Have you ever been in spiritual disobedience to God and you do not know how to get out of it? What do I mean by spiritual disobedience? For the sake of this conversation, I am talking about not following God’s desire, not acting on the burden he has placed on my heart. You know, that feeling that you really need to do something that God is asking of you, but you’re not acting on it.

Some would say, its easy, just trust in Jesus, submit to his will. That is all he is asking us to do. Yes, that is correct, but I think it is harder than that as a fallen imperfect human. We all have a heap(s) of something from our past that causes us to have roadblocks, we might not be aware of them just yet.

During this season that I’m currently in, I’ve wondered if I don’t know what to do, is it the fear of the unknown or letting go of control. I’ve been spending time in prayer and conversation with Jesus, and he has been full of grace and pure love, standing at my side, walking me through the trauma that is the origin of this roadblock that has led to my spiritual disobedience.  

I grew up in extreme poverty most of my childhood in northern Idaho. Not the, we didn’t get to go on vacations poor, but the kind of poverty that meant not much food most of the time – if we didn’t grow it, catch it or kill it, we didn’t eat. No clothing other than what was given to you or found at the dump, no cool toys like the other kids had. We had nothing except the 14×70 trailer that my grandpa had bought for my mom, so we could move out of the neighbor’s cabin that didn’t have electricity or running water. There were 6 of us living in it.

I didn’t have the awareness of what poverty was for our family until the time between fifth and sixth grade. Both my mom and stepdad where on unemployment then and most of that money was spent on cases of beer and gallon jugs of wine. My sister and I spent a lot of time fishing for our dinner, and we worked in the garden my mom always had so we could have food to eat. At this age kids can be cruel, and I was bullied a lot, and being dirt-poor gave them lots of ammunition to bully me with.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with roadblocks and spiritual disobedience. Well, I have been praying that the Lord will reveal what this roadblock I’m experiencing is, why can I not move forward with his will. And he has, he took me back to this time in my life. He showed me It was through this incessant cruelty, that lasted years; along with the other messed up areas of my childhood, that I realized the adults in my life would not stand up for me, protect me or provide for me and that I was the only one who would do it. He showed me what fear, anger, hurt and the feeling of being utterly alone had on me.

This is my roadblock.

That I have lived my entire life knowing that I could only trust and rely on myself for everything that no one would provide for or protect me.  

This burden that the Lord has placed in my heart requires me to give up control and hand over to him complete trust and allow him to protect me. This is such a fear filled, uncomfortable and painful place to be.  I do not know how to do it; how do you move forward when you literally have no idea how to do something. I don’t remember what it looks like to rely on and have complete trust in anyone other than myself.

Well, this blog, this post, this first big step and future posts will be how I work towards it. This isn’t something that is a quick fix, now that I realize it, it’s taken care of. That’s not how this is going to work. This is something that will be accomplished over time, as I continue to grow my relationship with him. And with his grace, love and compassion I know I will be free of this need to control my environment and to trust him in all areas.

Lord, I pray that this post will reach anyone who might be feeling the same way. That might have a roadblock. That they would know they are not alone, and we just need to continue to hand it over to you, be open, and you will reveal to us what our roadblocks are.