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.
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.
“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!
“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.)
“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And God hath put all things under His feet, and hath given Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.” — Ephesians 1:17-23 NKJV
My cats hate a vacuum cleaner. Now, let me start by first explaining, somewhat apologetically, that I’m not an immaculate housekeeper like many of you ladies and gents. My vacuum gets run on a strict schedule–meaning, whenever I get around to it–which also translates to seldom if ever more than once a week (don’t judge! Ha!).
For those weeks when I don’t have to spend Saturdays working, it’s a designated cleaning day for me. So this morning, I started in the kitchen and am progressively working through the house. My cats always recognize the sound of the vacuum cleaner being rolled out of the closet and across the floor, and they begin evacuation at once. If I could hear it, I’m sure that there are supersonic severe weather warning sirens going off; because these two felines scatter like a Kansas super-tornado is impending. Shelter-in-place is typically behind the couch, under the bed, anywhere else but in the same room as the Intimidator.
Today I’d begun my devotion time with the above Scripture, so when what happened next occurred, I got a quick lesson that drove it home!
I rolled out the vacuum cleaner, plugged it in, and began vacuuming the kitchen entrance rug. I looked up to see something I’d never seen before: Sam had jumped up onto the window sill between the kitchen and dining room, and was watching the “terror tool” from above! She wasn’t running, because she had risen far above it…and had this curious sort of look of superiority as she observed the object of her great displeasure. The rumble and sputter and bright beacon on the vacuum head didn’t frighten her because she was no longer on the same level as it was. She watched me clean that rug almost the whole time, and eventually jumped down and sauntered away–not out of fright, but rather out of boredom.
The Lord drew my remembrance to the Scripture and sweetly instructed, “When you finally grasp how, as part of the Body, you are connected to the Head–Who lifts you up above the things that intimidate you–you will stop being reluctant to confront the things on earth that I want you to confront!” Wow!
The Lord knows my greatest desire in this season is to do just that. I want to be effective in the place of prayer, and to effect change to things I see wrong all around me. There are strongholds to pull down, sicknesses to rebuke and command to leave, lives that need the reconciling power of Christ. I know there’s a level I haven’t yet attained in my understanding and actions.
But I want to go there. I want to stop dreading the sound of the adversary rumbling and shouting. I can’t ever get there with a mindset that I’m all alone down here having to stare at what scares me, trying to decide whether to fight or to flee. I must understand that connection to Christ’s authority–available to us if we’re believers–empowers me to rise above and address these things in a realm that brings true change and not just wishful thinking. We can do it with our Father’s endorsement as we pray in Jesus’ name! Oh, I’ve got a lifetime full of wishful thinking on my resume’. And quite a few episodes where I dove behind the couch and waited for the adversary to leave instead of establishing resistance against him.
Interestingly, after seeing the vacuum cleaner from a different vantage point, the cat was no longer afraid. She actually came back and watched, from the a few feet away in the floor, as I vacuumed the next room…
Lord, thank You for helping me to learn a lesson from, of all things today, my cat in a windowsill. I respond with even greater enthusiasm to Your beckoning to a higher place where I might defeat the spirit of fear, and of fear of failure. Thank You that I rise above what has historically frightened and intimidated me. Use me, I pray, to make a difference wherever I am, and to draw people’s attention to how great You are!
As Paul shared in Ephesians 3, I thank You for granting to me, according to the riches of Your glory, to be strengthened with might by Your Spirit in my inner man; that Christ maydwell in my heart by faith; and that being rooted and grounded in love, I may be able to comprehend (With all the saints! Help me teach others about what You’re sharing with me!) the the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasseth knowledge, that I (and of us who serve You) might be filled with all the fullness of God. You are able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think…according to the power that worketh in us, Your Word says! You are actually empowering US as we remain connected and submitted to the Head–Jesus Christ! Why, Paul even says in the previous chapter (Eph 2:6-7) that you’ve raised us up with Christ and made us to sit with Him in heavenly places! That’s a game changer!
