Crazy Faith

Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen. (Hebrews 11:1 TPT)

God expects #faith that compels action. I’m not talking faith versus works…I’m talking about faith that is too strong not to respond in some way to what we believe about Him.

Jesus requires the man with the withered hand to stretch it out as best he can toward Him. God’s word for Naaman is to dip seven times in the muddiest water hole around. The disciples are ordered to sit the 5000+ down for a meal that hasn’t yet materialized–and it’s either going to make them heroes or the biggest fools on the planet.

There are many “bring them to Me” moments recorded in the Bible. Everything from five loaves and two fishes to a weighty test of whether Abraham will be willing climb a mountain to offer his son to God. When the Lord is getting ready to do something whopping stupendous big, He asks a token of that person’s faith–and that something might seem embarrassing, ostentatious, risky, perplexing, seemingly nonsensical, or impossible to rationalize. But consider: isn’t faith at times any/all of the above?

I saw where Theresa Hanshaw posted a challenge today for believers to get their passports in anticipation of trips to the mission field. It’s another bring-them-to-Me window of opportunity. It’s a way of saying, “I don’t just flirt with the idea of God doing extraordinary things for me; I prepare for it.”

People of real faith don’t just pray for rain, they set out their buckets and barrels. Hungry seekers don’t just wish for a visitation from God; they clear all the junk out of their guest room, fluff the pillows, and keep checking to see if He’s on the doorstep yet. They start coming up with names for the baby. They stick their toes into the Red Sea before it parts. They don’t calculate their odds of winning, consult the Doppler radar for probability of precipitation, or fact-check at Snopes to ascertain whether that sort of miracle has ever really happened before.

Put walking shoes on your prayers today. And don’t pray lazy, boring, 95% off markdown rack prayers that apologize for expecting too much of a tired, frail, depleted, resourceless Savior—request the impossible kind of stuff a person would ask only if he or she really believes in a great big wonderful God. Not that any of it is actually a challenge to Him, of course…but our prayers are often so lackadaisical and faithless that they don’t even get the attention of our angels (who are left undispatched, like Maytag repairmen)—much less inspire the Creator of the Universe.

Ask big…then go get your passport. 😉

Father, we live in a day when, even with all our technology and endless information and gadgetry, our imagination for dreaming big things seems diminished. It doesn’t even occur to us to bind and loose, to call things that be not as though they were, to see wrongs and deficiencies and make them right. Forgive us for our anemic, lazy, “template” requests that require little to no faith. Forgive us for giving You so little chance to show us just how powerful and capable You really are!

We ask You to awaken the dreamer in each of us today. File away the callouses from our hardened, indifferent hearts so that we may have a heightened awareness of situations around us which warrant change. Make us those agents of change! Your Word tells us that we have not because we ask not…and we are not asking because we are instead ignoring or just accepting. O God, realign our priorities. Make us hungrier than ever for Your Word; for as we read Your great exploits from Genesis to Revelation, it renews our understanding all over again just how mighty and capable You are to do the seemingly impossible. We ask that You will reveal to us extravagant requests to make…make us aware of what never before occurred to us to ask. You are the Creator who created us in Your image, with creativity in our DNA. Awaken that creativity which causes us to partner with You in the miraculous.

From this day forward, make us divinely dissatisfied to coast through our lives, doing just enough to get by. Give us BIG vision. Share Your heart with us about what YOU see needing changed and then help us to get on board with You. We stretch out “withered” hands to You that have withered from inaction and we say, “Wake up every sleeping part of us that could otherwise be doing Your work.” Help us build “crazy faith” so that we will imagine, dream, and invite You to go above and beyond our wildest requests. Nothing is too hard for You…so take us on the ride of a lifetime as You erase the “im” from impossible. In Jesus’ name we pray, and in faith we ask for more from a Father with an unlimited supply.

(Adapted from my Facebook status 7/31/17)

Optical Illusions

The eye is the lamp of the body. You draw light into your body through your eyes, and light shines out to the world through your eyes. So if your eye is well and shows you what is true, then your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is clouded or evil, then your body will be filled with evil and dark clouds. And the darkness that takes over the body of a child of God who has gone astray—that is the deepest, darkest darkness there is. (Matthew 6:22-23) The Voice (VOICE)

Most of the strife we encounter between ourselves and others can be traced back to #perceptions instead of reality. It’s said that perception IS that person’s reality; and while that may be the basis on which people make their decisions and speak their life-and-death-in-the-tongue words, perception is not necessarily #truth. Learning the difference is vital to your survival if you don’t want to walk around miserable and vexed in your soul all the time, always in drama and conflict with other people.

The devil knows how to use “optical illusions” to trip you up and keep you upset, angry, unforgiving, paranoid, suspicious, offended, and biased toward other people. He counts on you being driven by your emotions, because it’s when your emotions are all over the place that you have distorted perception. When you see that person whose presence makes you uneasy, the first thing the devil does is whisper in your ear. “That person hates you.” “You can’t trust him/her.” “They’re jealous of you.” “That group over there? Crooks. Dirty. They’ll cut your throat the first chance they get.” “She is out to get you.” “He thinks you’re ugly/fat/stupid.” “Her political views make her your enemy.” “He thinks you’re nothing because of the color of your skin and he’ll treat you unfairly.” And friends, when we lend him our ears and eyes, then the other person’s facial expression, tone, body language, quietness, nervousness, etc., will almost certain be interpreted incorrectly or in a way that creates further tension and distance.

We are so quick to assume that people feel negative thoughts toward us, when in fact much of the time, people don’t have an opinion about us one way or another. We are all so inundated with information coming from all sides that we are apt to misspeak or to act in haste or to have a “look” that others can read into incorrectly–at any given time. You can hurt someone unknowingly, definitely unintentionally, just by being lost in thought. And so can I. So, shouldn’t we cut one another just a little slack? Shouldn’t we remind ourselves that the Word tells us our fight is not against flesh and blood? When you know this to be true, and remind yourself of it, you’re less likely to be moved by that initial reaction to what you’re observing. And pertaining to that flesh-and-blood Scripture, while it’s sometimes true that the devil is manipulating that other person’s ACTIONS–at other times it’s forces of darkness at work manipulating our PERCEPTIONS.

