The wall, maybe you call it rock bottom, but whatever the name; it’s that place where you just cannot go on without something changing. It’s at the wall where you’ve come to the end of yourself, and your resources. I would venture to say that most of us who’ve been there didn’t relish the experience and don’t actively seek to go back. BUT, when there is no more of you left to spend, to give, to share, to have, THAT is when you can experience God like never before. I truly wish it didn’t take ‘hitting rock bottom’, but for many of us (like me), it often does.
I have spent the last several days allowing my emotions to keep me captive here at the wall. Feelings of despair, disappointments, frustrations, worry, anxiety, stress, exhaustion, and loneliness ruled my choices and my thoughts. It’s easy to give yourself over to the emotions and before you realize it, they’re pulling you under. Maybe exhaustion creeps in first and makes it a little easier for disappointment to welcome the lies of anxiety and stress? Whatever the situation that caused you to hit the wall, there’s something I’ve learned from my time here.
Your focus matters. What you give attention to magnifies, so what you focus on really matters-maybe here more than at any other time.
What people don’t often mention is that when you’re in a low place focused on all the things going wrong, all the hurt, or all the tears you’ve shed; it’s important to remember that what you’re focused on isn’t the ONLY thing there with you. There’s more. There’s always more. While the hurt and the frustration and disappointments and exhaustion are all real, there’s still more.
There’s God.
This isn’t some platitude response meant to minimize our difficulties, it’s a fact. Sometimes, when you’re staring straight ahead at that impenetrable wall for miles to the left and right all you see is wall. But eventually, if you step back just a bit and look up, you see that even this impenetrable wall ends where heaven descends. It’s only after you’ve emptied your own abilities trying to do it all, and you’ve hit the wall you will finally have room for God to do what only God can do.
It’s at the wall where He can bless you so specifically and personally that you feel immediately humbled by the extravagance. It’s here that God can lift your eyes to see EACH and EVERY time you blew past His miracles and His provision for you in your hurry to ‘fix’ things on your own. It’s at the wall when you have FINALLY stopped moving that He can hold you in such a tangible way that all of your hurts and sorrows are forgotten. It’s here that the scales that have been building over your eyes for days or weeks or months or years can finally fall away for you to see CLEARLY your life, His goodness, and your blessings.
There’s beauty and peace to be found here.
There’s something else found at the wall: a choice. It’s your choice how you respond and whether you choose to share about your time here. If you allow Him, God can use YOUR time, YOUR experience, YOUR revelations found at the wall to help countless others in their own journey. You can choose to praise God here and use your ‘wall’ to break the chains of others.
Acts 16:25-26 tells us about Paul and Silas’s choice at their ‘wall’.
“ About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.”
It was the PRAYERS and PRAISE from Paul & Silas while shackled IN prison that broke not just their own chains, but EVERYONE WHO HEARD THEM. How you respond at the wall and the choices you make will give you the opportunity to be a chain breaker for someone else, too.
While I wouldn’t want anyone to walk this road that we are on, I have come to realize it’s BECAUSE we’re on this road that I’ve grown and changed. It’s because of this journey that I trust and see God as He has always been, but I never realized my need of Him to experience Him before. Sadly, sometimes it takes us walking through the fire which burns all of our excess away before we experience God for ourselves first hand. It’s because of what we’ve walked through that the Bible has become real to me, and I understand for myself WHY Paul feels so compelled to praise even in a prison cell.
If there is ANY way for the Bible and God to become as real and as personal to you as He has for me other than to walk through the fire, I encourage you to seek that out. BUT, if it requires you to walk through what feels impossible, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to do it gladly with your eyes on God. I PROMISE you, HE WILL meet you in a way you have NEVER experienced before. It really will be a gift to be able to come to the wall.