Can I tell you something that’s hard to understand until you experience it? BUT I also really need you to understand it. Because if we don’t, I think we keep chasing something that doesn’t exist.
When we want to change, we assume it’s going to come in “big” ways, which logically makes us assume everything in our life has to be done differently. So we go to the extreme. We make the big, abrupt changes, and yet it still doesn’t work. Maybe it even works less.
And here’s the thing, I’m all about change.
YET, what we’re missing is that the change you really need to make isn't always in what you’re doing. It’s the way you’re doing it.
Take walking, for instance. The same walk can produce completely different results depending on why you’re walking.
The change you really need is usually less about what's outside (what you’re doing) and more about what's in you (why you’re doing it). The real change happens in the places no one can see.
I know. It’s really hard to understand until you experience it. My life today looks an awful lot like my life did pre-health crash AND YET it feels completely different.
The Cemetery Meltdown That Changed Things For Me
I vividly remember the day things changed for me.
I was out on a walk. A walk I didn’t have energy for. A walk I didn’t want to be on. A walk I was only doing because the guilt of not doing it was greater than the effort of just doing it.
In those days, I spent a lot of time walking in our local cemetery. (Yes, there’s probably more hidden meaning there than I’d like to talk about.) But on this particular day, I was so overwhelmed. Like completely and utterly done with life. Tears were pouring down my face.
I was sobbing while half jogging through the cemetery (and not for the reasons people usually cry in a cemetery).
I was mad. I was over it. I was exhausted.
I was so done, I eventually just lay down in the middle of gravestones and let myself sob.
It is exactly what you envision and yet probably worse. I would have legitimately given nightmares to kids if any had pondered in the cemetery at the hour.
But something happened as I lay there. I became overwhelmed with the presence of God. I had nothing left but surrender. I couldn’t and wouldn’t keep doing life the way I had been.
And honestly, He wasn’t asking me to. In fact, he didn’t want me to.
I was the one boxing up my own life, complicating things by juggling a thousand things. And 999 of them were things He never asked me to. All along, God was just helping me see I could set it down. In fact, I didn’t have to juggle at all.
I had been working toward perfection. Toward a destination. And God was like, just give it to me.
And yes, it’s so easy that it seems absurd.
I’ll never forget that moment because it changed me. Which is exactly what surrender does. When you lay down what you were never meant to carry, you can’t help but change.
It was the beginning of the shift from working for instead of working from. And there is nothing quite like it.
Of course, God eventually nudged me to stand up, brush off my pants, and kindly wave to the strangers who were questioning if I was dead or crazy. Definitely the latter. Thank heavens the police didn’t have to come.
But I bring that up because THAT’S THE CHANGE. It’s a story change that happens when you surrender the way you have been living… or attempting to live. The way that has actually made you wait to live more than it’s created life.
It’s also the glue that made walking my white t-shirt. My go-to. My staple. Because it’s the space I’ve created to help me show up in brokenness and leave changed.
Did you know? God started the OG Walking Club
Here’s the crazy part. While prepping for the Summer Walking Club earlier this year, I realized GOD STARTED THE OG WALKING CLUB.
I’m not even joking.
Genesis 3:8 says, “God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”
Now, Scripture doesn’t spell out that it was a habit, but many scholars believe it was a reasonable assumption. That walking in the garden was a regular rhythm, and most likely, before the fall, something He did on the daily with Adam and Eve.
CAN YOU IMAGINE?!?
But then the fall happened, and where was God?
Still.out.walking.
And looking for Adam and Eve to join Him.
But of course, we know how things went. They got scared and instead of walking with God, they decided to hide (because obviously that makes sense).
We can laugh at them for attempting to hide from God. But don’t we do the same thing? We pivot away from the God who is inviting us in because we think we need to clean things up before we go back.
I go into more detail about God walking in the garden in a devotional I created for the Summer Walking Club. You can listen to it here:
LISTEN TO IT HERE.
Maybe you need to change the question?
Here’s what gets me every time. God’s first question to them wasn’t, “What did you do?” It was “Where are you?”
He knew where they were. He wasn’t asking for information. He was simply inviting them back. In surrender and honesty.
And I think that’s the question shift we also need to make. Because it’s easy to assume that where we are is where we’ll stay. And if it’s not, then we have to do the work to clean things up.
Most of our stories are some kind of mix of that:
I’m not enough, so I’ll hide.
Let me get it together first, then I’ll show up
If I work hard enough, maybe I’ll earn it.
The fig leaves were the first attempt at getting life together. Quickly trying to pull something together to present yourself… good enough? We might not do it with fig leaves, but we do it with a cleaner house, a better routine, a smaller number on the scale, a more polished version of ourselves to show up with.
AND YET, He’s not waiting at the finish line for the finished version of you. He’s walking in the garden, asking Where are you?
This is the step we all skip!!
We want to live on the other side: healed, free, at peace, financially stable, confident in our own skin. BUT WE DON’T SHOW UP AS WE ARE, SO WE CAN SURRENDER IT OVER TO BE CHANGED.
We patch things and mask them. But we don’t open up to who we really are, so we can release where we are. We keep one foot on one side of the fence while trying to get to the other.
But let me remind you, you can’t live on the other side when your fingers are wrapped so tightly around this side.
You can’t just patch over your story. You have to surrender it.
And most of the time, that means you have to walk into the sea. Even while there is still water in it. Even when it’s flooding. Even when you’re wondering how. You trust the process because you have to step in before you see the way through.
That’s surrender.
And sometimes that looks like giving up.
When I lay down in the cemetery, it started as giving up, but that just opened me up to give it up. And giving up and giving it up, while similar, are two completely different processes.
Just like walking from versus walking for.
When you give it up, you give it over to God. You allow God to change you.
As we approach a new year and the “new you” messaging, let this be your reminder. God doesn’t want your “new you.” He just wants you. And it’s in the imperfect moments of surrender, the messy, mascara-streaked, I have nothing left ones, that turn into the walk of a lifetime!
And now every time I walk, I remember the moment in the cemetery as evidence that I’m not walking for; I’m walking from. And I need it daily… which is why I walk daily.
But don’t take my word. Try it out for yourself.
This week, take one walk with no agenda. No podcast. No prayer list. No company. No fixing. No step count. Just walk, answering His call out loud, “Where are you?”
Simply respond with, “God, here I am.”
I guarantee he’ll show up. Because he always does.
Want to Continue the OG Walking Club?
The first walking club was in the garden, and I just want to help continue what was already started.
Inside the Holiday Walking Club, I’m showing you how to shift your story to live as you, not as a new year. And it will change how you show up all season long. We’re also backing it up with four Advent stories on God’s redemptive story.
The club starts Nov 22nd. I’d love to have you join.
Join the Holiday Walking Club here!