Yeah, it’s possible that certain people don’t like us. And if they do…so what? Really? We can’t control their decisions or their opinions, BUT we can choose to love them and to take the high road anyway. And, consider this: what if that other person is acting odd because the devil’s whispering that same lie about you that he whispers to you about the other person? What if you both think the other is a hater, when neither really is? And the real culprit sits and laughs from the sidelines because of the trainwreck of relationships…based on…perception. I had that happen once in a very memorable way. I went through several years of believing a certain person had a strong dislike of me…and because it made me act standoffish, that person in turn thought the very same thing about me. The Lord arranged a very timely, honest discussion about it, which healed a friendship and eventually led to some great conversations about faith and eternity. What I didn’t realize at the time was that this person didn’t have long to live. What if that wall had remained up?

Lord, anoint our eyes with eyesalve! With our prayers and affection toward You, we chase after truth even in the little things. We don’t want broken or strained relationships. We don’t want the enemy sowing discord. We don’t want to step out on the premise of an optical illusion to find that we are falling from the ledge of a carefully-crafted deceit. Sharpen our perception, Holy Spirit, so that we can tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not. As long as there is disunity so thick in the air we could cut it with a knife, we will never be able to operate as one Body. With skewed vision, we will always stand in opposition to, or at the very least, in distrust of, one another.

Yes, we will have to apologize to one another sometimes. Sometimes You’ll lead us to apologize or be the icebreaker even when we don’t feel like we are the party who’s in the wrong (smile). But we pray for godly love to overtake us, so that there’s clear communication and no room for wrong perception. Father, in times where someone truly has something against us, help us to navigate with wisdom and to handle the situation the way Jesus would. In this world, and sometimes even within the Body of Christ, there are at times people whose personality clashes with our own–nothing personal, just two personalities that don’t naturally meld. We can recognize that and garrison up our minds not to go at war with the other person who rubs us the wrong way. Sometimes if we take time to learn that person’s history, it can even help us understand why he or she behaves that way–whether or not it excuses bad behavior. Some of the people we butt heads with the hardest in this season may potentially become our biggest defenders when a crisis hits.

Help us to seek to please You, because when we are truly out to please You first, we will have a bent toward humility and right heart attitudes. May we be led by Your Spirit to sense times in which we need to behave better or to be more respectful or considerate of other people. May we live in such a way that if others do say bad things about us or treat us unfairly, they will feel convicted. Don’t let other people be deceived about us, and don’t let us be deceived about other people. We want love–YOUR love–to reign supreme in our lives, that love which is longsuffering, believes the best in other people, and is driven by great hope. We ask in Jesus’ name, as we receive eyes that see and ears that hear the TRUTH.

Celebrate, The Weeping Time is Over

“…be not grieved and depressed, for the joy of the Lord is your strength and stronghold.” -Nehemiah 8:10 (AMP).

If you look at the context of the above Scripture and the time period in which it was written, the Jews had just completed a hard process of reconstruction of the wall of Jerusalem that had been torn down for at least 70 years. The whole city, including the beautiful temple constructed by Solomon, had been reduced to ruins by the Nebuchadnezzar in the Babylonian conquest of Judah in 586 BC. The Jews been exiled (or “carried away”) to Babylon, and those who’d been left as stragglers had endured unmentionable atrocities. A huge proportion of those now back within the borders of their homeland hadn’t even been born yet when it had all been destroyed, to remember the grandeur of how things used to be in Jerusalem. Now the wall was back up, and the fact that it went up in a mere 52 days was enough to shake the rumor mill and put the fear of God into their enemies. Jerusalem was back, and it would be restored. And it was known that they had God’s strong arm on their side. So as the people were gathered and the Word of God was being read by Ezra, they just began to weep uncontrollably. Ezra comforted them and told them, “Today is not a day for crying–it’s for rejoicing! Go home and prepare a feast for celebration!”

Sometimes when we have been oppressed for so long, the response we have when the cloud has been lifted is just to weep uncontrollably. It’s like all that time you were having to be strong, putting on a tough act; and once you can relax, the natural reflex is to just begin to cry. I’m like that. I’ll be a rock until a crisis is over then I just turn into a weepy mess.

But for God’s people that day, the reading of the text of the law seemed at first to grieve them–they were reminded of where it all went wrong, the choices they’d made, the God and His blessings they had taken for granted, and the people who were lost along the way. But then, as they deliberately began prepare for a time of joy, the hope of those Scriptures begin to soak in and they understood that, even with judgment, God’s ultimate plan is for our deliverance. I think that this as the perfect example of putting on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…something that involves choice. See, God was never NOT for them–and He was bringing them full circle because He loved them! And He had just enabled them through supernatural means, good leadership, and favor from unexpected sources, to rebuild what seemed impossible. Yeah, He’s all about that restoration. All things new. True repentance does indeed take us through a feeling of grief over what we didn’t get right, but it also shifts to rejoicing when we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us that there’s a chance to move forward.

Reach for the joy of the Lord, at wherever on the timeline of trial you find yourself today. I don’t know if your situation arose from bad choices, or whether you have just been facing one attack of the enemy after another. Lots of different scenarios can bring us to an emotional pitch-point. And maybe now that you don’t have to be so strong, you find yourself unable to stop crying. Let it out…and then let it go. The joy of the Lord is earmarked for you–has your name on it. It’s in reserve for the taking. It will not only empower you, but it is a safe place whose walls hold off the enemy’s attack! Thank the Lord today that He is doing for you what He did for the exiled of His people–He is setting you free, He is sending help from the most unlikely people/sources, He is strengthening you to start all over again, and He is setting you up for safety in His presence. Why not take a moment, right now, and call those things out specifically in a prayer of thanksgiving? Thank Him especially for those items on the list that haven’t materialized just yet…they’re on the way. God wants you. He doesn’t care that you have had years of bad decisions, bad circumstances, bad everything–He wants you to be His “comeback kid” with a testimony that glorifies what He’s done in your life.

