Safe Transitions: Get. Know. Go
♥ 9 MIN READ-
I didn’t realize how important safety was to me until I began writing this blog.
I grew up in a bit of a bubble- Two parents, two older sisters, a bunch of older cousins, and an extended church family. Everyone around me was (and still is) uber protective, so I always felt safe. As I got older and started moving in circles where my village couldn’t back me up, logic became my protector. My brain was a threat detector, and I was pretty good at proactively assessing threats. But life is different now. God is taking me from new level to new level so quickly that my head is spinning, and my journey is so unique that my village has been moved from my defensive line to the cheering section. I’m on the frontlines of my own life, and for the first time, I have to depend on God to be my only Protector. This is new. This is terrifying.
Enough about me.
What does safety look like to you? Well, that was a pretty broad question…hmmm…let’s pair it down. Right now the topic of safety seems to be on everyone’s mind in one way or another. What we once took for granted we now crave. When was the last time you felt safe, and what did it take to make you feel that way? What do you need to feel safe? What I’m learning is that we create so many rules to determine our safety and God allows situations to rewrite them until only one rule is left.
Safe Passage
I was taught to look both ways before I crossed the street, to watch where I was walking (especially if I was wearing heels), and to always be aware of my surroundings. All of my life it’s been drilled into my head to only venture into safe environments and to leave at the sight of danger, but now God is requiring something different of me. In this season of growing and transitioning to the next level, my brain’s response to danger has to be rewired.
I have no problem doing things that are new and different, but I have always craved safe passage. I want to move forward, but I want to do it as quickly and with minimal drama, struggle, or stress. I want to get to the next level but not get beat up in the process. There has to be a better way to travel. I want a safety guarantee.
What I See Clearly
Safety is not a feeling. It’s a revelation. You feel safe when you realize you are safe. We wait for the feeling to come before we move, but it doesn’t come to us. We move forward to it.
We crave safety because we don’t believe we are safe. I see two extremes here. Understandably some of us have gone through such trauma in our lives that we’ve rarely felt safe. You need deliverance, and I know that God can and will deliver you if that’s what you truly desire. Just ask Him to.
Or you may be like me- feeling safe is your norm, and you’re not interested in a life without that feeling. You need to reexamine the true source of your safety. You may be giving other things, and people the credit who never had the power to truly keep you safe. You need a revelation.
It is not wrong to crave safety as long as you see the truth of what safety really is. It’s time for a perspective shift.
Traveling Grace
I asked God to show me how to travel safely from one level to the next and after He purified my motivation for asking for it (God has a way of completely decimating me by showing me I’m asking for the right thing but for the wrong reason), He gave me this strategy.
GET. KNOW. GO
This is the process for safe passage. Every attack that comes is because there is a breach in at least one of these three areas. God showed me that when we’re transitioning from one level to another, the enemy of our safety is not out there, it’s in us. It’s the attacks on our minds and hearts that come to steal, kill and destroy our destiny.
Step 1: Get the Revelation
In each season, there are revelations you are meant to get that should help move you forward to the next level (This reminds me of almost every video game I’ve ever seen). The right revelation is insulation. It focuses you, removes the power of distractions, and can help deflect things sent to derail you. But we have to get the FULL revelation. That requires giving time, doing the work, and seeking God so that He can reveal all you need to know both about your journey and yourself.
Here’s one revelation I want to offer you: Attacks don’t come through closed doors.
Close the entrances. Each season of life opens us up to things, but it’s our choice what doors stay open and which close. Divine desires open doors to blessings but unmatured desires open doors to destruction. To safely move forward identify and close the needed doors so nothing can sneak up on you from behind.
And another: Divorcing the person without divorcing the spirit leaves unfinished business. You must do the work on a spiritual level too.
A lot of time we divorce the person but not the past (I’m not just talking about a literal divorce- breaking up, distancing, detaching, etc. This applies to ending any relationship whether personal, romantic, or professional). You may see how being around that person isn’t beneficial, but inside, you still live in the place they created. You have to evict the environment inside you that still cooperates with that unhealthy place and causes it to still exist. Something in you partnered with the lie in them for your destruction. Something in you gave that unhealthy spirit permission to operate in your life and held the Holy Spirit at bay.
It’s more than cutting off people and changing habits. It’s about canceling the spirit of that unhealthy place and everything that tied you to it. Everything not in them, but in you. We divorce them but carry it in us, thinking if we force our habits to change for a time, we’ve divorced the spirit. It has to be left at the altar. Sometimes it requires identifying the root of it, repenting, and being delivered from it. Find the place of your deliverance (Hint- It’s in God’s presence).
Ok, a few more: Reflection and repentance are insurance.
Sometimes God allows us to make mistakes (often by sinning) earlier in the process when the consequences are less severe. Learn from them, repent and purpose in your heart that you’ll never do it again
1- Because it’s detrimental to you, and
2- Because it displeases God
Both need to be true to you. So often we try to stop because we know God doesn’t like it but until we see the harm it causes us it’s hard to kill the desire for it. You’ve got to see it as detrimental or else you’ll probably do it again.
