My Place

One of the things that I struggled with after being in the UK for a few weeks was feeling like I have no place, no value, no purpose. No place because I don’t have my own apartment or home to live in. No value because I am not working to bring in an income. No purpose because I’m doing anything that would be deemed productive with my time (working). Even though this had only been the length of time many people are gone on vacation, since this is not a vacation for me but a complete change of life to something unknown, I was feeling so unsettled. I shared my struggle with a dear friend who has spent time traveling to other nations and living in a few of them. She shared with me a lesson God taught her during a season of similar struggle – that Jesus was her home, a location was not her home but Jesus was her home. No matter where she was in the world or what she was doing, she could be at rest and at home in Jesus. This encouraged me as this was not a thought I had previously held, but did not end the internal struggle.

I had brought a book with me to the UK that I had yet to read, despite having sat on my shelf for over three years (the receipt was still in it!). It was a book I felt I needed to bring with to finally go through, “She is Free” by Andi Andrew. I started reading it my first few days here but never got into it, so I didn’t touch it for a while. But the day after my friend messaged me with her lesson of “Jesus is my home”, while I was still deep in this struggle, I felt drawn to pick it up, and it turned out to be God’s perfect timing.

Andi was relating a story of her and her husbands long awaited couples vacation to Italy. Their last day in Rome they went to the prison where Paul was once held. They were able to get a private early tour, and immediately upon descending the stairs the presence of God hit them and Andi started weeping. They saw where Paul was chained to the wall and yet wrote encouraging letters to the early churches. The moment was over too soon as they had to run to catch a taxi, to catch the train, to catch the ferry taking them to their island destination for that evening. 

A friend had insisted they had to stay at the grand hotel, The Palace, while on this island. It was very pricey and all they could afford was the most basic, smallest room with no view. Upon check-in that evening after their long journey the receptionist warmly greeted them with the unexpected words, “you’ve been upgraded”. They were led to a palatial suite with expansive ocean views. Overwhelmed, Andi flopped on the bed and started talking to God. Going through questions like, “Why do I feel I don’t deserve this?” “Why was I more comfortable in the prison than in the Palace?” “Why do I feel like everybody else deserves an upgrade but not me?” “Why do I feel I can hear God more in the prison than in the palace?” And on and on. God interrupted her thoughts (ones I very much resonated with!),

“Andi, all of your life you have been serving the God of Just Enough, but I am the God of More than Enough. I can take you from a prison to a palace in just one day if you’ll go with Me. Sometimes it’s a difficult, even irritating journey, but I have a place for you at My table.”

This rocked me, God has a place for me! And it’s at His table! These are things I knew, but in this moment of struggle, reading of another woman’s struggle and God’s answer to her spoke right to my heart. All my life I had been serving the God of Just Enough, but He wants to be the God of More than Enough for me! I inserted my name in place of hers and read those words over and over.

She continued on, “In that moment, the inadequacy, pride, poverty mentality, and false humility that I had been unknowingly operating under for years was revealed… Without knowing it, I had believed a lie that it was selfish to dream big or, dare I say it, even want for more.”

I had been raised in an environment that did not have much, from the youngest age I was taught to never ask for more, to never want more or better, that I was lucky to have the bare bones I had. I think my parents were just trying to make us content and thankful for what we had, but the result was a mindset that I was never allowed or deserving of anything other than barely scraping by. I understood Andi’s mindset (although not something I would have been able to verbalize, more of an unconscious thought pattern) that it was selfish to dream big or want anything more. She went on, “Whenever ‘more’ came up, I have always subconsciously labeled myself as undeserving – never expecting too much of God’s desires for my life… In order to avoid disappointment, I hoped little. ‘I’ll have ‘just enough’ my whole life… Just enough healing, just enough miracles, just enough finances, just enough joy… I believed a lie that others deserved more, but I didn’t… it had kept me trapped in a ‘just enough’ cycle of living.” 

Thankfully God whispered and interrupted her thoughts. “I need you to be comfortable in the palace, because it is a place of authority, and it is for others. Andi, you need to understand that what you allow Me to do within you in the prison and on the journey will transform and ready you for authority in the palace. I will deliver you from the prison and lead you on a journey to the palace. And yes, the palace is for you, because I love you and desire to lavish that love upon you tangibly. Just know that the palace is also for others, and you must bring them with you.”

As I read this I inserted my name in place of hers, reading these two short pages had left me weeping as God was speaking directly to an area in my life that needed His healing. It’s not wrong to desire more of my life, He is the God of More than Enough! He has a place for me! A place at His table! A place of authority! And it’s all for me to bring others with me on the journey!

I continued reading, “keep putting one foot in front of the other while continually stepping into my authority as a daughter of the King, who’s called to the palace of my inheritance to see others reconciled and rescued in kind.” The idea of a journey and putting one foot in front of the other also personally spoke to me as I will be headed out to hike the Camino Francés, 500 miles, in a few short weeks, after my dog-sitting in the UK is over. I will literally be on a long walking journey! I have full expectancy that it will be a journey not only of healing, but of stepping into my authority as a daughter of the King.

My mind was still savoring this shift from renouncing a lie I had held about God and myself for my entire life, and the beautiful hope and expectancy that was opening up as a result, that evening while preparing dinner. I started listening to a John Bevere teaching, a course on their MessengerX app (which is incredible! It’s a free app full of a wealth of resources – get it!) called Breaking Intimidation. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but immediately found it was about fear and breaking free. But what caught me was in the first few minutes he was saying, “you have a place,” “your place is in Jesus,” “it’s a place of authority.” What?!! God just reaffirmed the lesson from the book and the message my friend had sent. 

I started saying it out loud, claiming it for myself, “I have a place, my place is in Jesus, and it’s a place of authority.” It doesn’t matter where I am in the world or what I have in terms of possessions, I will always have a place, a seat at the table in God’s kingdom. I will always have value for I am a daughter of God – a daughter of the King – my value doesn’t come from how much work I do, it is simply from the fact of who my Father is, I don’t have to earn my value. I have purpose – purpose to bring other people on the journey with me out of the prison to a place of reconciliation and restoration and healing with their Creator, to then live lives of victory bringing other people out of the prison. Incredible purpose, eternal purpose. God spoke to every area of my struggle – place, value, purpose – I am now bursting with incredible hope, expectancy, and peace.