Think once more about that 52 days it took to rebuild the wall. It was hard work. Their enemies were interfering. There were grumblings and disagreements among themselves. And it still went up and the gates still got hung and pulled shut and order restored! Right now you are at a potentially pivotal time. What if the answers to your biggest prayers were only 52 days away from coming to pass? Another Old Testament prophet wrote this: “The vision will still happen at the appointed time. It hurries toward its goal. It won’t be a lie. If it’s delayed, wait for it. It will certainly happen. It won’t be late.” (Habakkuk 2:3 NET) Whether your prayer is 52 years, 52 days, or perhaps even 52 minutes from being answered, it will not be too late. God will sustain you and yes, He will even help you to have joy and peace in the place of waiting.

I pray all of you just get saturated today in the joy of the Lord, and that you encapsule yourself in the protection it gives. You can still have that joy even if all hell is breaking loose around you…it’s not governed by your circumstances…it’s existent in SPITE OF them. If you don’t have it, ASK GOD for it! Keep asking until it floods your soul! Now dry your eyes, understand that God’s Word points to a good and expected end for you, and prepare that feast of celebration. Even if you’re just going to have a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, look at it as a celebration meal. The vision hurries to its goal! And you are greatly loved by the God who watches over His Word to perform it!

Release and Renew: Prayers for Those with Heartbreaking Jobs

”I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13 NAS1977)

Be deliberate today in your pursuit of the goodness of God. I speak especially to those in careers where you daily see the ugliest side of humanity, or perhaps the most hopeless-appearing situations. Soldiers, law enforcement, social workers, oncology nurses/doctors, ministers, teachers, counselors, and others–at the end of your day you must find a way to disconnect from the despair, lest you become a casualty instead of a catalyst for healing and hope. You can find that in prayer. At the beginning of your day you have to coat yourself in the hope of the Word to shield yourself from what you’re going to encounter. You might say, “why aren’t you suggesting I pray for the people I encounter instead of myself? This feels so selfish. What about their problems?” I’m writing this today to help keep you strong enough to do the hard work you do. You can’t help others if you wind up taken out by despair. It’s time to gear up because we NEED you doing what you do. Please, stay strong! Take care of your spirit!

Our world is sad. It’s bad out there. There’s so much despair and so many wicked activities taking place. There’s so much sickness and tragedy and cruelty. So many children, elderly, weak, innocent who are preyed upon. So many people operating under demonic influence inflicting pain and suffering on themselves and others. So much ADDICTION.

I’ll be honest. I went through my Twitter feed earlier this morning and the bad news was exhausting. I wanted to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head. I honestly thought, “Death’s not such a bad thing…it’ll be a relief to leave this world and go on to heaven!” But then I remembered what Paul said about it being more expedient (needful) that he remain behind to help others instead of going on to be with the Lord. I want heaven. I want to go and be with the Lord and be away from all the madness for all eternity…eventually. But what I really want to do first is effectively hold back the worst of evil by collectively offering up effectual fervent prayer. I want to point others to Jesus and be someone who hammers signposts in the ground of life that show a lost world the direction in which to run to find hope. THE ONLY way I can remain objective is to have God’s Word tattooed on my heart and mind, and to stay close enough to Him to hear His voice. Otherwise I just disappear into the sludge of despair with everyone else who’s given up and is waiting to die.

So for all of you who are so bravely doing the jobs I could not do (or rather, don’t necessarily WANT to do), I just encourage you this morning to cover yourself. Even if you’re already well into your shift, there’s no time like the present to start. Pray with me:

“God, thank You for helping me survive all the situations I encountered yesterday. Your Word says Your mercies are new every morning. Today I receive Your new mercy. Clothe me with salvation, with humility, with strength. Just like the “whole armor of God,” I put on my tactical gear. My head’s covered with salvation. My heart’s covered with righteousness. My tactical belt is truth…I can attach every tool I need to do my job to this truth. My feet are covered with peace. My shield is faith. My defense weaponry is Your Word and Your Spirit! That said, Lord, I’m getting ready to walk into the unknown today. I will encounter messed-up lives. I will meet hurting people. My heart will break over what’s not fair. Use me to make a difference, to be Your light bearer in a dark place. Help me to respond not out of anger, but with great wisdom.

Help me to do my best while I’m on the job and then help me to LET IT GO at the end of the day. Lord, help me not to carry these problems home to my family. I need my family and they need me. Help me to appreciate and be ministered to by the innocence of the home I’ve worked so hard to build and protect.

Keep me safe today, guard me against burnout; help me to strategize with the mind of Christ about how I can use my gifts to bless others and my strengths to help those who are in the place of need. Help me not to lose my sense of compassion nor my sense of duty to minister to the disparaged. I don’t want to be callous or insensitive when someone is needing treated gently. Help me to be just and fair with all people, even those who aren’t just and fair with me. Remind me that I represent YOU and can’t afford to let my words and actions go contrary to Yours. Help me not to think as the world thinks, but as YOU think about situations. Keep me from being jaded. Keep my heart tender even as you keep it from breaking in two at the things which also grieve YOU. In Jesus’ name.”

And at night (or the end of your workday, whenever that is 😉 ):

“Father, thank You for helping me to make it to the conclusion of another day. These burdens I bore all day long, these suffering people I worked with, the situations I can’t necessarily fix with an easy button…these worries and cares all want to come home with me. The memories want to invade my ability to wind down, to hear my spouse and children’s conversations, to keep me from the place of prayer and the much needed place of recharging and sleep.

