Under Attack

Job, Isaiah or Luke??

Hearing from the Lord is a new concept to me since being on the race, but now that I’m not afraid of it, it’s so fun. The Lord will sometimes drop verses in my head and I’ll look them up and they’ll pertain specifically to my life and it’s such a sweet reminder of God’s grace & the depth of His love for me.

I was asked to speak a while back at a virtual event by a few of my squad leaders. Teaching? I thought. I’ve always wanted to, but I’m much better at impulsively giving mic drops to people and then sitting back down. If I have a chance to plan, my anxiety takes a hold of it more than I can. But I knew that I should do it, so I said yes.

As I was praying about what to speak on, I received the verse Job 3:13 which says… “For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept and then I would have been at rest.” what? I thought… this doesn’t have anything to do with anything I can speak on. As I did more research this was a verse that came from Job while he was complaining about being born and asking the Lord to take away that day he came out of the womb, and make it like he never existed. He wanted to die.

Well… I was really confused. I wasn’t going to talk about that. But it kept coming up when I asked for verses for my quiet time, or for the day ahead of me. Job 3:13, Job 3:13, Job 3:13, He kept giving me.

And I was so confused… still.. For like a week. But I wound up speaking on something totally different, but the verse Job 3:13 still wouldn’t leave my mind.

And then during worship at debrief, a week later, I received Isaiah 60:5 and Luke 21:18-19 at the same time, which say:

Isaiah 60:5 → “Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you. The wealth of the nations shall come to you.”

Luke 21:18-19 → “But not a hair on your head will perish. By your endurance, you will gain your lives.”

So with these three verses I was chewing on, I still didn’t understand, but I knew they were important. And as we were reflecting on our 8 months of growth, my squad was taking turns sharing what the Lord gave to them during the time of reflection. The question didn’t get answered for me the way I wanted it to, and my brain was in full attack mode that night. As people kept sharing, I kept getting anxious, because I knew I was supposed to share, but I kept going further and further down the anxiety tunnel.

“If I was important, I’d be called on.”

“What you have to say isn’t even important.”

“You haven’t even grown at all, Kristin, you don’t deserve to share.”

So in order to not let my brain ruin the trajectory of the night, as we closed out in prayer to start the message, I spoke up. “I need to say something, so I wouldn’t just sit in it alone.”

I told the squad that “in order to be vulnerable or whatever”, yes verbatim words lol, I needed to tell them where I was at. I shared that my brain was in full attack mode and I needed to share in order to make sure my night wasn’t ruined by these thoughts.

I didn’t have a specific answer, but I told them about what verses the Lord has been putting on my heart.

& the words that came out of my mouth were these…

“I’m not exactly sure why the Lord gave me these verses that couldn’t be more different than one another, but I think that I relate a lot to Job, I’ve had the “I hate my life moments” and the depression that comes with the thoughts of not wanting to be here, but He’s reminding me that just because my past looks like Job, doesn’t mean that my present season can’t look like Isaiah, and my future isn’t going to be like Luke.”