Quarantining has been the new norm for the world these past few months. This post ties back to yesterday’s post “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” but I wanted to go a little deeper in this subject. For me, personally, the time that we are in now doesn’t compare to the past year that I went through.
In fall of 2018, I moved to LA from Maryland with the expectation that life was finally going to take off for me. To my surprise, this wasn’t quite the case. All of the hopes of starting the life that I have always dreamed of took an unexpected turn. Shortly after relocating, a friendship that I never thought would end, crumbled before I even had a chance to understand what was happening. I was literally in spiritual warfare. One thing about being out of your comfort zone, is that you do a lot of self reflecting and leaning on God. At least this is what happened to me. I realized that I had to level up! I needed to level up in all aspects of life, especially spiritually. When push came to shove, I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, and God was making that more and more evident, when I had no one else to rely on, except Him.
When I moved to LA, I saw it as God answering my prayers to have an opportunity to level up. I had been feeling stuck in life. Nothing was going right. Not my career, not relationships, and not my finances. I was ready to level up, but I wasn’t ready to be obedient. Instead, I was partying like a rock star several times during the week and every weekend. I was caught up in looking leveled up and not actually being leveled up. I had no plan B. Actually, there was no plan A either. No security. Nothing to fall back on in case things didn’t work out.
This was odd to all of my friends and family that I would just up and move without warning, but I knew that this was my faith being activated. I am naturally a person who is strategic, so not having a plan was terrifying. But being the “go-getter” that I am, it was my initial hopes and dreams that brought me out of my hometown, and it has been my trust in God that has allowed me to stay, despite things not turning out the way I envisioned. The biggest dreams requires faith to achieve them, but before I moved, my faith had not been activated. If I wouldn’t have stepped out of my comfort zone, I never would have strengthened my relationship with God. I never would have been able to truly evaluate the lower version of myself that I was operating from and who God was trying to get me to be.
What I have been able to connect with during my “wilderness season,” is when God called Abraham to leave his father’s house and go to a foreign land. Abraham had promises from God that were connected to his obedience. Obedience with God was something that I struggled with. I liked the promises that God says are for me, but I didn’t like what I had to do to get them. I liked doing my own thing. I thought that I was free. It took me having to literally lose everything, to see that I wasn’t free, and that I was actually in bondage. When things got tough, I thought about giving up and going back home. My friends and family were in my ear convincing me to do so. It was the easiest and most obvious thing do. I wanted to, but something inside told me that I needed to stay. I later realized that if I would have left, I wouldn’t have gotten the lesson that God was trying to teach me, and I wouldn’t have been able to level up.
Leveling up can mean different things to different people. In my mind, leveling up meant having a lot of money and stunting for the gram. Now it means, being obedient to God, wanting what He wants for me, and no longer operating in my lower self. What does leveling up look like for you?