But just like a set of coveralls, I choose to unzip the activities of the day and I step out of them. What I couldn’t fix today, I will deal with tomorrow, but for now I let it go. I’m not God–You are. I trust You to put things on hold, to keep the people I can’t help 24/7, to send others alongside to help, and to keep this world spinning on its axis for another day. In Jesus’ name I reject the effects of constant exposure to negative forces. I will not cope with frustration and sorrow by engaging in substance abuse or destructive relationships. I will seek out things that keep my heart pure and guileless, I will freely laugh at every possible opportunity, and I will give mindful thanks for the simple blessings You afford me, like a beautiful sunrise or the giggles of a small child.

I boldly declare that the helmet of salvation will keep my mind and protect me from becoming a walking case of PTSD. You are strengthening me, You are renewing my mind, You are restoring my innocence, and You ARE my joy, my strength. I will run to You and not be so “tough.” You’re the One I run to when I’m out of my league. It’s ok for me to be vulnerable in Your presence because You heal me and help me. I plead the blood of Jesus now to wash me clean, to cleanse the portals of my mind from what I need to let go of. Thanks now for blessing my family time, my worship time, my downtime and strengthening me to fight another day. I love You and trust You. Amen”

Repentance: Don’t Hide–HEAL

Don’t let the enemy guilt you out of your #destiny. If you have sinned or otherwise failed or fallen short, repent. Yes, I know there’s seemingly nothing profound in that advice, but it’s still true. I didn’t say resign; I said #repent.

#Repentance isn’t just being sorry for something you’ve done (or in some cases, haven’t done), it’s evaluating where you went wrong and making the necessary corrections to keep it from happening again: a change of heart and action. Maybe you’ve done something or allowed something and it’s wrinkled the fender of your reputation and distanced you from God. Maybe you’re just disappointed in yourself and it’s easier to bail than to humbly start all over. The first thing Adam and Eve did after they sinned was to HIDE. And may I even say, the more we are respected and admired, the harder it feels to get back up when we stumble because the accuser wants our shame to be very public.

Yeah, Satan’s goal is to take us out and damage as many people as he can in the process…but friends, when we’ve taken a faceplant, the world needs to SEE us recover, even if a few folks (and particularly some who are supposed to be on our “side”) hurl a few insult-and-accusation stones as we are picking ourselves up. Sometimes we privately recover, but truthfully, sometimes what we resolve to just do in private enables us to wallow a little longer in the mess–and kept hidden, sometimes we fix it, but sometimes we just choose to stay broken. Don’t stay in that place. It’s a rat’s nest.

There may be shame in failure but there’s no shame in turning to God to fix us when we have failed. Last night before I went to sleep, this verse went through my mind and I just meditated on it as I drifted off: “So now, those who are in Christ Jesus are not judged guilty. Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made me free from the law that brings sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2 NCV) The KJV says there’s “therefore now no condemnation.”

Because of our trust in the redemptive power of the cross, we can machete our way through the choking, dense growth of sin’s effect on our lives and emerge back onto the right path intact. Paul realized the possibility of preaching to others but himself becoming a castaway–so he held himself accountable. So should we.

It’s just where we are. Sharing the good news is relatively easy. Being the “living epistle read of every man” part, not so much. The best thing to do is to keep ourselves holy, on guard, prayed-up, free from bondages. It’s a lot easier to maintain than to break down and repair. But if you are reading this from the cave where you went to hide after your embarrassing fall, please know there is HOPE for you. Sure, there’ll be a few who would remind you of your inadequacy, but there is a whole host of witnesses crying out just beyond your earshot, “Get up! Try! Finish! Keep going! You’re almost home!” There’s a Father checking out the window, pacing in the roadway, wanting to put a ring on your stinky, stained hand and restore you with full privilege instead of demoting you from sonship to servitude.

I remember once when I was still in school, one of my schoolmates wound up getting badly burned when he threw gasoline on a bonfire. The kid was ashamed/afraid to tell his parents because it was a foolish act of disobedience, messing with fire and flammables; and because he hid the terrible burn under his clothing without getting help, the burn got badly infected and became a serious, dangerous problem much worse than a parent’s chastisement for disobeying. No doubt the scars are still on that leg, decades later. We hide our burns too, sometimes, don’t we?

Peter had to repent when he fell. Yep, one of “the three amigos” whom Jesus kept privy to His most important missions actually betrayed Him in a most contemptible way when things got too dangerous. But Jesus WANTED him back. He even said to him, “when you’re restored, strengthen the others.” See, your recovery is never just about you. Jesus didn’t choose to just gloss it over and strengthen them Himself in Peter’s absence; He in essence told Peter, “YOU do it.” There’s going to be a visible restoration of the part of you that needs healed, friend, and the people who’ve been let down by your absence are also going to be strengthened…by YOU. It is this action that will bring you full circle and it will keep you accountable in the future because of its humbling quality.

As much as it feels to the contrary, you aren’t expendable. God needs you on that front line. Replacing you is not His ultimate will — redeeming you, however, IS! He saw in ages past where a you-shaped piece of the puzzle needed to go, and He created you to fit exactly right there in the big picture. He doesn’t have a bunch of spare you’s just lying around in case you malfunction! Repentance says you are willing to let Him rebuild you to keep doing what He created you to do. And sometimes, we need rebuilt not only because of our sins, but also even from just being battle-weary, worn-out, and hyperextended. Let Him.

Lay aside what’s holding you back. Phooey on what anyone might say or think, don’t you wallow in condemnation one more day. Your destiny is right where you left it, and Jesus can recalibrate the driving directions from WHEREVER this moment finds you…to make sure you arrive safely. Come home.

Free Download! CALL THOSE THINGS Chapter Nine – Healing Confessions Over Cancer

Call Those Things - Expanded Version Front Cover Because there are so many people fighting a battle for their very lives against the enemy CANCER, I want to share this chapter from my book, “CALL THOSE THINGS: Bible-Based Healing Confessions” with anyone who will take the time to download it. Yes, I want to sell books, and I believe the Lord will see to it that they sell; but even more than selling books, I desire to see people walk in healing. Please, if this book or even this chapter in any way blesses you, tell someone else about it.

