The Call to Fall

I’ve been looking at our spiritual lineage lately, and I’m starting to realize we’ve likely been looking at the wrong reflections. We’ve failed to hold the Sermon Teller on the Mount before us as a mirror; instead, we’ve held those who went before us as our aspiration. We’ve become those whom we held in high parental esteem, spiritually speaking, and in doing so, we’ve inherited—and at times perpetuated—a cycle of pain, sorrow, and harm because that is what was modeled for us.

We aren’t turning the other cheek. We are grating at one another’s souls as we “diligently follow Christ.” When that following looks like an arduous climb up a steep cliff, lives are thrown off to ensure we each hold the necessary ground to be seen properly. We’ve had little concern for the trail of bodies lying bloodied beneath us; we’ve been too consumed by a vision of who we’re supposed to be, often fueled by a prophetic utterance we’ve molded from our own imagination rather than Christ’s.

When did we decide that “I heard the Lord” was a license to trample “competition” en route to attainment? We’ve allowed ourselves a wide berth based on the work of those out front we admire, but their work isn’t permission for our patterns.

I wonder if we can stop treating the injured like they are looking for a shootout. This isn’t the Wild West; these are the tender, often shattered places of the human heart. I think we have to recognize that there are those among us who have been discarded by systemic abuse and deep personal violations—wounds that can’t be "prayed away" with a platitude. The problem we face is a pattern of deflection—where an apology is offered as a tactical cover-up, a hollow performance that leaves the wounded person questioning their own reality.

When we speak or share our stories, it’s rarely out of malice; it’s our experience declaring the reality of woundedness and a desire to rescue others from enduring the same. No amount of righteous drivel will be the salve needed for our wholeness. Reconciliation requires heart, sincerity, and love—the courage to acknowledge the pain caused without trying to manage a reputation.

We’ve mastered the architecture of the closet, rolling weighted boulders over the secrets of our hearts. These skeletons have become our taskmasters, driving our defensiveness. We don’t need a mass exposé, but we do need to lay hold of the day of the favor of our God and allow His year of vengeance to reconcile and restore as He promised. Our “caught ya” attitude isn’t righting the ship; it’s blowing holes in the sides. We’ve slipped into a version of justice that prefers to see flesh ripped and naked bodies hang, rather than exercising the ministry of reconciliation.

I feel it's time to shift. The “it stops with me” mantra isn’t just for the world; the Bride ought to take note. We’ve been so busy striving to be “in it and not of it” that “it” moved in and became our puppet master. I'm hoping we can embrace freedom from this arrogant and rigid stance of attainment. We will never attain God by trying. No amount of prophetic exercise, sword drills, or passionate intercession will achieve more of God than if we were a peasant in an alleyway with no introduction whatsoever.

But what if we finally let go?

It’s only in the stillness that we realize we’re already in Him. We’ve been taught to fear the fall. We’ve spent our lives white-knuckling the ledges of our reputations, terrified that if we lose our footing, we lose our God.

I’m inviting us to let go.

I’m promising you that the high place we’ve fought to keep is actually our cage. Let us fall from the spiritual lineage that demanded our exhaustion. Fall from the necessity of being right. You’ll find that the air rushing past you isn’t the sound of failure; it’s the sound of freedom.

We won’t shatter. We’ll find that the Father hasn’t been waiting at the top to crown our achievement—He’s been waiting at the bottom to catch our breath. Stop the climb. Let the dust of our striving settle. He’s already there, in the quiet, eyes locked with ours, waiting for us to realize that we were already home.