“You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety.” Job 11:18
Isn’t growth wonderful? Seeds become trees, and upgrades become secure foundations to support our movement upwards. Certainly, after we have stretched into something new, we might be tempted to call out to Him: “Hey Papa, don’t you think it’s a lovely day… for a break?” However, these are words I am learning to leave unspoken, as He views every day as an opportunity for us to climb higher with Him.
Papa has been stretching me into a number of identity upgrades since The Expectation Conference with Graham Cooke and Shawn Bolz. Recently, I found myself standing before a great, sheer wall, stretching high into the clouds, separating me (so I thought) from His treasure on the other side. After some pouting, discussion and pacing back and forth, He brought to my mind the memories of climbing from my youth, transforming the wall from an annoyance, into a call upwards to adventure.
As I began to try and climb, every handhold crumbled under my weight. More grumbling, more patient counsel, and after a short while His revelation became clear. Each crumbling point was a negative that He wanted me to drive an instead into, like a climbing anchor. The first few were easy – “doubt” was replaced by “promise”, “fear” displaced by “love” – and so on, as I progressed upwards.
As I climbed higher, the dynamics of the upgrade became more apparent. Now crumbling hand holds had entire, real-world fears, doubts and worries carved into them, and single one-word declarations wouldn’t displace them. Through discussion and counsel over a lunch of grilled ham and cheese while hanging on the side of the wall, Papa showed me what to do. These more complex, real-world negatives that I was facing in the natural could be perfectly displaced by using targeted pieces of either an identity or His promises over me that I had been discovering and building on during my time in The Warrior Commission.
Certainly, some of them took a little longer to figure out, often with His encouraging: “That was pretty good, but you have an even better promise to use for that negative, Beloved.” Yet, success and steady progress upwards was guaranteed as long as I continued to choose to engage and be intentional in pursuing my own development.
After a while, looking back down the wall face that I had climbed, I noticed all my instead anchor points were still there. “Is that so I can climb back down, Papa?” I asked. He smiled and replied, “No, my Son, that is part of the new identity you are practicing. Nothing I give you is just for you; it is always for you AND others. I am using you as my free-climbing scout for the Kingdom. The vertical trails you blaze with Me provide a ten-fold acceleration for those who follow after.”
Kern Pegg
Warrior Commission Member
We find transformation and growth in so many ways. Go to thewarriorcommission.com to find our more about The Warrior Commission, our warrior training in relationship with God, identity and our passion for process based intercession.