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Be blessed…

Lisa

Prayer Over the Emotional Health of Those in Christian Leadership

“Dear brothers and sisters, pray for us.” — The Apostle Paul, in his first letter to the church at Thessalonica (1 Thes. 5:25)

It’s one of the least talked-about issues in the church, because leaders oftentimes feel an obligation to appear stronger than their congregations; yet some of the greatest pastors and Bible figures have had struggles with anxiety and depression! We’re more than a little naive if we think that our leaders are immune to the struggles we ourselves face. I can tell you firsthand, a mature Christian can absolutely suffer emotional issues. Although we don’t sorrow as those who have no hope, we still suffer sorrow and loss, grief, oppression, and we still have to guard our hearts from the attack of an enemy who definitely doesn’t want leaders to be effective.

Look at King David, man after God’s own heart, who often wrote psalms that revealed despair and uncertainty—on the mountain in some of his songs, and hitting rock bottom in human desperation in others. Paul had a recurring or chronic obscure problem of which that he sought earnestly to be relieved. Jonah fell into depression after he’d completed the task to which God had assigned him. Elijah called fire down from heaven in between declaring a 3-year drought and declaring its end; and in the very next chapter, was hit by anxiety and asked God to just let him die. At age 23, Charles Spurgeon was hit with depression so great he nearly didn’t recover. On and on, the list would just continue to grow. My point? We have a completely saved spirit, but we have a soul and body that are still navigating a fallen world. Whether it’s environmental, trauma-induced, hormonal, generational, too-little sleep and exercise and quiet time, or just an attack of the enemy to derail a person—emotional issues can be just as huge a matter for a leader as they are for his/her followers!

So while we certainly need to pray for one another, we also need to know how to pray for ourselves. Our leaders are indeed there for us; but they are human too, and we all can lean too heavily on them at times. They wear many hats and get very little downtime. The person you’re counting on to listen to your problems and get that prayer through may be encountering an inner battle you know nothing of. That person’s spouse may not even have a clue that there’s a private agony of anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, burnout from packing a burden the size of a church on his or her shoulders. Ask yourself, in whom can your own spiritual leader(s) confide, go to for honest accountability and prayer, and feel comfortable being real? Leaders want to be bulletproof. Many don’t want to reveal their own struggles because the devil wants them to believe they are incompetent leaders if they’re not always on the mountain; that their followers will lose confidence in them or begin to view them as hypocrites! They don’t want to be judged as weak, out of God’s will, or flawed and unfit for service. So today, while I realize many of you are wrestling with depression and emotional issues of your own, could we just turn our attention away from ourselves and pray collectively for the front line leaders, apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists, teachers, ministry workers, and intercessors who are oppressed?

Father, You already know our personal struggles and we trust You to finish the work You’ve begun in us. So in this prayer, we turn to the emotional health of our leaders and ask You to bless them and meet them where they are. Oh how they need Your angelic assistance, Lord! You alone know the agony they feel when they’re under pressure and feel they must put on brave masks in front of their constituents. You know the pressure of feeling as if they can never relax or come out from under the burden of other people’s miseries and suffering. You know the guilt they feel when they get weary of late nights and other people’s drama. You know every time they stand behind a lectern or pulpit or a writer’s pen feeling bankrupt—disqualified to help others because they too are wounded and bleeding. You know the very ones who’ve thought of suicide, who might be self-medicating, and who’ve thought of quitting the very ministries You’ve called them to. Lord, intervene! Teach us how to pray for those in authority over us, instead of expecting the prayer relationship to be one-sided!

O God, we pray, send Your ministering spirits to them! Father, we plead the blood of Jesus around our pastors, teachers, elders, public speakers, and believers who serve You as they work in civil government. Bring laughter and lightheartedness to their weary souls. Let a joy bubble up within, a calm and assurance and a FREEDOM, that actually matches the face they put on in front of others. Give them wise answers to the questions they often take to their pillows with them at night, so that they can sleep in peace. Give them opportunities for recreation and fun and keep insisting in that still small voice that they need to take what You’re making available to them! Father, we ask for special confidantes and mentors and accountability partners, for counselors, and for genuine friends for these in leadership. They need people they can “get real” with to talk about and pray about their private struggles, fears, and failures. Finally, Father, help them keep open doors of communication between themselves and YOU; and as You bring healing for their anxieties, and for the depression the enemy tells them they wouldn’t have if they were walking worthy of their vocation.

Father, ease their financial burdens and their family tensions we pray. Whatever issues are bombarding leaders tonight, we pray angels are released to do war in the heavenlies on their behalf. Give them days and nights where not one phone call fetches them away from needed rest or time with family. Intercept delays perpetuated by the enemy to keep them too busy to pray and invest time in study. Send laborers into the harvest so that they’re not doing all the work themselves; place armorbearers around them who will not bail and betray, and assign intercessors who not only pray daily for them, but who are awakened and sensitive to pray “emergency” prayers when that leader is silently suffering. May You keep those (including leaders on every level) in perfect peace whose hearts and minds are steadfast because they trust in You!

And Lord, for every fallen leader who’s given up, succumbed to temptation, walked away, or departed from the faith, we ask that angels and people You assign will go to their aid and help them regain their bearings. Remind them that it’s time to repent, get healed up, and strengthen others after they themselves are restored. Their latter days CAN be greater than their former ones!

Open up ministry centers geared toward the healing of wounded and weary leaders, where they can get help in a nonthreatening environment. Let this be the year when leaders have healed marriages, restored families, and renewed sense of purpose; not just painted-on facades of how they think they’re expected to look. And Lord, help us to cut the faltering a little more slack! Forgive us for not forgiving them their shortcomings, for judging them inappropriately, for speaking evil of them when we should’ve instead been on our knees in intercession.

