A New Suddenly

A New Suddenly

Is anyone else experiencing a new season of suddenly? We have all had the suddenly all hell breaks out, the suddenly all Heaven comes down, the suddenly of others praying a pray that brings us back from the edge. This suddenly is different!

This suddenly is...SUDDENLY... all of the above is happening, and nothing is working the way it has in the past! This suddenly comes from a new level of maturity. It is much like an adolescent that leaves childhood and arrives slammed into the reality that mom and dad can no longer kiss it and make it better, they can no longer pay it away or even pray it away!

It is as if my spiritual childhood has ended and I find myself in the spiritual adult stage. In the natural we couldn’t wait to be old enough to be able to say“ I am 18 I am an adult”. We couldn’t wait until our parents no longer made all the decisions.

As an adolescant I may have been slow to admit. That my parents had carried all the responsibility for my survival. They provided food, shelter, clothing, financial support and a security we were not aware we needed so desperately. Until the day we realized we were now legally old enough to have to answer to the legal system for our own mistakes.

I remember the feeling of total awareness that I Sharon and me alone was now legally responsible for every decision I made and the consequences of those decisions. I had to suddenly, for myself find a way to get all the things that I had been born into. Now I could even vote for the president of the United States! I had arrived! I was an adult!

Chronologically yes, experientially, not even close!

Growing up our parents gave us household responsibilities and chores that trained us for the running and upkeep of our own homes. They taught us that our word was our bond. They taught us a good work ethic was necessary to progress in life and gain financial support for survival. My parents even taught me that the Bible says “if you didn’t work you didn’t eat.” That one got my attention quickly.

From the age of 16, I went to school and worked a full-time job. I was already providing my own clothes, toiletries, car, and car insurance. Personality conflicts at home were the cause of my abrupt leaving my parents house and from necessity finding my own place to live. Although I could legally do all of these things I had no experiential clue as to how to do them and the emotional stress “ Being an adult” would bring.

My parents were not the conversational type of parents. They were good parents. They taught us the natural things to do, but we never talked about the emotional part of who we were. We were loved but not told I love you. We were raised in church and allowed to seek out our own experience with God from an early age. Salvation didn’t have an age limit.

From my earliest remembrance I was always aware of the presence of God. I had the sense that He was there and could see everything I did. So I curbed my doing and stayed away from decisions that would lead me down a road of outward sin.

Through prayer I felt the presence of God in varying degrees through out my childhood and adolescent life. It wasn’t until I turned 18 that I stepped into another level of interaction with God.

I clearly remember sitting in the back yard of my first on my own home, one Sunday evening watching the sun set and crying out to God. I was questioning everything I had been taught about God and my interpretation of what the denominational church we had grown up in had taught me.

I was hungry for truth and my being solely responsible for me and only me now, caused me to cry out from my deepest being. I remember saying to God, “ If what I know and what the Church of God has taught me, is all there is to You I quit! But if not then I want all of You!” Boy did I set myself up for a journey!

I opened my Bible and ask Holy Spirit to show me what He was saying all those thousands of years ago when He moved on men of old to write the scriptures. I wanted to see it from His perspective and not the churches or my own interpretation from exposure to the teaching I had received from birth until now. I bought a new version of the Bible, The Living Translation and began to discover the light of revelation shining on old words that now became life to my understanding.

He God the same God of my childhood was no longer, responding to me from the position of my infancy, the place of pure innocence and total dependence, but had begun to develop into a parental God who wanted to give me His advise through His word to help direct me to the correct choices for that stage of my life.

I had embraced my promotion from infant to teen in my spiritual growth. In my natural life I had moved from my parents house and now had a home of my own. I had a job, a car and was solely responsible for my survival. I was considered an adult chronologically but was experientially just new born to the reality of what being an adult was all about. I even felt different. I began to feel a new level of daily confidence that although I lived alone. I was truly never alone even as a fledgling adult!

The same God presence was with me. Even magnified to some extent. I had moved from the guiding voices of my parents to the quieter place of just me and God. One marked difference with God living with me, He never chased me down to remind me of the things I had left undone, or needed to do. He was present, but only manifest that presence when I called upon Him. He was my advisor.

I had experience in being a natural christian, doing daily things. I had experience in being a head christian. One who serves God from there thinking and makes decisions from the way I had seen Him through my upbringing and my own limited interpretation of the scriptures. Now my spiritual adolescent journey had begun. I cried out to God to show me what to do on a daily basis. I sought Him through pray and the scripture for guidance. I began to grow up, using the things my parents, pastors and teachers had exposed me to.

Taking a fresh look at it all from my new position of Adult. I didn’t realize that although I was a natural chronological adult I was still a spiritual adolescent!

