God Gave Me Access. I Gave Myself Restrictions.

There is a very specific kind of frustration that comes from realizing I have been living beneath something that already belongs to me.

Not something God might give me.

Not something I need to fast seventeen consecutive Tuesdays for.

Not something sitting behind a heavenly velvet rope while an angel with a clipboard decides whether my name made the list.

Something Jesus already paid for.

Access granted.

Yet somehow, I have managed to spend portions of my Christian life standing outside doors that are already unlocked, asking God to please let me into rooms He has been telling me I have permission to enter.

Which is… embarrassing.

Because apparently I have been rattling the doorknob of Heaven while Jesus is somewhere like, “Girl. Push.”

This morning, I found myself sitting with the uncomfortable distance between what I read in Scripture & what I actually experience in my life.

Because if I am being painfully transparent, there are things I can quote that I do not consistently possess.

I know the verses about peace.

I also know what it feels like to be irritated before breakfast.

I know the verses about joy.

I also know how quickly sadness can settle over me like it pays rent.

I know about self-control.

I also know that somewhere inside of me lives a tiny Regina George who occasionally wakes up, grabs the microphone & says, “Why are you so obsessed with me?” to people who were, in fact, probably not thinking about me at all.

I know what the Bible says.

But knowing what is available & living from what is available are apparently two very different things.

That realization brought me to Mark 16:17-18.

Jesus says that signs will accompany those who believe. In His name, there would be supernatural evidence attached to the lives of those who belonged to Him.

There is so much happening here, but the word that kept grabbing me was not signs.

It was believe.

Jesus is describing what accompanies a life that has been given access through Him.

This is post-resurrection Jesus talking to His disciples. The cross has happened. The grave has been defeated. The bill has been paid.

The will has been opened.

& my name is in it.

That changed the way I started thinking about the New Testament itself.

A testament is a will.

An inheritance can belong to someone legally while they are still living as though they are broke.

Imagine inheriting millions of dollars, receiving all the paperwork, being notified that the money belongs to you & then continuing to eat crackers for dinner because you never accessed the account.

That would be ridiculous.

Respectfully…

Hi. My name is ridiculous.

Because spiritually, I have done versions of exactly that.

I have been redeemed & still lived restricted.

I have been chosen & still lived chained.

I have been forgiven & still lived famished.

Not because Jesus failed to provide.

Because I have sometimes confused knowing about my inheritance with actually accessing it.

I have quoted peace while feeding anxiety.

Quoted freedom while rehearsing bondage.

Quoted forgiveness while punishing myself.

Quoted love while bracing for rejection.

Quoted self-control while allowing every emotion that knocked on the door to come inside, put its feet on the coffee table & change the thermostat.

The access was there.

I just wasn’t always using it.

& somewhere in this, I started thinking about Israel in 1 Samuel 8.

Israel wanted a king.

Badly.

They looked at the nations around them & decided they wanted what everybody else had. Samuel warned them. God told Samuel exactly what a king would cost them. Their sons would be taken. Their daughters would be taken. Their crops, vineyards, servants & livestock would be affected.

God essentially handed them the terms & conditions.

Israel clicked Accept All without reading a word.

“We want a king over us.”

God warned them.

They insisted.

God warned them again.

They still wanted one.

Eventually God told Samuel to give them what they were asking for, & Saul became king.

That bothered me because I recognized myself in it.

There have been times when God has told me no & I kept asking because somewhere inside of me I believed persistence would eventually transform my preference into His will.

“But God…”

“No.”

“Okay, but hypothetically…”

“No.”

“Jesus, hear me out—”

“NO.”

Then eventually, sometimes, God allows the thing.

Not because His original wisdom changed.

But because there are lessons I apparently refuse to learn through instruction that I will absolutely learn through experience.

& experience has tuition.

Israel wanted Saul badly enough that God allowed them to discover why His warning had been mercy.

I have had my own Sauls.

Things I prayed for.

Things I pushed for.

Things I was convinced would make me happier, safer, more comfortable, more secure.

Then God allowed me to touch the thing I had been begging for & somewhere in the middle of living with it I realized:

“Oh.”

“This is what You were trying to tell me.”