We rebuke spirits of suicide, doubt and unbelief, pride, lust, delusion, anxiety, depression, fear, lack, mental illness, confusion, and afflicting spirits of every kind who are trying to take out godly people in authority. The Lord rebuke you and break your assignment off God’s chosen! We speak it in Jesus’ name and we release healing and a time of refreshing over the lives of apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, leaders on every level, intercessors, and godly civil servants. May these last days find Your called ones more determined than ever to make it and to bring in the harvest! Seal it, we pray, with good sleep, much laughter, and contagious joy, in Jesus’ name. Thank You, good good Father!

OCD NO MORE (Warning–read only if you want your life back!)

“Do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God. And the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus [is yours].” Phil 4:6-7 (AMP)

I believe one of Satan’s greatest deceptions is to convince people that the very things which hold them in bondage put them at some sort of advantage. He does this with unbelievers and believers alike. The belief that one drives a little better when drinking. Or that getting high helps release or enhance the talent of the singer or musician. The belief that cleanliness or fitness or aesthetic appearance taken severely beyond the norm makes us better, safer, more beautiful than the people around us–turning us into germaphobes, steroid-abusers, anorexics, addicts to plastic surgery. Any time our enemy can convince us that imbalance is helping us in some way, he will keep us testing its limits over and over, in increasing quantities, till he ultimately kills or cripples us with it.

Yes, we recognize the more obvious destructive misconceptions, but what about the more subtle ones? The belief that one’s tendency for worry or obsessiveness or unyielding perfectionism makes that person invaluable and better on the job or at home or in the church? Yes, it might bring some results, but the cost to that person’s emotional and physical (and perhaps even spiritual) health, not to mention its cost to relationships with those around him or her, is proof that it’s turned from mere attentiveness into a bondage that needs broken.

Bottom line: God doesn’t need you to violate His Word to accomplish His will!

If the Bible says, “Be anxious for nothing…” (and that whole verse is beneficial here) then it applies even that person who’s given to detail and excellence and finesse. So yes, friends, even you who are leaders, professionals, artists, even movers and shakers in the business realm, yes, YOU…are meant to be able to lie down and rest at night and be able to lay aside the garments which define you in the eyes of those around you. You’re not better at what you do by having your thermostat broken, you’re just suffering and nobody’s told you that you don’t have to in order to walk in the place of greatness! As a matter of fact, the devil wants a child of God, in particular, to believe that it’s ok for his/her controlling obsession to run unchecked because that person is letting it consume him/her “for God.” How cruel indeed this deception, and it’s not at all from the Father! Do good, godly people fall into that trap? Yes, sadly, all the time. It’s time for you to deal with yours today if this writing is resonating any at all with you.

Lord, Your Word says we aren’t ignorant of the devices of the devil (2 Corinthians 2:11). You are a giver of peace, of joy, of rest, of blessed assurance. Those of us who want to be fruitful and productive can sometimes let our zeal for excellence push us beyond Your safe boundaries. We can ticker down our lists of what we’ve accomplished but at the end of the day, our obsession and need to be in control of our environment makes us miserable, sick, exhausted, and it probably makes anyone tied to us equally nervous, tensed, stressed because they in turn are trying to appease our relentless nature. Our unforgiveness of our own perceived inadequacies can turn inward and manifest in autoimmune disorders, traumatic stress disorders, early death or disability due to stress-induced disease…if we don’t get a handle on it. So we release and forgive ourselves and others for not being perfect! The devil is crafty–he tries to make us feel guilty if we relax our hold. He has convinced many that this sickness and misery is the price they must pay to carry the talent, anointing, or advancement they’ve worked so hard to achieve. We are not going to be those people anymore! We reject the idea that our obsessive nature is just the cross we must bear, or that this type of bondage is a good thing. We don’t need it in order to be valuable–that’s a lie straight from hell! WE WILL NOT LET OUR GOD-GIVEN GIFTS BECOME OUR WEAPONS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION, IN JESUS’ NAME!

So we come into agreement with Your Word today and we are going to make a marked effort to surrender all to You. This is probably one of those areas Paul referred to when in 1 Cor. 15:31 he said that he “died (to self)” daily. You are teaching us the boundary at which we are to stop. We have the ability to work on something and release it as finished, in peace and trust that it is enough. Your Holy Spirit assures us that we can let go of a few things or that enough time has been spent on a particular detail. We crucify that driving force in us that won’t let us rest, that won’t let others rest, and that won’t trust You to keep what we commit to You! We ask You to deliver us from perfectionism, the need to micromanage our lives and others’, from any spirits attached to this unhealthy belief that our best is never good enough or that we could have done more. We renounce any negative confessions spoken over us by ourselves or others, and we receive healing of any damage inflicted to our souls from someone who didn’t love or accept us enough. We rebuke the spirit of fear that brings with it paranoia, inferiority complex, jealousy, inordinate competitiveness, domination, controlling spirits, and compulsiveness. We ask you to forgive us when our own pride is the culprit. We will not confess OCD over ourselves–not even jokingly–like it’s a beneficial trait. It’s a curse and we have been redeemed from the curse! Remind us of how Satan has used this to the destruction of many brilliant people, like Howard Hughes, who became so obsessive he died a rich, alone madman in self-imposed exile, afraid of germs and people and imperfection. We rebuke the spirit of fear that tells us if we relax, we will lose our “superpowers” or our competitive edge. Our times are in Your hands, Father. You will keep us in perfect peace as we cast our cares on the One through Whom true promotion comes!

We will be excellent, we will be tenacious and we will work while it is day, but we repent, reject, and renounce all times in the past where we embraced this bondage as some kind of good thing. We are going to rely on You more and our own abilities less. We give this to You, knowing that You are setting us up to be MORE fruitful in the long run. When someone brings up OCD to us in the future (probably from times we’ve joked about it in the past), we are going to reply, “No, I’m not given to obsessive behavior anymore! I’m delivered! I have an eye for detail and I operate in strong gifts and abilities, but I no longer let perfectionism hold me in bondage. I do the best I can now to just plant seed, allow someone else to water, and trust God to give the increase…and with that, I’m resting while God is at work making my effort pay off! I’m healed!”