Help us all to rise above what keeps us stagnant; to stop just shaking our heads and “tsk tsk’ing when we see the sick, the blind, the maimed, the bound. You want us to do something about it! Teach us to walk in Your power, to achieve Your will for our lives, to remain humble before You but fearless against the works of darkness!
“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!“
I remember a time when, here in these tightly-clustered mountains, an AM/FM radio signal had its work cut out for it. You pretty much had to settle for only being able to pick up the very closest station or two, and not necessarily with clarity. But for me, that didn’t work because I liked the kind of music most local stations didn’t play. So I would lie there in the bed at night, or later on be driving in the car, with some obscure, faraway station playing that was barely audible. Sometimes it would be competing with another station of similar frequency and you could hear both at the same time. So what did I do? I listened THROUGH the interference. I would disregard the static and the other voices and simply focus for as long as I could on that faintly central sound.
Nowadays in the digital age, we hardly ever tune into FM radio; but the reason I am sharing this isn’t so much about the “good old days” of technology but instead about cutting through interference to get to what you desire. Specifically, the voice of God.
In these last days, there is a heightening of spiritual activity. Many voices and much static tries to drown out and overpower and make of no effect the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Word tells us of a famine of the hearing of the Word of God, and I believe in part that is what we are experiencing in the form of static interference in the heavenlies. You are going to hear some loud voices denouncing your God, trying to shame you for believing in Him, or at least trying to shame you for believing EXCLUSIVELY in Him. There’s a lot of distracting noise and drama and chaos that at times causes the message to feel faint or garbled. Praise the Lord for good days, but other days you are going to have to listen THROUGH the interference. You will have to move that antenna around and hold the radio right up to your ear. Part of your survival in the final days before the Lord’s return will be keeping your desire SHARP, your senses focused. The world will offer many options of other gods and even competing similar frequencies so close that at face value it’ll be hard to tell which source you’re hearing…EXCEPT, Jesus assured us that His sheep know His voice and another they will not follow! He even invites us to try the spirits–weigh what you see, hear, and feel against the Word to see if it’s really of God or just another noise.
How badly do you want to hear from God? You can just shut off the receiver and say it’s too hard; there’s too much static and it’s too much trouble for too little return; maybe try again later. Or, you can do as I did with that old radio. When I really focused on what I was listening for, I would become less distracted by the noise and more in tune with what I had DEEP DESIRE to hear. Sure, it’d have been nice to have internet radio in the 1980’s, or at least money to buy the records I couldn’t afford, but that’s beside the point. I thirsted after a certain sound and this was my only means of getting it. There’s a bittersweetness in that hard-sought voice of God. You might wish there were a gallon of that water but you will savor the droplets like a dying man. I made no apology for my affection, and I didn’t let my location, my liabilities, or my lack stop me from listening with all my might. Shouldn’t I at LEAST be willing to put that same diligence toward hearkening to God’s voice that I once did into trying to listen to a little jazz radio, smack dab in the heart of bluegrass country?
Tune out the distractions, for there are many, and LISTEN for God. You won’t be denied.
This is Dana and me, pictured just doing what we’d loved ever since 2001. We logged thousands of miles on motorcycle rides and long road trips. Who knew that one seemingly uneventful night in October 2010, just miles from our home, it would all take such a frightening tumble?
In commemoration of God sparing our life on a cold October night, I’m expanding a little devotional I wrote in April 2011. Most of what’s in here is taken from the piece, “Trust and You Won’t Be Crushed.”
It was just at the edge of dusk, 6 years ago this evening, when I woke up to find that I was lying flat on my back on the cold pavement. I remembered seeing the dog run out in front of our motorcycle; and I remembered us bracing and hitting it, then it was like being tumbled in a dark clothes dryer. There hadn’t even been time to be scared, much less avoid the impact. How long had I been unconscious? Someone had already stood up our motorcycle, and a couple of men were looking through the tour pack for some ID. I could see out the corner of my eye that Dana was lying about 10 feet away from me, but I couldn’t hear him speak and I couldn’t see if he was moving. People standing over us were saying things that indicated to me that we were both bad off.