Wisdom is the ability to use knowledge correctly. Knowledge can give me confidence that I know the steps, but the experience of having to now apply the steps is the only thing that will produce the end result of success or failure. Success or failure, both will produce wisdom if I will truly learn from the process.

A teenager has a deluded expectation of what being an adult will bring. Not because they are rebellious, but by reason of less years lived. They have less experiences that will produce the truth. Any assumption we may have as to the high and lofty place we think being an adult will place us. Will now be tried in the fire of reality.

I think every teenager looks at their parents and their experiences in life with those parents and their surroundings and makes inner vows and decisions that they will NOT do that when they become an adult. Only to arrive at adulthood and make the same or even worse decisions with their own lives and the lives of their children.

I have experienced the natural process of being a child, an adolescent/teenager and an adult. I have also experienced the spiritual process of being a spiritual child, a spiritual adolescent/teenager, and now am entering the spiritual adult phase. So far in the natural adult phase I have discovered more about what I don’t know than I have about using what I do know successfully.

As a teenager we don’t know and refuse to except that what we do know is not all there is to know about a certain subject or life experience. My emotions are waring with my knowledge and reasoning and most of the time I followed what I felt.

Thats why God gave us parents. Someone who has made the same or similar decisions. Someone who has done or observed the out come of the choices of others and is willing to share their blunders and mistakes with us. Hoping to open our view of the situation a little so we can make the right decision not from just emotion but from reasoning mixed with emotions.

As a parent I can exert my parental authority or even physical power over my little children. As the parent of an adolescent child I can give my advise. I then have to trust the ability they have gained from respect and past experiences with me to help them to make good choices. If they don’t then I still have to set and enforce boundaries that will give them pause before they repeat the behavior.

With my adult children I can offer my wisdom and advice, but have no leverage or obligation to correct their behavior if they make choices I have advised them against.

I am finding this is also true for me in the spiritual adult phase. When I was a spiritual infant, God did everything for me. As I grew He helped me to walk and accomplish each milestone to stand on my own two feet. As an adolescent He gave me advice and allowed me to make my own choices, followed by discipline when boundaries were crossed, which always brought consequences good, bad or indifferent. I am also finding to become spiritually mature I must stop and embrace the third part of my triune being. The soul, complete with it’s emotions and reasoning processes.

Actually I believe that until I fully embrace the growing up of the renewing of my mind complete with its unruly thoughts and emotions and my letting go of past negative emotional memories and experiences. My spirit adult will continue to be fragmented and frustrated. I just might experience developmental delays, that will slow my progress toward a deeper understanding of who I am and who God is in this stage of my spiritual development.

I don’t know about you all, but for me there wasn’t a day that I was promoted to mature adult and can look back and pinpoint the accomplishment. I clearly remember my promotion from sinner to one saved by His Grace. I remember my promotions to high school graduate, wife, mother, grandmother, ordained minister. All of these milestones I remember because they were events with dates and changes that ingrained those changes into the fabric of my life.

For the life of me I cannot remember an event that I can look at and say that was the day I went from being my parents child to being a friend to my parents. I don’t have a day or certificate that records my own children making that transition. I do have some bumps and bruises from trying to protect them from the sharp edges as they waddled or ran into their new roles as adults.

I truly believe that my own personal experience with my Heavenly Father can bring a suddenly release from the natural emotional interpretation of the truth of my life up until now. I believe that my experience with God as my Father can help me to see the stage I am in with my own spiritual maturity.

My past emotional only filter, has had reasoning and negotiation added to it. With the emotional, reasoning and negotiation I can now add experience and hopefully wisdom. Remembering that wisdom comes through applying knowledge correctly. I am discovering that the oppression, depression, anxiety, fear, life disruptions of mega proportions, inability to stop those I love from making choices that can result in major disaster. Are all areas that I as a spiritually maturing adult have to embrace from the higher truth of who I am in Christ.

I am discovering what that means in a very natural and realistic way. I am having to openly realize that He is the one I am trying to follow, not from a hyper-spiritual perspective, but a practical and real world application.

I want to be released from the lies I have believed about God, myself and others. I am NOT talking about the devil kind of lies and accusations, those are easy!

It’s the lies I have told myself about myself, that have held me in the soulish prison of being a teenager. A place where I am double minded. One minute I can do this I am an adult, the next minute I don’t want to do this it is too hard and I will just let God do it.

There is a place to let go and let God, but He is the one who gave us the will to choose what we will let go of and when we will let go!