In Jesus’ name we pray today, Amen.

(Note: This and other issues I hope to be covering in the CALL THOSE THINGS: Bible-Based Confessions Over Mental and Emotional Health edition…available at some time in the future.)

Dishpan Discipline

“For whomever THE LORD JEHOVAH loves, he instructs, and draws aside his children with whom he is pleased.” — Hebrews 12:6 (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)

It’s amazing the things the Lord will speak into your heart when you are intentionally listening for him even while you go about your day. There’s not a lot to be learned spiritually while washing dishes, right? Wrong!

We got called out of the house abruptly yesterday for a family emergency and consequently, the dirty dishes just had to sit until a time when I could get to them…which happened to be this morning. (Don’t faint from shock, you ladies who are better housekeepers than I!)

As I went in and started to tackle a day-old dish job along with a bowl and fork from a quick bite of breakfast this morning, the Lord just dropped this into my spirit about sin. Two forks had the exact same food on them; except one had dried on from the day before, and one was fresh. The Lord asked me, “Which one is dirtier?” to which I replied, “Neither, they’re both needing washed!” “Which one will be easier to wash?” He asked. The answer was obvious in the time it took me to clean one and then the other.

This is the difference between confronting sin and undealt-with sin. Just like those two forks, sin leaves you just as unclean whether it’s new or old; but undealt-with sin is sometimes takes more “elbow grease” to remove than when you realize you have erred and immediately confess, forsake the sin, and receive God’s forgiveness. Although sin is sin, period, there are some sins that are harder to break free from once you lend yourself to their influence because they’re “clingier” in nature; just as there’s a difference between the effort required in washing the spoon that stirred the tea and the spoon that stirred hot cheese sauce. Understand, I’m not talking about grace versus works–what He forgives, He forgives and we are saved by His grace, not our works. I’m talking about the effect sin has on us, not whether we’re truly saved. I believe you comprehend when I say that there are some things we can get ourselves into that are a little harder than others to undo the damage. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from every sin when we confess and turn away from that sin; but consequences of that sin can linger even when the sin is forgiven and gone.

The same scenario with unforgiveness and grudges…you need to deal with both new and old wounds and hurts, but the best and easiest time to let go of an offense is while it’s still fresh and not “baked on” to one’s heart. If we willfully continue in the same sin and remain unrepentant once it’s exposed to the light of God’s Word, we have just crossed over into the realm of iniquity. Friends, that’s a chance we can’t afford to take! Iniquity can affect your family for generations to come!

Though God requires all His people to live holy, I believe He deals with each of us in different ways to get the same result end because He know our individual personality types life experiences, and spiritual maturity. And just like those dishes in my sink, the method of separating that sin from me may vary with what kind of “dirt” it is (was it an unintentional erring, or was it a deliberate and direct disobedience to something I knew God’s Word says) , what part of my life it affects, and how long it’s been “stuck” on me! To be sure, all sin needs cleaned off our lives. You wouldn’t deliberately eat with a dirty utensil, and God won’t leave us to wallow in our dirty ways!

But just as some things require vigorous scrubbing while others require a more gentle, gradual pre-soaking; and just as exposing some things to too much heat only makes a stain or a stuck-on food harder to come clean, God knows just how to get up close and personal with each of us! Some of us “get it” right away and require just a minimal bit of handling. Others of us might be more stubborn, or by personality type are more vulnerable to reverting back to the same points of error over and over again. Still, His Word applies to every person. He hold us all to the same standard of obedience; but He is well-acquainted with His creation and how to bring the best out in each one of us! We can trust Him and yield ourselves to His will for our lives. He knows us intimately–what makes each of us tick, how to bring to fruition His plans for us…plans that prosper and not harm us…to give us hope and a future!” He loves us too much to leave us in our sin, regardless of what method He needs to use to get our attention.

Wow. While this may sound corny to some of you, it makes perfect sense to me. God knows my kitchen is as good a place to talk to me as my prayer closet! And whether He has to go all Brillo-pad on me, or He does a more subtle work in areas of my life where a harsh rebuke would be too much, I want to be yielded to His perfect will for my life because I trust Him. Put yourself in His loving, capable hands and let Him work in big and small ways to make you a vessel of honor–clean and holy– and ready to fulfill His purpose in your life. When He reveals something you need to deal with, please don’t put it off. As a wise woman known here on earth as Edith Mahon once said, “Do it now, do it now, do it now!“

His Name is “Faithful” – El Hanne’eman

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. Deut. 7:9

This is a hard one to articulate correctly, so I pray that I can with great grace. When a believer says God never lets us down, never fails us, it can appear to nonbelievers that we’re delusional or just saying things to justify our faith. He has never failed me…but to be sure, God has not always met my human expectations; neither has He said ‘yes’ to certain prayers I’ve prayed. He has not always diverted my feet from walking into hard places, or spared me from having to wait; or from having to believe for what I could not already see in the natural. He hasn’t always let me get the promotion, let my team win, or shielded me from false accusation. Some of the not-so-bad things I’ve asked for, I didn’t get. Some people I cared deeply about died even after I prayed in earnest that they might live. So on the litmus test of the world, my testimony that He never fails seems to not make sense–those who expect that we always get a trophy for participation, that we are never denied, never discriminated against, never left standing alone.

But I am firm in my conviction when I reiterate that my God has most certainly never failed me! I don’t have to make excuses for the times He has said no…for it’s what He’s said YES to that proves that all things work together for good for me and for every believer who’s called according to His purpose. Jesus didn’t come and live a shielded life. He wasn’t some celebrity’s son who served in a safe zone and was then hailed a hero for wearing the uniform of flesh away from the field of front-line combat. He was tested, tested, tested. He was the prototype who was subjected to more hardship than I would ever be, pushed to the point of death, so that I would never have to bear up under more temptation than I could handle without an escape route.