At first I couldn’t even talk, and it was so hard to breathe—I suppose from having had the wind knocked out of me. My helmet was shattered. Later I would find that I had a basal skull fracture as well as a fractured bone in my neck. I vaguely remember a woman holding my helmet and talking about how messed up it was. Someone commented that my head was bleeding. I wanted to get to Dana but I couldn’t raise up; and they were trying to keep me still so they could put me on a backboard. My arm was twisted over my head and I thought it was dislocated, but was told later that the shoulder was broken in two places. In the midst of the confusion and the excruciating pain, reality began to set in about what had just happened. The loud noise of onlookers and emergency workers was making me more and more uncomfortable as I struggled to get someone to tell me whether my husband was ok. A couple knelt on the ground and asked if they could pray with me; and as they prayed, the Holy Spirit rose up inside me and I began to pray loudly in Him. It sounded like an authoritative voice not my own was declaring boundaries around the two of us! As the noise of urgency began to subside in His presence, I could hear, quite clearly, the Lord whisper just one word to me…“COVENANT.” And in that moment, I knew exactly what He meant. I began to cry and say, “Thank you, God, for rebuking the devourer for our sakes!” A peace I can’t even begin to describe rested on me, one that would get me through the longest night of my life.
I’m told for a little while at the first hospital, Dana was conscious, and he was giving them fits; wanting to come and get me and take me home. We were airlifted, one at a time, from Williamson Memorial to St. Mary’s. I begged the paramedics to elevate my head. I felt like I would absolutely smother to death flat on my back, and would feel that way for the remainder of the night. No one would move me though, for fear of a spinal cord injury. I was more afraid of suffocating than I was of being badly hurt. Once at St. Mary’s, my stepson Coby held my hand and coached me to breathe in sync with him while they repositioned my broken shoulder. The only relief I had from the discomfort was to occasionally lose consciousness. Then, as I lay on a gurney in the hallway, waiting to go into a CT scan, a doctor came up and with no expression whatsoever, told me, “Your husband is unconscious and has a serious brain injury. His brain has begun to swell. We’ll do what we can.” With that, she turned and left. I had to make up my mind right then and there…am I going to trust God or am I going to collapse under a weight of fear? I chose to trust God, and that’s exactly what I called out to her back as she was walking away.
For just a little while, they wheeled me into a holding room with Dana. He was lying there, eyes closed, not moving. I reached my fingers through the bars on our gurneys, gripped his hand, and prayed for him. Looking back now, I wonder whether the doctors might have thought he was going to die, and they were giving me a chance to say goodbye. But I spoke to him this Scripture which came to my remembrance, before they wheeled us in two different directions, “(You) shall live and not die, to declare the works of the Lord.” (Psalm 118:17)
Dana, lying near death and comatose for 17 days after our accident. Swollen almost beyond recognition, he had multiple brain bleeds, and fractures throughout his body, and had developed the deadly condition called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. This picture was a couple of weeks into the ordeal…I couldn’t bring myself to photograph him at first, and wouldn’t again for at least another month.
That was a long first night in the hospital. Eventually, by the wee hours of dawn, I felt like I could breathe again, but I would have to watch for the next several weeks as a machine did the breathing for Dana. Angels on assignment kept vigil over him, as did family and friends around the clock for the first nearly three weeks. I was too sick and injured to sit up with him for the first week or so, even though I stayed nearby and spent as much time as I could in his room.