Nothing will humble you quite like realizing God wasn’t withholding something from you.

He was protecting you from the invoice.

But even there, grace meets me.

Scandalous grace.

Grace I didn’t earn.

Grace I couldn’t earn.

Grace that doesn’t simply forgive the version of me who should have listened the first twelve times. Grace gives that woman access to an entirely new life.

& this is where I had to confront another assumption I have carried:

I sometimes interpret my struggle as evidence that I am failing spiritually.

My anger.

My sadness.

My sensitivity.

My emotional reactions.

My tendency to get spicy.

& when I say spicy, I don’t mean a cute little dash of paprika.

Sometimes I mean habanero.

Sometimes I mean Regina George with a devotional.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit is whispering, “A gentle answer turns away wrath,” while my flesh has already opened Notes app & begun drafting a closing argument.

But I am beginning to understand something:

The struggle itself can be evidence of growth.

Because before there was new life in me, there wasn’t necessarily a fight.

Now there is.

Paul describes this internal conflict in Romans 7:21-25. He recognizes another force at work within him, waging war against what he knows is right.

That word war matters to me.

Because sometimes I have interpreted the presence of conflict as proof that something is wrong with me when conflict may actually be evidence that something new is alive in me.

There are two influences fighting for expression.

My flesh has preferences.

The Holy Spirit has direction.

My flesh wants retaliation.

The Spirit says restraint.

My flesh wants to replay the conversation seventeen times, add imaginary dialogue, win arguments that never happened & produce an entire limited Netflix series called How They Tried Me.

The Spirit says, “Let it go.”

My flesh says, “Absolutely not.”

The Spirit says, “Forgive.”

My flesh says, “Can we circle back next quarter?”

That tension is exhausting.

But it is also evidence.

Something in me is resisting what I once surrendered to automatically.

I cannot outgrow having flesh while I am living in this body.

But I can outgrow its influence.

That distinction did something to me.

Because spiritual maturity does not mean I never feel anger again.

It means anger doesn’t automatically get the keys.

It doesn’t mean sadness never visits.

It means sadness doesn’t get to rewrite what God said.

It doesn’t mean I never feel offended.

It means offense doesn’t get permanent residency.

It doesn’t mean Regina George disappears completely.

It means she is no longer authorized to run the meeting.

Growth isn’t always the absence of struggle.

Sometimes growth is noticing the struggle sooner.

Sometimes growth is apologizing faster.

Sometimes growth is recognizing the thought before building an apartment complex around it.

Sometimes growth is realizing, “This feeling is real, but it does not have authority over me.”

Because I have access.

Mark 16:17-18 reminds me that Jesus did not describe powerless believers merely surviving until Heaven.

There is supernatural life attached to belief.

There is power.

There is authority.

There is endurance.

There is intervention.

There is access to something beyond what my natural humanity can manufacture.

Even the imagery throughout Scripture began looking different to me.

Speaking with new tongues?

There is a new language available to me.

The Holy Spirit can teach my mouth vocabulary my flesh never learned.

Where my flesh learned retaliation, the Spirit teaches gentleness.

Where my flesh learned fear, the Spirit teaches faith.

Where my flesh learned scarcity, the Spirit teaches trust.

Where my flesh learned, “Girl, absolutely not,” the Spirit occasionally teaches the deeply offensive spiritual discipline of shutting up.

Acts 2 shows the Holy Spirit empowering people to speak beyond their natural ability, removing barriers through supernatural language.

& I wonder how often the miracle I need isn’t merely speaking another earthly language.

Maybe sometimes I need Heaven to teach me a language my old nature does not speak.

Peace.

Restraint.

Grace.

Patience.

Forgiveness.

Life.

A new life should produce a new vocabulary.

Then I thought about Acts 28:5-6, when Paul is bitten by a snake.

The people around him expect him to swell up & die.

They watch.

They wait.

Surely this will destroy him.

But Paul shakes the snake into the fire & suffers no ill effects.

I don’t read that as permission to go looking for snakes, drinking poison or testing God. Jesus Himself rejected that kind of reckless testing.

What I see is something far more personal:

New life comes with new longevity.

Things that once would have destroyed me do not have to destroy me anymore.

