You Have Stayed Long Enough At This Mountain

 

"...You have stayed long enough at this mountain."  

Deuteronomy 1:6 

I love words.  Especially words of affirmation.  Well, let’s get real - POSITIVE words of affirmation.  Who doesn’t?  But there was a time in my life that affirmation was like an addiction to me. 

When I was younger, I would find affirmation wherever I could.  I just wanted to be noticed. It became addictive.  The Lord helped me to see that some of the ways were destructive.  And most were not fulfilling and definitely not long-lasting.

So, I began to find ways to fill my need for affirmation that were constructive.  Positive friendships.  Trying to change my expectations.  Affirming myself.  And yet, it wasn't enough.  There would always be one or two people who I felt should affirm me, but didn't... and I would be crushed.

I came to a crossroads.  As I began mentoring other women, the topic of affirmation would come up.  And I was stuck.  I couldn't help them.  I couldn't help myself.  Some of them were in the same situation I was.  What was I to do?  Force the situation?  That didn’t work.  Talk to others about it? That would be gossip.  Read books? That would help until I encountered that person again.  Pray for them to change?  Self-serving. Pray for me to change?  I began praying that I would be content.

Around that time, I was reading Priscilla Shirer’s One in A Million when I came upon a section titled “Bound to a Memory.”  It was about how the Israelites kept dreaming and longing for what they thought could be.  If only they went back to Egypt they thought they would be content eating “cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic” (Numbers 11:5).  It was then I realized I had exchanged my immediate desperate need for affirmation from a particular person into a future fulfillment of that need.  Meaning, I was finding comfort in the fact that one day that person would affirm me.  I was able to be content today with that person  and with that need for their affirmation, because I had finally resigned myself that one day... one day... they would truly see me... and they would affirm me.  And I could be patient and wait for that.

And that's when I felt the Lord say... You have stayed long enough at this mountain, Sheri.  Time to give up that hope.  Time to not rely upon the hope that I would ever be affirmed by that person.  Not that they won't affirm me, but that I was to no longer cover my symptoms.  I still had that desperate desire to be affirmed by that person, but I had covered it up and that was no longer good enough.

It was time for me to stop looking back.  Stop looking longingly back at what I thought would happen.  Again, let me reiterate that affirmation in itself is not a bad thing.  Nothing is inherently wrong with it.  But I wanted it more than what God wanted for me.  God is offering me an abundant life in Christ free from bondage - free from insecurity - free from the future hope of someone's affirmation.  Free from the dependence on someone else to meet my needs. 

And although there will be times, the allure of someone's affirmation will tempt me, I have resolved to stand firm and look forward to the promised land of abundant living that Christ has set before me.  And now as I move from this mountain, I pray my testimony of God's faithfulness will encourage those I influence to do the same.

 

You have stayed long enough at this mountain.