There are those times when we have to choose to believe, or be crushed under the weight of despair. And there are times when we can’t just think it or hope it…we have to hear ourselves say it—I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE. I learned to say it out loud, and often, beginning that first night. I stood on the Word and quoted Scripture as I stood in the gap, and prayed day and night over my husband. When anxious or despairing thoughts tried to do war internally in my soul, I smiled on the outside in front of others; and I would privately share my sorrows and fears with Jesus. I bet some folks thought I’d knocked my brains out on that pavement, when I’d counter the negative news with what God’s Word says… but I really didn’t care. This was a battle for my husband’s very life. The Holy Spirit cautioned me to set a watch on my lips. Had I allowed myself to give voice to fear or unbelief, my actions would have followed. Sometimes I actually wanted to let my vulnerability show, to cry on someone’s shoulder, but the Lord made me brave in the face of a lonely secret: my words were declaring what I didn’t always feel in the natural! Faith does it even when we are scared, friends. And God proved faithful. When pneumonia and infections came, He kept Dana from succumbing. When acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) threatened to cause his lungs, one of which had already been collapsed, to just deteriorate and stop working altogether, God was there. When Dana lay so long with his eyes partially open that the whites turned into what looked like pink sponges, God spared his sight. Through blood clots, through huge wounds that were left undiscovered and untreated on the back of his head because of the position he had to lie in, through an unbelievably high fever that could have cooked his already-damaged brain, God kept him. And when they had to bring the crash cart as he came out from surgery for being trached, God did not let him die. When I had to sign consent for them to give him a special paralytic drug that totally disabled his functions so that his body would stop fighting the respirator, God gave me peace that He would keep Dana alive. So many miracles that came, so much blessed assurance just in the nick of time. I still marvel over how the Lord preserved my husband through the next six weeks without a bite to eat or even a sip of water in his parched throat and mouth. He was tube-fed and intravenously hydrated all that time.
Dana had to go 43 days with nothing by mouth. In this picture, he had not yet gained the ability to swallow and had to be fed through a tube in his stomach. We still had about 5 weeks to go before we could leave the hospital, and then another 5 months before we could move back into our own house.
When Dana regained consciousness in the second hospital, he couldn’t speak, but because he made eye contact with us and seemed to understand us when we talked to him, we assumed he was ok; however, when at last they capped his trach and he was able to speak, it became apparent that the head injury was affecting his personality and his cognizance significantly. He was hallucinating, saying things out of character, behaving not like himself. I didn’t recognize the man inside the man; and I thank the Holy Spirit for holding onto me and numbing the pain of uncertainty of how long Dana would be this stranger. His behavior begin to grow worse just as we moved him to the rehab hospital, and the brain injury made him very combative and angry and hard to handle. Because he only slept for very short periods of time, so did I. He acted at times like he despised me, but would go into an anxiety mode if I even left to step into the restroom. He couldn’t even walk yet without a walker and a person or two at his elbows; but one night managed to get out of bed and wobble around on that walker, swearing he was going to find the exit and go home…in 6 inches of snow. I had to lie to him (forgive me, Lord!) and tell him they bolted the exits from the outside after visiting hours were over…it was the only way to settle him down and make him go back to his bed! At one point, the hallucinations were so bad, he even thought he was married to two different women at the same time–me and me. He told me, “She’s good to me, but YOU are the one I love.” Folks, this wasn’t a cake walk. At times it has been downright scary and it took every ounce of faith I could muster. If God hadn’t held us in His hand, we couldn’t have made it. I only share these very private memories with you because I want you to understand what God’s brought us from, and how He kept bad situations from spiraling completely out of control. I knew from the start that there were ways this situation could’ve been infinitely worse…yet the Lord was merciful.
Learning to stand—and walk—again. It was at times a very hard process.
The Word and our prayer partners kept me together as I stayed for nearly three months either right there with him or close by. I only left Huntington to come home a few times to catch up my work, to get clean clothes, pay bills, etc., then right back to the hospital. Until he was able to be moved to the rehab hospital in December, I’d stayed at a hospitality house. I’d come come home on a Thursday afternoon, work for 24 straight hours on the parts of my job that couldn’t be handled remotely on my laptop; and then Dana’s dad would drive me back (I was in a neck brace and a sling, so I couldn’t drive for quite some time). At the rehab hospital, I was finally able to move into his room with him. I just set myself an office up in the corner and kept working! And, friends and family kept driving the nearly two-hour drive to Huntington to those three hospitals. We had a steady stream of visitors. I’ll never be able to thank them for being there for us…that they even cared this much for us moves me to tears.