Some things still bite.

Some things still hurt.

Some things still catch me off guard.

Some things still leave marks.

But everything that touches me does not get to kill what God is growing in me.

People may expect me to swell up & die.

Sometimes I expect me to swell up & die.

But Heaven has given me another option.

Shake it off.

Keep moving.

Not because it didn’t hurt.

Not because it wasn’t venomous.

Not because I am pretending the bite didn’t happen.

But because what is living inside of me is greater than what tried to enter me.

That is access.

& suddenly the phrase It is well with my soul feels different too.

Because wellness is not the guarantee that the thorn disappears.

Sometimes wellness is the guarantee that the thorn doesn’t get the final word.

I can leverage Heaven’s help.

I can access spiritual intervention.

I can live from something beyond my emotional capacity.

I don’t have to manufacture peace from my personality.

Thank GOD.

Because respectfully, we have reviewed the personality.

The personality needs supervision.

But the Holy Spirit lives within me.

My human spirit has been made alive.

& although my flesh still exists, it no longer has uncontested authority.

That means spiritual warfare isn’t always some dramatic invisible battle happening somewhere outside of me.

Sometimes the battlefield is my own mind at 6:12 in the morning.

Sometimes warfare looks like refusing to rehearse the offense.

Sometimes it looks like not sending the text.

Sometimes it looks like interrupting the imaginary argument.

Sometimes it looks like choosing what God said over what my emotions are screaming.

Sometimes the greatest evidence that I have access isn’t that I shouted louder.

It’s that I responded differently.

New life brings new liberation.

& liberation doesn’t always mean the temptation disappears.

Sometimes liberation means the temptation no longer controls the outcome.

I am still me.

Still emotional.

Still occasionally spicy.

Still capable of getting my feelings hurt.

Still capable of anger.

Still capable of sadness.

Still capable of being Regina George before the coffee has properly circulated.

But now there is resistance inside me.

There is conviction inside me.

There is Someone interrupting patterns that once operated without opposition.

There is a voice saying,

“We don’t live like that anymore.”

& maybe that interruption is evidence that I am becoming.

Maybe the fight isn’t proof that God hasn’t changed me.

Maybe the fight exists because He has.

I have access now.

Access to peace that surpasses understanding.

Access to joy that circumstances cannot manufacture.

Access to grace I could never earn.

Access to strength that does not originate in me.

Access to the Holy Spirit.

Access to the promises of Jesus.

Access to an inheritance purchased by blood, validated by resurrection & made available through Christ.

So I don’t want to merely read about this life anymore.

I don’t want to quote freedom while living chained.

I don’t want to quote abundance while spiritually starving.

I don’t want to memorize the address of rooms I refuse to enter.

I want what Jesus paid for.

Which brings me to Denzel Washington.

Because apparently Denzel has now entered my theology.

There is a clip where he says:

“I’m from around the way. I’m leaving here with something.”

& I fear this has become my new quiet-time energy.

Because I’m tired of opening my Bible, highlighting something beautiful, saying, “Whew, that’s good,” closing it & walking away exactly as restricted as I was when I opened it.

No.

I’m from around the way.

I’m leaving here with something.

If I sat with Jesus this morning, I’m leaving with something.

If He exposed my anger, I’m leaving with something.

If He confronted my fear, I’m leaving with something.

If He showed me where my flesh has been running the meeting, I’m leaving with something.

If He reminded me what belongs to me through Christ, I’m leaving with something.

Not another quote.

Not another highlighted verse.

Not another page of information.

Access.

I am becoming the kind of woman who doesn’t merely know what Jesus promised.

I want to become the kind of woman who lives like the promise is actually hers.

Because it is possible to be redeemed & live restricted.

Chosen & live chained.

Forgiven & live famished.

But I don’t have to.

The choice is mine.

Jesus already handled the access.

The inheritance has already been paid for.

The will has already been opened.

The Spirit is already present.

The door is already unlocked.

So maybe my next level of spiritual growth isn’t earning something new from God.

Maybe it’s finally learning how to live from what Jesus already purchased.

& yes, Regina George may still occasionally show up.

But she doesn’t have access to the passwords anymore.