I believe my present suddenly is that my Father God has become my friend God. I have without fanfare graduated from adolescent to full fledged adult! There was no ceremony or party thrown. It is time to put away childish things and take responsibility for my natural adult, my emotional adult and my spiritual adult as well. My friend God is walking with me. He is present with me and requiring me to take responsibility for my own actions and behavior. Not just the spiritual things but the natural ugly mood swings, the pursuit of higher knowledge and greater intimacy with Him and others. I wanted to be a spiritual adult. Now, suddenly I am one, and I want to run back to the safety and less responsible place of being an adolescent again.

Adolescence is by nature driven by intense confusion and indecision. The natural brain is just now developing the frontal cortex where consciousness takes place, my reasoning and negotiating abilities come from the consciousness of daily living and decision making. Mixed with a much imbalanced portion of living the first 10-12 years of my life guided by emotions. Feelings, if it felt right or good, or if it felt wrong or bad. Which choice I made was strongly influenced by the experiential outcome of past similar choices and the consequences of those choices.

As the ability to reason and negotiate developed and I am experiencing life lessons I chronologically move to the teenage stage. Now hormones are being mixed with the intense feelings and emotions from my early developmental experiences. My adolescent experiences of trial and error have greatly impacted the way I will interact with the people I encounter in my life.

Raging hormones and emotional immature adolescent experiences have for most of us created the exact right combination for explosions! I am bouncing back and forth from the emotional brain that has been ALL I have had to work with until now. Not knowing and understanding that the inability to even see there is more to the decisions of life than what I feel, is a design component.

God designed the human to form and advance from birth into adult hood, by having the brain continue to develop for 24-25 years. The infant brain is only developing in the area called the amygdala. The amygdala is gray matter involved with the experience of emotions. Our emotions are the first area to form. We learn motor skills and movement from the brain through the brain stem. All the connections are made and our arms, legs, eyes, ears, and a multitude of other bodily functions progress as we grow. We walk we talk, we experience life. Combined with our past feelings and emotions we now view and judge the world around us. This is what makes us an individual.

The most beautiful and rewarding relationship I have is my relationship with my oldest daughter Brittany. She respects me as her mother, but takes a stand in her decisions even if they differ from mine. She leads with love, wisdom and courage. She too is struggling with this transition into spiritual adulthood. This struggle we are walking together is not as mother and daughter, but as equal friends with our Friend God.

I am finding daily that most of my inner and outer conflicts are from fear. Fear I will do it wrong and hurt or scar those I love. I am also discovering today that perfect love cast out all fear! Not flawless perfect, but progressive, moving forward love. Love that stands guard, cries, laughs, grieves and rejoices with those who have at one time been my responsibility to raise. Then, love releases them to the only one who can help them to discover not only who He is but who they are! Totally knowing that they are adults responsible to make their own life decisions.

As my Friend God is with me as my closest ally. He too is available and a Friend to my children if they choose Him. This does not mean I do not need the help, support and prayers of those around me. It means that I will own my part and with grace and thanksgiving receive the help of others more fully. Knowing I only have a supporting role not an enabling role in their lives. A role that enables me to stay in a place of adult parent who has become their friend.

I refuse to move backwards and try to parent them from the child, or adolescent position. They too are adults, although they will forever be my child. They can relax and watch as I begin to walk in the fresh revelation that they have a will to choose and if they choose wrong it’s not on me to fix it.

Knowing that I will stand by them as they walk through the hard places. Complete with the consequences experienced from decisions that didn’t turn out as expected.

I am choosing to embrace this new suddenly. To except that no one can fix me but me. It has to start with me. If I don’t invite the Holy Spirit into my deep inner hidden self and trust and allow him to bring all things to the conscious surface I will never leave the immature place of adolescence and truly become a whole adult. Spirit Soul and Body.

In this new suddenly I am beginning to see myself walking with God in the cool of my day, not as my boss, my judge, or my executioner. I am beginning to embrace the place He has prepared for me in the kingdom of earth. That place is to walk as the king in the kingdom He has given me. To recognize that He is my closest ally. We are allied together with a treaty sealed by the blood of His son Jesus.

In the kingdom of earth, as king I have the last say. If I seek the counsel of my allies they can give advice and share wisdom. In the end it is I who have to make the final decision over my life. Fortunately or unfortunately this is a fact of earth kingship.

So if we thought growing up leaving home and providing for ourselves and others we love had a learning curve in the natural. Then their must be a huge learning curve for our growing up, leaving home, and providing for ourselves in the Kingdom of Heaven.

In my experience thus far this learning curve rides like a huge rollercoaster! Some curves I scream in fear, other curves I scream with delight. Hopefully at the end I will look to my God Friend and say lets do it again!

Sharon Woolbright

No one out ranks God! Nothing is impossible to those who believe God!