On January 21, 2011, Dana was finally released from the hospital. Even now, he remembers nothing about his hospital stays except for vague little bits the last couple of days or so. Leaving the hospital was another chapter, and another time when trusting God was critical to survival. I still was concerned about his healing brain and whether I’d be able to do anything with him if he had another “episode” like the night he tried to leave the hospital! We weren’t able to go directly home. We would spend the next four months in his dad’s den–him in a hospital bed and me on a couch beside him, because Dana was still in a wheelchair and walker and couldn’t climb the steps to our house. He also still had to have his liquids thickened and his solids very soft, to keep from choking on his food from his damaged trachea. God bless Joe and Thelma for persevering right there with us. We couldn’t have made it through this without them. Near the end of May, seven long months after our ordeal, we got to sleep in our own bed again for the first time.
Dana spent 82 days in 3 hospitals, and couldn’t even swallow an ice chip for the first 43 days. He lay in the ICU trauma ward for 17 days comatose, and running an insanely high fever for several days. He had multiple fractures, multiple brain bleeds, and a series of serious complications; but when Satan tried to take him out, God drew the line and said, “No.”
Though it’s been at times a physically and emotionally exhausting 6 years for both Dana and me, we have not lost our joy and we have not lost our love for life and one another. God has been so good to us. We have adjusted to a “new normal,” and part of it is to lighten up a little and find humor in what would otherwise be frustrating or difficult or just…different. The head injury left Dana’s personality and behaviors a tad changed from before, but mostly in very good ways. I think of it as “Dana’s personality—on steroids.” 😉 Dana has a childlike, literal faith that God can and will do exactly what He says. I’ve watched the Lord transform a lukewarm/backslidden man who’d completely stopped serving God before our wreck into a mighty man of God who prays for hours each day, witnesses to others continually, and encourages folks to believe and speak the Word. (I will draw an exception here however, and I would be remiss in leaving this out: when he had stopped professing faith and attending church before our wreck, he was still diligent to tithe and give. He would repeatedly tell me on payday: “Whatever you do, don’t forget to pay tithe and give offerings on my check. I may not be living right but I won’t rob God!” Could it be that, in the time where our lives hung in the balance, God honored a man’s tenacity in this small thing????). What God has done and continues to do in Dana’s life, inside and out, is quite miraculous. We still confess and believe for the areas of restoration that are yet to manifest. We believe that what still needs to become whole will be whole again– as our friend Cathy had confessed over us repeatedly, “nothing broken, nothing missing, nothing lost.” We have surely come from a mighty long way.
And God proved to me that He doesn’t leave; He didn’t leave me and He won’t abandon you, either! Even on those days when you feel frightened, alone, ashamed of your personal struggles, numb to all emotion or crying uncontrollably, He’s there. He watches over His Word to perform it. Our job is to take that Word and keep speaking it over our lives even when there’s no evidence whatsoever yet that it’s doing a bit of good. We are to speak it even when our hearts are hollow and the words seem to fall to the ground. The answer will come if you and I will pray and not faint; or if we fall, we keep getting back up as often as it takes. There were days when I was so overwhelmed that I wished I’d died that night on the pavement, but God restored joy to my life and a stronger faith in His faithfulness! God helped Dana and me to emerge from a catastrophic situation to become more resolute in our faith, more devoted to one another, and hopefully better people for having persevered during this detour on our journey.
10/28/2014 – Standing in the approximate area where our bike went down four years earlier. A sobering feeling of gratitude washed over me as we looked around this spot where God spared our lives! Even now when I drive through that area, sometimes emotion wells up inside me as I ponder the goodness and mercy of God.