Salvation isn’t a Kevlar jumpsuit that keeps us from getting scraped, burned, uncomfortable here on earth. We were never designed to be so fragile that we couldn’t take being ordinary, frail earthen vessels holding the treasures of a holy God inside of us. It’s not what He spares us FROM that makes us remarkable. It’s how He holds us together in spite of what we encounter. Some of us are cracked and broken and glued back together and His light is shining not out of the top of the vessel, but through all the wounds we’ve encountered. And if I believe anything in the whole 66-book volume called the Bible, I believe Romans 8:28 when it shows that no matter what we encounter, He will not let us go. He will not allow us to not recover. He will somehow make up to us our deficiencies and losses and disappointments. He will give us peace on the worst day of our lives that the world cannot explain, and neither can we. It just IS. His children going through their bitter seasons will have friends coming to bring encouragement, only to go away themselves encouraged by the very ones going through the fire.

And He does all of this for His glory. He will take His children and place them in assignments far beyond their credentials. Oh, they’ll have to plead with Him for wisdom and strength and divine guidance just to pull it off…and He’ll give all of the above. And people will marvel that the worst possible appointee to that assignment just did the best possible job of it, because God was with him or her. He will bring His children through to the other side of inconsolable sorrow. What would destroy anyone else seems to build a resolve in them that contradicts every reason for them to still be able to dredge up a remnant of joy and hope and optimism. And there really is joy. There are abundant blessings and abundant life to be had. There are better outcomes to situations where believers obey a now-word from God on a matter and miss the heartaches that come from wallowing in sin and rebellion. It’s an infinitely better life with Him than without Him here on earth. We’re not even talking eternity yet…life’s better HERE, now, because He lives. His Word is full of truth that causes us to make better decisions that invite honor, favor, blessing…certain advantages we don’t have outside of relationship with Him.

I’ll be honest: I’m a path-of-least-resistance kind of gal. I would be thrilled if the path God chose for me had no speed bumps on it. I don’t like confrontation, or dealing with people or circumstances that vex me and get on my nerves. I don’t like failure and I certainly don’t like burying my loved ones. Truth is, I’m going to encounter every type of situation that a nonbeliever encounters (aside from some circumstantial consequences, like getting shot while robbing a bank of course). I’ll have bad days and wake up grouchy or depressed. I’ll have to confront what makes me scared. I’ll be the one not chosen. I’ll be misunderstood. Someone will be prejudiced toward me or just not like the way I fix my hair. I’ll have the choice every day of my life to either push through or give up. And when I make bad decisions, I’ll have to live with what comes of them.

However, what I have that a nonbeliever doesn’t is HELP. I’ll face those exact same life encounters as anyone else, but I will not be alone. He will whisper to me when I have negative feelings. He will bring to my remembrance His promises, and reward my faith for embracing and believing them. He will supernaturally stretch my finances when I put Him first, so that not only am I able to meet my own needs, I’ll be able to do something to bless someone else, too. He will heal my body if I’m sick or injured. Sometimes He’ll just bless me for no good reason, too! And when I ask something and put full faith on what His Word has said in that matter, He really does say yes! At a time when I’ve been my worst, expecting a rightfully disapproving hand of judgment, He will extend mercy and just lavish me with love and totally unexpected favor. Though it appears to some that I’m an underachiever (and occasionally an undeserving winner), He will never let me ultimately be a loser. He will mix my tears, my losses, my disappointments, my frailties together with my praise and my prayers on His altar of incense and will ultimately cause me to emerge whole and shining–His trophy. His trophies aren’t flawless, by the way. You can see every scar on our bark where we’ve lived to fight another day. That’s what makes us trophies.

So, half a century into this journey of life, I’m still here. If you’re reading this, so are you. Every fracture in my framework has grown back stronger for having trusted in the God who fails me not. So I am not basing my joy on whether today and tomorrow rack up nothing but wins for me. He’s got the scorecard…and though I look to be irrecoverably down, He has a plan to emerge me a champion; a survivor. He won’t let go of me. He won’t wad me up in the wastebasket of life. My life is so much richer for having put my trust in Him for most of that life. I doubtless would have been destroyed long ago if He hadn’t had good plans for hope and a future for me.

The Old Testament passage above calls God (in Hebrew) “El Hanne’eman” or “El Aman”–Faithful God. (Sound a little like Immanuel, God with Us?) For a life that has no ups and downs, there’s little need for faith and faithfulness. Speaks clearly to me, then, that in good times and bad, God is with us. Will you consider allowing Him into your life as well? I can’t promise you’ll never have another bad, sick, or lonely day again, but I can promise you that if you put your hand in His, He will never let go.

Lord, our El Hanne’eman, reveal to us what it really means to be in relationship with You. There are a million flowery prayers out there that use Christian-ese words which mean little to someone who’s never darkened a church door. I am asking You to reveal Yourself to those who don’t have a concept of what a “personal Savior” is. Reveal Yourself to the ones who’d just be grateful to have a helper and a friend. Meet them where they are. Put someone in their path who can help them know You better. Reveal Yourself to them so they can say yes to a relationship with You. Extend some sign of Your mercy in their lives today that causes a light to come on where they say, “Hey, maybe there really IS a God after all.” In times when they acknowledge You, cause them to be flooded with such a noticeable peace that, whenever there’s an absence of that peace, they know that they truly need You in order to maintain it. Help their desperation. Hear their cries even when they’re throbbing with addictions from which they aren’t sure they want to be delivered. And while knowing You will never whisk them away from having to sometimes wait and believe for answers to prayer, let them know that You will hear every single one they pray; and that You will hold onto them while You work a solution that will be for their ultimate good.

All the times aren’t always good, but all the time You are always good. Thank You that, through the good, the bad, and the ugly, I’m still here and I’m still Yours. In Jesus’ name, Amen.