Displacement Patterns

Displacement Patterns

Patterns of displacement, displacing patterns, out of position or in position? Chosen or pushed? Grounded or elevated? Placed or shifted?

I woke up this morning not in a good place, not in the right place, not in the place I should be. Although I slept in a familiar bed, a bed I had slept in for years alongside my wife. I felt displaced, pushed out, not in a good place. For this familar bed was now in the spare room and the other end of the house from our bedroom. It has been 12 days since I slept in my bed with my wife!

I moved out, not because of anything I have done, or any great argument, or relationship issue. My wife is sick, with a bad, persistant cough, that keeps her up, and kept us both awake. To give her space to get well, and to enable some sleep, I moved position. I then did a bit of a role swap and took the kids to school for the early morning shift, to enable her to sleep in and get some rest. I was ok for a short while, and then my back began to ache due to the old mattress, and my eyes and body began to ache due to the early morning rises. Here I was trying to follow my wife’s pattern, but whilst the spirit was keen the flesh was struggling to cope.

I’ve never been an early riser, except for a period 15+ years ago when I lived and worked in Sydney, then I would get up at 5:45am and get home at 7pm every day. I was much younger then, but it still took a toll on me. Since moving to Melbourne, I’ve worked from home if I was not travelling interstate to see clients, and have been able to wake around 8am and start work around 10am. I work best in the evenings between 7pm and midnight. So whilst this new pattern was pretty typical of most parents, for me it progressively physically wrecked me. Thanks be to God for a long weekend, where we can all sleep in!

So here I was, rising up with the word from the Lord this morning – “Displacement”, “Displacement Patterns”. See my post this morning on this for God’s intention to displace, to place, to reposition us.

I had to write more, for writing is the weapon God has placed in my hand, to combat the Devil, the flesh, and the grumpy mood I am in this morning! It’s funny how we can be more grumpy, after we have got some sleep than we were when we were deprived of sleep.

So here I am sitting in McDonald’s, making the choice to shift positions from home and write and battle with the mood!

I was thinking how much my human perspective of things can be so wrong in comparison to God’s view of the same circumstance. Many around me are smiling and laughing and enjoying the company of others around me. Here I am alone, and yet in the same place as them. In the crowd but alone. Alone but not lonely, as God is with me!

There is a big difference between a shift in position by choice, and being displaced by circumstance, or pushed out by another. It’s like choosing to change jobs, vs being fired or retrenched. One is chosen, the other is without choice and is imposed! I’ve moved from the paradigm of “the safe” to the instability of the paradox long ago, and now find myself choosing the stability and safety of God and his promises, as the circumstance is increasingly the opposite. This holding on to the promise has taken me to elevated places, and shifted my position on things radically over the years. Its like being picked up by a huge eagle, and carried safely in it’s talons, but you are flying!

God has taken us to crazy places in our life with him. From a secure senior position in banking in Sydney, to country sales manager for an ecommerce startup in Melbourne, that was bought and sold so many times over a few years, I lost count. Talk about displaced, from a secure position, to a place where not only your job was constantly under threat but the company’s survival too. Then told to stay in the firm by God, when my staff were abandoning the ship. I stayed only to find myself being trained, by an expert consultant, on how to consult. To then, again be displaced, and retrenched, but from this to set up our own consulting practice.

Recently we shifted from an average house to a mansion with an elevated view, because God told us to! Every day I’ve got up on the third storey to see across the land and have an elevated view. Most days I’ve felt like a foreigner in a strange place, wondering how I got here and when will the dream I’m living come to an end! There is the displacement of circumstance, there is the shift in position, but it’s a whole other thing to feel in position and not out of place.

Yesterday all this came to a climax, where we won the lottery to be a guest for lunch at the Fat Duck in Melbourne!

For many years my wife and I had watched Heston on the TV, on Masterchef, and had dreamed about flying from Melbourne to London to just go to his restaurant the Fat Duck. About 12 months ago, were heard that he was upgrading his restaurant, and had decided of all places in the world, to shift the entire restaurant and staff from the UK, to Melbourne Australia on the other side of the world. My wife, who is the catalyst for all great moves of God in my life, suggested we should go into the lottery to get a reservation for the limited places available. For many this would be an experience of a lifetime, for most it would be a dream due to the crazy price of the meal – 10x what we would usually pay for a nice lunch at a good restaurant! But feeling like God wanted to take things up a notch we put in our application for the lottery, praying that if God wanted us to go, he would make a way and provide the finance to cover it.

Well several months passed and then we heard in the news that over 250,000 people had applied for some 14000 seats. Then we waited for a few weeks to hear that we had been successful.

Yesterday was an amazing day in the best restaurant, with the best food and the word from the Lord – “I’m preparing the table, taste and see that the Lord is good”. He talked of marble like bubbles of celebration and when we arrived we saw literally these bubbles rising up from the fountain as we walked in. Then the waiter says would you like sparkling or still water. Then many other words from the Lord came to pass before our eyes. There we were shifted, elevated, displaced, but God had placed us there as a foretaste of things to come. Wow!

I remember the words of Paul in the Bible, who said I have learned to be content whether I have ALL or nothing. For me I have learned to be content with lack, but feel God is calling me to be content with ALL, with overflow!

Like Peter, I feel like we have been called out, shifted from our earthly position to take and keep an elevated view. For Peter he was imprisoned but woke up as in a dream. The church was praying for his release but too was in a dream, so that when the Lord broke him out from prison, he arrived at the gate to the church and banged on the gate for ages until they came to their senses and found that the one they were praying for was at their door.

Acts 12:7-17 Suddenly there was an angel at his side and light flooding the room. The angel shook Peter and got him up: “Hurry!” The handcuffs fell off his wrists. The angel said, “Get dressed. Put on your shoes.” Peter did it. Then, “Grab your coat and let’s get out of here.” Peter followed him, but didn’t believe it was really an angel—he thought he was dreaming. Past the first guard and then the second, they came to the iron gate that led into the city. It swung open before them on its own, and they were out on the street, free as the breeze. At the first intersection the angel left him, going his own way. That’s when Peter realized it was no dream. “I can’t believe it—this really happened! The Master sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s vicious little production and the spectacle the Jewish mob was looking forward to.” Still shaking his head, amazed, he went to Mary’s house, the Mary who was John Mark’s mother. The house was packed with praying friends. When he knocked on the door to the courtyard, a young woman named Rhoda came to see who it was. But when she recognized his voice—Peter’s voice!—she was so excited and eager to tell everyone Peter was there that she forgot to open the door and left him standing in the street. But they wouldn’t believe her, dismissing her, dismissing her report. “You’re crazy,” they said. She stuck by her story, insisting. They still wouldn’t believe her and said, “It must be his angel.” All this time poor Peter was standing out in the street, knocking away. Finally they opened up and saw him—and went wild! Peter put his hands up and calmed them down. He described how the Master had gotten him out of jail, then said, “Tell James and the brothers what’s happened.” He left them and went off to another place.

Today I choose to accept the place that God has put me in, not because of anything I have done, but for His names sake, for His glory. We are worthy because He has declared our worth, He died for us, whilst we were yet sinners and His enemy. Today I embrace the thing I cannot grasp, the lavish gifts He has bestowed upon on us. I am content.