I’m telling you, friends, you need Jesus. You need Him, your marriage needs Him, your family needs Him to carry you through times like this. It’s not a matter of if you’ll ever have to go through hard seasons, but when..and when you do, faith in God can preserve your very sanity. Covenant relationship with God doesn’t mean you’ll never face difficulty. It can, however, mean the difference between you surviving or being mowed down by the enemy. It will keep you when you go through depression, through loss, through grave uncertainty, through the outright unfair happenings of life in this fallen world; and on the other side of your storm, God will pull out a mysterious parcel and hand back to you. You will find that you didn’t lose your joy and innocence after all; He’d wrapped it securely in the Holy Spirit’s comfort and kept it from being annihilated by the tribulation of life.
Sooner or later, we all have to face the most difficult time of our lives. Are you prepared? God can keep you from falling apart. I can say that because, six years later, Dana and I are still held together by the duct tape of God’s wonderful, saving grace. Even these fractured pieces form something beautiful…like a prism of glass that scatters light in every direction, testifying that truly, love never fails.
“But the LORD God keeps me from being disgraced. So I refuse to give up, because I know God will never let me down.” Isaiah 50:7 CEV
Probably the loneliest day of Peter’s whole fishing career was when he re-launched the S.S. Simon and tried to just be a fisherman again after following Jesus. The romantic call of the sea and the nostalgic smell of the salty nets held little sway over him now. After all, a Simon reed can easily sway in the wind; but now his name was Petra, a solid rock. The wind of recklessness and wavering was no longer his domain. I wonder if his pivotal decision to finally return to the disciples and Jesus came from an instant replay of that day when Jesus asked the twelve whether they, too, would abandon Him like others who were turned off by certain elements of His teaching. Peter replied, “Where else would we go…YOU have the words of eternal life!” Perhaps it was the memory of this moment that caused him to finally sever all ties with his backup plan and dedicate the rest of his life to serving his True Source.
Once God has expanded your boundaries to accommodate the person He’s growing you to be, you can never quite fit back into your original container. Oh, to be certain, we have to make a living, support our families, and in general, be exposed to the world if they are to be exposed to US and to the Gospel we share. However, if you feel your failures have put you out of commission to serve the Lord and carry the Good News, I beg you to think of Peter and his brief turning away from his calling. His most victorious, passionate days would come after he realized that his success lay in Jesus within him instead of in his own strength. The pages in his dossier that revealed days of his least savory performance were only left in the file because they were amended to show the amazing comeback in each circumstance. It no longer mattered that there were blotches on his record…the blotches were a setup for an amazing finish of, well, Biblical proportions. Peter’s last half of his journey as God’s “petra man” far exceeded his former days; for just forty days after Jesus ascended to heaven, the Comforter came and Peter got to be one of the first people on earth to operate under this release of power from on high!
So why are you reverting to your backup plan, minister, leader, disciple, pioneer? If God called you, and you have undealt-with wrongs, right them. Even if it means you have to prove yourself all over again and feel the humiliation of a tarnished reputation, be quick to repent, to forgive, to make restitution, to accept the mercy and forgiveness of the One Who asks nothing more of you than to “feed My lambs…feed My sheep.” You can build character, stability, integrity if you’re willing…and if you can’t return to the place where it all went south, God can absolutely redeem you to a different assignment, with perhaps even more powerful impact! Eventually your failures will be yesterday’s news to those around you; and even if they should never quite be forgotten, God will weave a victory comeback into even that part of your story. The truth is, whether you’re used in the same way, a lesser way, or a greater way, you’ll never be free of that call to a destiny of His design. It’s bigger than that small, safe, predictable life you once envisioned for yourself.
