I’ve been pondering a lot about containment lines, lately. I started that conversation with Jo Saxton a couple of years ago and found it picked up again, recently, while reading Bobbie Houston’s book, Sisterhood. They have both walked their journey of breaking through particular containment lines in order to really embrace the call of God on their lives. Jo had to deal with her own mindsets about being raised in a broken, immigrant family in England and being a woman in ministry of African descent in America – something she is now helping thousands of others do, too. Bobbie has had her own mindsets to challenge about breaking out of an old wineskin of ministry to women and defining the new, then coping with its rapid growth and evolution into a worldwide movement and always staying one step ahead! We are very grateful for these women who are not unlike us, really, but kept challenging every containment line that presented itself, in order to be obedient to the call. The truth is, all of us have to contend with these lines at some point or another, otherwise we do not grow and we do not move forward. I look back on my life and realise that I had periods of walking in circles because I did not recognise that I was hitting up against walls that actually needed to come down – not to define me! I’m all for setting healthy boundaries in our lives but all too often we use them to hide behind, to justify our disobedience and to camouflage our fears. We can usually knock people off our scent by telling them the Holy Spirit has told us blah, blah, blah, when we are actually confusing that with a sense of the uncomfortable and a very human desire to retreat to what is safe and reliable. The problem is, faith is often spelled R.I.S.K. It is the space of the unknown, untraveled, untested. There’s only about 8% of the population that honestly love that space. The rest of us thoroughly enjoy spaces we are familiar with and in control of. But faith is necessary to move mountains. It is essential to please God. It is the antidote to fear. It is the language of Heaven. It is how the Kingdom comes to this earth. If faith is not guiding our thinking, we are not moving mountains. We are not pleasing God. We are operating in fear. We cannot understand or unlock the beautiful things of Heaven. And we cannot advance the Kingdom on earth. A few years ago, in my job as an early childhood teacher, my boss took the staff on a hot-air balloon ride. Sounds fun, right? It was terrifying. I couldn’t speak as we ascended, the ground rushing away beneath us. I had visions of all the horrific news reports of hot-air balloon accidents and wondered if I was leaving my children without a mother, my husband without a wife, all for this experience. But I also knew that God was using this moment to teach me something about myself. I had too many containment lines of fear. I didn’t trust Him enough with my life, or the lives of those around me. It was making me think too small, driving me to control too many aspects of my life, and stopping me from ‘sucking the marrow out of life.’ By the time we landed, I felt something lift off me, and a renewed excitement stirred within me as God gave me a glimpse of a life unfettered by fear. New seasons present new containment lines, so here I am, contemplating them again. I desperately want to live in the place God is moving – a place of possibility, of yet-to-be-discovered treasures, of wildcards and new frontiers. I’m addressing things that block my view, halter my steps, keep me too safe. I’m confronting my own comfort zones and my insecurities. Because, at the end of the day, I really don’t want to miss out on what God is doing on the planet in my lifetime. Would you join me on this scary journey? Would you dare to gather your courage and name those lines? Would you commit to pushing against them rather than defending them? Who knows what God could do with a company of women who get their brave on and adopt the posture of a faith-filled adventurer!
