Tag: Conquering Walls

No Hiding.

The more you hide, the less you’re seen, the less likely it is for you to shine when it’s your time to shine.

Sometimes it seems like a good idea to hide the flaws. But sometimes the flaws can turn out to be the blessing that we need. It can be the thing that separates a someone from an everyone. I use to like sitting back and let everyone else do the talking and make the plans and I just go along. But I have learned that you can’t hide behind everyone, all the time. One day, if only for that one time you will not have the human shields that keep you from answering the hard questions and making the tough decisions. Being anonymous is a great place to be for those who do not like the lime light. However, if in the act of reaching the goals you have set, you you have to take the spotlight, hiding may hinder you from seeing clearly what you should grab a hold of.

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It also make it easier for someone to be ignored, even if everyone can clearly see you. Even if it is clear how talented you are and how invaluable your contribution, there are many more less capable and talented persons who are willing to make the noise that will lead to change. Therefore, while someone is there resting in the knowledge of their worth, it just may not be enough to be recognized; sometimes there is necessary noise to be made:

While silence is golden, noise can tell the true story.

Don’ hide your light under a bushel (Matt. 5: 15-16). Sometimes it seems like it’s being humble to do this. We tell ourselves that we are modest and therefore being good. But, this can be an excuse to do nothing, in order not to be judged or accused of anything unpleasant. Hiding becomes a way to be present but absent at the same time. No one can say we are not there, but no one can accuse of doing anything while there.

Hiding can become a way to deny who you are and that can be a limiting experience. Regret not only comes from not doing what you want to do but also being what everyone expects you to be, except yourself. It’s best to stop, when hiding becomes a hazard to prevents you from living life to the fullest.

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That Wall.

Child it’s time to break the shell

Life’s gonna hurt but it’s meant to be felt

You cannot touch the sky from inside yourself

You cannot fly until you break the shell

India. Arie, Break the Shell

India. Arie, in speaking about her song, Break the Shell, indicates a time when she was “fighting to grow”, a process she found to be “dehumanizing”.

Many of us have walls that we need to scale but we find it scary to make that first move. We find it difficult to make a plan to get over those walls, much less to tackle it. Instead, what happens is that we spend too much time dreaming instead of planning an escape. Before we know it, it has gotten impossible to make a move towards them.

But the people who live there are strong, and the cities have walls and are very large. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that’s how we must have looked to them.

Numbers 13: 28, 33

We become like the men who Moses sent to spy in Canaan; we allow ourselves to become so small that we make the wall more powerful than it ever had a right to be. We also make ourselves too small and too insignificant in the eyes of those who guard those walls and keep us trapped within.We begin to see ourselves through the eyes of others and belief that their view of us is the only image that matters. We begin to wonder if we can grow tall enough and strong enough to conquer them and then we begin to lie to ourselves, rather than test our faith, by putting our trust in the will of the Creator for us.

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That wall we build to keep everything out, the good and the bad. When we think it’s safer to keep in and keep everything out, even the things we are meant to keep. That wall we nurture, ignoring everyone that is on our team, only we did not know, because we built it to high to really see and know and grow. The wall we used to judge too harshly, can only be destroyed when we stop and accept people for who they are and not how we feel about them.

That wall can cause us to stop stretching to avoid the pain that comes with too much movement, and stop trying to escape the hurt that jumping and missing brings. So we forget that that wall was never that great in the first place, and never that strong to begin with, until we gave it the power to be so.

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