a regular basis. I listened to a teaching Bill Johnson gave at their Kingdom Come Conference this past week. As Bill spoke, I felt like he was talking directly to me from God! More faithfully than any other time we have stood on a promise of God that was delayed in coming, this time John and I have put into practice the weapons of warfare and contended and activated faith! We have prayed as individuals and as a couple (something we struggle to do if we are totally transparent with you!). We have written scriptures down and declared them. We have literally walked around the outside of our house and prayed for the walls blocking the sale of it to fall...we have done all the spiritual disciplines in the physical to bring breakthrough in the natural. And yet, we still do not have a buyer for our house. Bill's teaching was on exactly this. He said sometimes when breakthrough doesn't come in the warring, it is because he is not trying to show you your authority, instead he is trying to show you your IDENTITY! Sometimes God wants us to just be still and let him bring the breakthrough to us as a showing of his love and a demonstration of our identity as sons and daughters of God! Talk about mind blown......

See God has told me over and over that the sell of our house would be a demonstration of his love. Without going into all my baggage of faith journeys (that would have to be a series on its own), this journey had seemed to be lining up exactly with what I felt about God's love for me....it goes something like "you will do it for others but not me", "standing on your promises brings disappointment and frustration", "walking by faith brings maturity, but I am not sure I want to be more mature anymore". But I know those are not the Truths of scripture, and I want desperately for the Truths of scripture to be my response no matter what the circumstances. I want a different thought when someone mentions God's love to cross my mind.

Operating in authority is not a problem for me. God gave me a bold personality that definitely needed sanctifying! Through the years as he has called me to speak up for children and advocate on all levels, I have learned to operate in authority from him. So when we started this journey, I had no problem praying, declaring Truths, yielding the weapons of warfare to bring about breakthrough in authority! But what Bill was talking about was a new thing! Receiving the breakthrough simply because I am God's daughter and He loves me? (He based the teaching on Jesus telling us to come to him and receive the kingdom as little children!) Now that is something I struggle with!

As I have unpacked this over the last few days, I have realized recognizing and receiving God's love is a real struggle for me. For many, that would seem odd as I had an amazing childhood. I had a wonderful father who was an amazing (and still is!) example of a father's love for his daughter! I am still a Daddy's Girl through and through. I had a mother who was involved in everything I did and made it her life's work to raise her children. However, I was teased all through school. I learned at a very young age that my value according to the world's standards was next to nothing. I struggled to feel like I had worth. That's why I graduated third in my class in high school and was first chair flute most of my high school career. I found the things I was good at and worked hard to prove my worth in those. As that little girl and emerging young woman, I had my parents there telling me every time I broke down how much I was loved and valued. They reminded me that my worth was not in my looks. I had those constant reminders of what really mattered in life! But my adult life has been a bit of a different story.

I have spent most of my adult life fighting feelings of worthlessness and feeling like I will never measure up to ________ (so many things could fill that blank!). Please understand I am not sharing this for pity or pats on the back! I am sharing because I don't think I am the only one who struggles with this in Christian circles...especially Christian women circles! And I believe God is wanting to show us something new! We have been asked to leave churches because of our ministry that God called us to. I have been unable to serve in places I felt called to serve because I was not friends with the minister's wife or the elder's wives. Struggles in marriage, failures as a parent, the list goes on and on of how the enemy has tried desperately to steal my identity and my value as a daughter of God! And honestly, he's done a darn good job of it! The thought that God would just hand me a buyer for the house and an amazing new home without me "earning" it or proving myself or fighting a battle for it is truly a foreign concept....which I am sure is why he is asking me to do it! He is doing a new thing in me!

But can I share something?! I am almost like a giddy school girl on Christmas morning as I just sit and wait to see how he lavishes His love on me through this journey! I am totally unworthy of it, and know the depths of how undeserving I am....but that's the greatest thing! Despite all of that, he wants to do it anyway!!! I know he has tilled my heart over the last few months and probably years to be ready for this lesson! It is bringing some junk to the surfaces that is not fun, but also needs to be dealt with if I am going to walk in this new identity in freedom! Can I tell you how amazing it is to just rest?! This weekend was packed! I have no idea how we would have stopped, picked up the house and left for an hour at any moment on Saturday or Sunday! When fear would start to creep in that without showings our house will not sell, I would hear this little whisper say, "But I love you! Watch what I will do!" And fear would leave, and I would find myself actually saying a prayer of thanks that we did not have a showing! I don't have this all figured out! I am still chewing on all it means and all God is showing me, but if you have been warring for breakthrough and have not seen it, can I challenge you to go to bethel.tv, buy the Salt and Light conference, and listen to this teaching! Perhaps, like me, God is not wanting you to yield your authority, but instead is wanting you to rest in your identity! He loves us! And he is wanting desperately to show us just how much!