The Heavy Grief of Transition

Hey, mighty people of God. I want to minister to some people. We’re in this crossover season that we’ve been talking about, prophesying into this. This truly is a moment that the Church is in a global shift. The Church that we once knew isn’t the Church that is going forward. And it’s created a lot of restlessness and fear. It’s created a lot of grief in people. You know, when you’re coming out of something that is all you’ve known, and you’re in this place where nothing makes sense, of course, you’re going to feel grief.

Of course, you’re going to feel this deep heaviness, and that’s normal. Think about the disciples. Jesus left them, right? And Jesus told them, “Go back to Jerusalem.” And then you think about Peter going back to fishing again because he didn’t know what to do. He’s like, “Well, I’m going to go back to the place that Jesus found me. I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

And I just feel like so many people are in that space right now. But there’s a specific thing that keeps coming up for me all the time lately. Have you felt an intense grief or anxiety, from December to January, where it’s been intense? Like another level? Who’s going to be honest and say, “I don’t even know how to handle the amount of grief and heaviness I’ve been feeling. I don’t know why I’m feeling this.”

It doesn’t make any sense why it feels like I’m battling anxiety in my mind.

If you’re waking up every single day and there’s a heaviness on your chest, it feels like exhaustion, disappointment, like a monkey on your back, a vice on your head, you’re not alone. We’re in a moment right now where the enemy is really trying to weigh you down in a moment where God is trying to equip you. God is trying to lead you into what He’s doing. He’s trying to put His Spirit upon you in a new way. He’s trying to put a new mantle upon you. He wants to anoint you for the new thing.

He’s trying to get you out of depletion and back into overflow. He’s trying to increase you. He’s trying to stretch your tent pegs. He wants you to step into vision. He wants you to dream with Him. He wants you to let go of the impossibilities and all the robbery that’s been around you for so long and step back into faith again.

Of course, it’s the enemy’s agenda to bombard you in this moment with grief over what you’re letting go of.

It’s like we’ve stepped out of an old era.

And I’ve been saying this unapologetically: we’re out of the Church Age and into the Kingdom Age. I love the Church, but the Church is not the Kingdom. The Church belongs to the Kingdom. It’s a powerful part of it, but it’s not all of it.

We’re in a season where the Church is coming out of an old wineskin where we’ve poured everything into a tiny basket when there’s so much more God wants us to do, to occupy until He comes. And all the shaking and shifting is exposing faulty systems where compromise endured because we resisted the Spirit of God.

When you’re crossing out of an old paradigm, letting go of everything you’ve known, your belief systems, your environments, there’s a detachment that takes place. And it’s painful. It’s difficult. And that’s real.

There’s a medical term for it: anticipatory grief.

It’s where a birth mother feels grief before giving birth. It’s that foreboding fear: “Is everything going to be okay?” right before the moment of birth.

So many people have been feeling that because your security has been based on systems and structures that felt stable for so long. Spiritually, you perceive that something has shifted. God is leading you into something new, and it’s uncomfortable. You’re saying yes to it, but you’re still reconciling the grief.

I want to speak into that because I believe God wants to break yokes of grief today. Not all of it is demonic; some of it is part of the transition.

When God brings you into a new season, it’s like the speed of light in your spirit. BOOM, your spirit awakens. But your soul is like the speed of sound, and your mind is even slower. There’s a lag. Your spirit is ready, but your heart is still catching up.

That grief often starts as discontent. Then the doors close. The old thing(s) shut down. And suddenly you realize, I don’t know where I am. I feel lost.

This has been going on longer than just the last month. For us, it goes back years. In March of 2016, I was in a government job, living on the Gold Coast, loving life, and God was unsettling us. We’d already been through a wilderness season, but then favor started showing up. God was moving. I was writing, equipping, ministering. And in the middle of all of it, I felt deep grief. I couldn’t understand it. I was crying all the time. I’d lie on the floor in the presence of God, weeping for hours. It made no sense.

I didn’t know it then, but it was anticipatory grief of an impending birth.

One morning, the Lord said, “Go to Psalm 2.”

“Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession.” - Psalm 2:8

And I realized the grief was because I was stepping out of an old season into a new one. My spirit knew it. My heart was still processing it.

I sat there and asked God for the nation of America. And the next month, we found ourselves in Los Angeles. It was another “ask” moment. And I feel like we’re in another one now.

Maybe you are too.

Maybe you’ve been through so much warfare that you’re struggling to believe God is leading you somewhere good. And that’s where the grief is, leaving safety, stepping out, wrestling God.

It’s like Jacob wrestling the Angel of the Lord in Genesis 32:28…

“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

In these crossover moments, we can wrestle God instead of trusting Him.

Let me read a few more scriptures:

• Deuteronomy 34:8 says: “So the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days.”

They grieved before crossing over, even grieving the wilderness they wanted freedom from.

• Exodus 15:22–24 says: “They came to Marah, but they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter and the people complained against Moses.”

Just before the breakthrough, bitterness tests us.

• And for the Church, right now, Ezra 3:12–13 says: “Many of the priests and Levites wept with a loud voice while many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping.”

That’s the sound of the Church right now, the funeral and wedding song at the same time.

Even Jesus Himself wept before bringing Lazarus back from the dead in John 11:35.

Grief can be a sign of birthing. A sign of transition. A sign that God is leading you into what you’ve been praying for.

Part of this grief is letting go of the Hollywood Church, the comfortable gospel. The true Church is a Warrior Bride, not a coffee-and-cake bride.

You are firstfruits.

You are forerunners.

What if this grief is intercession?

What if it’s a groan God is releasing in you to lead the Church into the new?

The enemy wants you stuck under it. God wants you to recognize it.

Don’t wrestle God. Don’t try to figure it out. Don’t create another Ishmael.

Psalm 127:1 says: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.”

Step into the presence. Let the grief lead you into the groan.

The grief is not a sign of disconnect. The grief is an indicator of glory.

I pray that every heavy yoke be broken in Jesus’ name, and that your eyes would open to the glory God is leading you into!

Watch the video for this word here.