Can’t forget this one: You must defend yourself against your defense mechanisms.
Why do you crave safety? What are you trying to protect yourself from? Do you truly understand what safety looks like, or have you confused it with something else?
Ensuring safe passage requires examining what you see as truth. Because while moving forward, every defense mechanism will be triggered to ensure your safety and you react based on what you believe. When we’re transitioning we can’t always tell the difference between a perceived threat and a real one. Our environment has changed, so our existing defense mechanisms aren’t equipped to protect us. Let God show you what real protection looks like.
Ok last one: Death is a part of God’s growth cycle
Every growing process isn’t sunshine and rainbows. Going to the next level doesn’t always feel like an upward trajectory. Sometimes it feels like falling, and often something is required to die.
When God prompts us to let go and let something die we must do it without grieving and holding on tighter. Both have the power to delay and distract us. The trap is to either believe that the promise is dying and lose hope that we’ll ever have it or to fight to hold to it, deceiving ourselves that we can give life to it. But our death grip can’t give life, only death. To give it life we’ve got to release it to the Life-Giver.
Sometimes we have to let the old thing die so the new can come. That’s the process. Resurrection faith is required when you believe in a resurrected God. Death is not always the end. New life comes after. So, you can believe that when you let go, the best part of your story is coming. Loosen the white knuckle grip so you can receive what’s yours. We hold on to the partial promise but if we don’t let it go and move forward it never develops into fullness.
Step 2: Know the Truth
What is the truth you know? Not the truth you think, kinda believe or hope works for you. There is power in knowing. Our transitions become problematic when we try to stand on the truth before we KNOW it’s true. Only the truth you know has the power to propel you forward. If you’re having trouble moving, there may be a truth you’re missing.
Here are a few truths it’s impossible to move to the next level without.
You are safe.
The way to travel safely is to not seek safety. You don’t seek what you know you have. The issue is not finding a way to feel safe as you transition but truly knowing that you are safe. If you knew you had a Protector that could and would protect you from anything you would never seek safety. We don’t believe it, so we attempt to arrange our own shoddy protection.
Proximity is protection.
Your perspective of safety may be a proximity issue. I never feel safer than when I’m in the presence of God. If you want to maintain safety, maintain closeness.
Every journey redefines what safety looks like. Safety is a revelation of proximity and power. It’s a realization that we are more powerful than anything that threatens us as long as we stay close to the Power Source. That closeness is what ensures our safety. That closeness is enough. Any feeling of distance is a trick to create distance. The true danger is distance, and in the end, that’s the point of most spiritual attacks.
The promise is yours.
At the end of the day, the center of every worst-case scenario is that we won’t get what God promised or make it to the next level. The power in every attack, doubt, or worry is that God won’t come through. That’s a lie. You will have what God promised. Know that it’s the truth and live like it. Move confidently and boldly, knowing that you’ve got a divine guarantee.
No one can know the truth for you. This is a solo mission that only you can achieve. You will grow with what you know, you will only go as far as the truth propels you, and you’ll only be as stable as the truth in your foundation. The safety you want to feel is a byproduct of knowing the truth. It’s the truth you know that sets you free (shout out to Apostle Jonathan Ferguson for that one.)
Step 3: Go
You have a decision to make and SPOILER ALERT, you’ll have this same decision to make tomorrow and every day after that. Will you do what it takes to move forward? Our problem is we say yes one day and stay silent the next. Or our mouth says yes, but our actions shout no. But for safe transition, our heart, mind, and actions have to say yes on one accord. See, inner discord creates outer turbulence. We create an unsafe traveling environment because we don’t maintain our yes.
This happens when our heart retreats to our comfort zone. We have to spiritually detach from our past, knowing that everything beneficial from it we took with us. We were made to move in one direction. Forward only.
We have to decide we’ll no longer play it safe.
We have to decide to move forward and keep going.
So What Are You Gonna Do?
You can safely transition to a new level if you’re willing to do the work required, but you have to get the revelation of who you are, who God is, and how to move forward. You have to know the truth and live like the truth you know has empowered and set you free. You have to move forward with confidence even if you don’t feel safe.
Ask yourself is it really safety you want, or are you renaming it for your convenience. Is it safety or comfort? Is it safety or being in control? Is it safety or easy?
Your destiny is waiting for the you that doesn’t want the seemingly safe, but really easy way out. It’s waiting for the you that will endure the road less traveled even if it seems harder. Don’t just look for safe passage. Let your goal be total transformation. That’s where sustainable growth is.
«Consider This»
- Do you desire safe passage? If so, do you know why?
- What changes can you make to travel safely?
- Do you have an accurate perspective of safety? If not, how much fear, stress, anxiety, or worry has come because you didn’t understand what safety looks like? How many times have you stressed out at the thought of something that was never meant to happen? (This is when the “what if” game goes wrong.)
Let’s have a conversation about this. Share your thoughts below.
