Run to Safety

This week we have a very special privilege of hearing from one of our team members, Melissa. Hearing her heart about safety in leadership is so vital. Enjoy!

Webster’s definition of safety is: the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss.

Safety refers to security and freedom, which in turn allows one to concentrate on the tasks at hand. A few elements of effective safety in a culture climate are, sound leadership, responsibility, accountability, clear expectations, and moral ethics.

As believers and fellow heirs in Christ, we are called to a higher standard that goes beyond man’s definition of safety. We look to the Lord’s ways of using us. Words like unity, comradery, sojourners, sacrifice and peace become action words. So it is with the word safety. 

When you “do life” together as the Sanctioned Love team does, or any team, you do a lot more than just work together. You do life; you eat, sleep, laugh, cry, pray and worship, vision-cast and strategize, and seek the will of God together. And as a team, we are constantly purposing to move as One Heart, One Mind, And One Body.

But here is where it can get complicated. So let’s get to some of the spiritual meat around this word about safety. 

1). Safety — It starts with me!

          When we are moving in a team we can and will most likely bump into our weaknesses. It is very common as humans, (and yes, EVEN as Christistians) to make our own issues revolve around how others may have affected us. I know I have, I have realized that the growth of being with the team has stretched me. And I have NOT always liked it. I have left with a host of emotions that I take home and bang out with Jesus. And of course it is always brought to the table by Holy Spirit that it is “I”. That I must believe what the word says, first and foremost. The iron that is sharpening my iron is causing sparks, and thus purposing to polish my faith, hope, and trust. It’s not actually about the team making me feel safe. It’s about overcoming the things inside myself that make me feel unsafe and then taking them to Jesus. Insecurity is just another word for feeling unsafe. It comes from WITHIN. 

John 14:27 (NIV) – Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

It’s my job to believe this and to accept the peace He has left for me.

Psalm 34:3-5 (NIV)- I sought the Lord, and he answered me, he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

When we see Him, we become radiant and unashamed!!! Now that’s wonderful. I would venture that this is a common fear that affects our feelings around emotional safety.

2). Let’s get to the Heart of the Matter…Are you a David or a Saul?

David and Saul were just doing life, until they were chosen and called to be kings over God’s people. 

Saul was the first King ever chosen, so there were no examples before him to follow. But he did have a prophet of God to help him steer the ship and balance the demands of the Lord over the people and the battles of the day. King Saul took his position very seriously, perhaps too seriously! He made it more about him, instead of “the whom”. We are given this example in living color in 1 Samuel 13:7-14:

As for Saul, he [was] still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him. So Saul said, “Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me.” And he offered the burnt offering. Now it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him. And Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and [that] you did not come within the days appointed, and [that] the Philistines gathered together at Michmash, “then I said, ‘The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the LORD.’ Therefore I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering.” And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which He commanded you. For now the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. “But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has commanded him [to be] commander over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.

At first glance it seems that God is being so harsh towards Saul. Hadn’t he waited as he was first told? But then these words jumped out of the text. “I saw that the people were scattering from ME…” Saul was about Saul’s kingdom, about his popularity, about how he might and how he looked before the crowd. Saul was not feeling safe or confident because he made it all about Saul. Samuel reveals this truth in this statement. “The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever”. Samuel is displaying here how Saul made following God’s directions all about himself rather than following God, and most definitely not according to faith or trust, but rather about his own human/flesh/self presumptions. This is never a good thing!!! 

David, however, is always about the heart of the matter, about the Lord’s kingdom. He knows that his safety comes from his intimate relationship of honor and obedience to God. He shines a completely different color in His reactions to being on God’s team. 1 Samuel 13:14 “But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after His own heart”.  What a revelation of the contrast between these two men. David did whatever God told him to do. Over and over he risked it all, even through all of his ups and downs, his personal victories and losses. Think about the kind of submission David displays in this sad and dangerous situation, where we see him always deferring his opinion and flesh to the Lord for the outcome.

 2 Samuel 16:9-12 (NKJV) –  Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Please, let me go over and take off his head!” But the king said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? So let him curse, because the LORD has said to him, ‘Curse David.’ Who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’ ” And David said to Abishai and all his servants, “See how my son who came from my own body seeks my life. How much more now [may this] Benjamite? Let him alone, and let him curse; for so the LORD has ordered him. “It may be that the LORD will look on my affliction, and that the LORD will repay me with good for his cursing this day.”` 

David never took the situation into his own hands, but trusted that God had his back!

3). If you were to follow My footsteps, where would they lead you?

This is a great question to ask ourselves over and over along our journeys. In it, there is an illumination of where we end up. Are we like David on our knees before the Lord seeking His sovereignty? Or dancing the streets in our uninhibited joy before His Ark? David was a worshiper; a lover of God and family, a man who was called to rise up and slaughter men, women, and children according to the Lord’s command. The obedience and bravery to be God’s instrument could have only been between him and His Lord. The weight of warfare must have been so extreme. No wonder the Psalms he wrote are loaded with great emotions; the call so high, the call so serious, the call so narrow. He literally puts his life, his family, his heart and mind in the hands of his God. Even in his sin you could follow David’s trail to the altar.

4). The Buck stops here!!! John chapters 14 and 15.

If you’re ever in an identity crisis; feeling unsafe or alone, or overwhelmed amidst the team or crowd: STOP. Run to the word like David did. Run to position yourself with Jesus “The Living Word”! The book of John chapters 14 and 15, will remind you of the “Who’s” you are, and the “Whom” that Jesus is!  This passage is a banquet of truths to keep your identity steadfast in Him. Words like Dwell, Believe, Assuredly, Keeps, Manifest, Peace, Abide, Fruit, Joy, Friends, Helper, Truth, Remain…..These words right here, should be sufficient enough to encourage us to settle it!!! To let the Buck Stop Here.

5). Be a David and choose like a Mary.

King David was called and chosen in the old testament, as was Mary, who was called and chosen before time in the New Testament. We can see in the above passages the similarities of these two hearts. Both display the humble and contrite heart of a servant. Both David and Mary reveal a heart that is willing to risk self image in order to walk in faith and in their trust relationship with the Lord.  Both hearts are incredibly brave, showing off their positions before the KING OF KINGS. 

It is my firm passion to have a heart that reads like these two heroes. I pray often with tears in my eyes to be a woman who chooses this kind of resolve. How does all this play out in team dynamics? To have this kind of bravery in Christ, and to bring to a team? I believe that when we are healthy we don’t become entangled as easily. We already feel safe, which in turn helps others feel safe.

Luke 1:26-38, 45-55 (NKJV) Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name [was] Mary. and having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored [one], the Lord [is] with you; blessed [are] you among women!” But when she saw [him], she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. “And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” And the angel answered and said to her, “[The] Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. “Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. “For with God nothing will be impossible.” Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. … 

“Blessed [is] she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.” And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy [is] His name. And His mercy [is] on those who fear Him From generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered [the] proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from [their] thrones, And exalted [the] lowly. He has filled [the] hungry with good things, And [the] rich He has sent away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of [His] mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.”