Run that backup plan into a sandbar and be done with it. Put a “For Sale” sign on your escape vehicle. Boom or bust, go all out this second (or even third or fourth) time around. Have a Peter kind of finish. Even as a martyr for his faith, he went out on his own terms–better yet, he finished on God’s terms. Come back home, wandering servant of Christ. He still has need of your part….
“So, my brothers and sisters, you owe the flesh nothing! You do not need to live according to its ways, so abandon its oppressive regime.” (Romans 8:12, VOICE translation)
One of the quickest ways someone can distance me from him or her is to try to lay a guilt trip on me. Call it a quirk in my personality, but I don’t cotton well to being nagged at or manipulated through false guilt. (Just so everyone knows…when I’m distant or slow to return calls and emails, there really is a good reason.) And yet, when I look over my life, so many of the bad decisions I have made have been in times when I’ve allowed guilt to sink its hooks into me. While I shy away from people who try to turn me into a chess pawn, I still have yet to completely break away from self-imposed guilt—that drives me to work myself into oblivion for fear that I haven’t given enough. As you’re reading this, chances are, you are shaking your head in agreement because you too wrestle with a life out of balance.
So you may say, “A little guilt never hurt anyone.” There’s a huge difference between conviction and condemnation, friends. The Holy Spirit convicts. Conviction is an admonishment that is always intent on bringing us up higher in our relationship with God. Conviction challenges us to do the right thing regarding our relationships with God and man. Conviction will steer us away from making costly, wrong decisions. Once we make the right choices, the conviction then lifts…and we go on about our way, liberated and our peace still intact.
Condemnation, on the other hand, has no intent on making us better. Condemnation is Satan’s (and sometimes, people’s) tool to keep you in a holding pattern of feeling nothing you do will ever be good enough. Condemnation doesn’t want your debt paid. It won’t let you free from its manipulation, because the one wielding condemnation against you retains an advantage over you. You’re under that person’s thumbnail. You will exhaust your last resource just to placate the nagging, and still it won’t go away. Condemnation affords no peace. That’s a prison without walls.
Guilt steals your health. I’ve been there. I’ve hung onto toxic relationships sometimes for years, and to my detriment. I’ve given up so much personal enrichment time that it’s incalculable. Whose fault is it? Most certainly mine. Exercise and right amounts of sleep and solitude and prayer and Word time have sometimes gone right out the window, because I reasoned that I just HAD to work more…doing things other people were putting on my ever-growing to do list. (Don’t expect that other people will recognize and respect your need for some personal space. They’ll keep taking as long as there’s a drop of you to give!) My list has grown to unmanageable proportions because I wouldn’t say no. Guilt saw to that. Without safe boundaries, all the joy has at times leaked right out of me. And you know what? God isn’t in one bit of it. He isn’t glorified at all when my health and mental health are at times a wreck; or that I have grown overweight and dangerously out of condition, or that I resent being me. Know what God does and doesn’t give you the green light to add to your schedule. Ask Him. Even if it’s a good thing in and of itself, it might not be in His plan for you in particular…and He isn’t obligated to finish what He didn’t author! Don’t let guilt-laden activities weaken your immune system and cause you to become sick!
Seasons are temporary. Don’t let guilt make them permanent. There are seasons in our lives when we do find ourselves pulled-on out of necessity. You may be caring for a sick spouse or aging parent right now, or several small children. And when you hear someone say, “You’ve got to take some time away. You have to take better care of yourself. You can’t keep going forever with no down time,” it would sound so good and right if not for that nagging voice of guilt. Even God’s voice can be heard, however muffled by the screams of the urgent present, pleading with you to slow down. You have a choice at this point: you can listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit that says, “Pace yourself. Work on boundaries and balance. Keep God first and make enough time for yourself before you pour out to other people. Remember, this season will pass; and you need your health now as well as after these demands are no longer upon you. Take care of your spirit, soul and body for the long haul!” And deep in your spirit, you know it’s a right word. Whether you listen, or you cave into the fear that others will judge you unfairly, it’s a call you’re going to have to make.
I’ll never forget a lesson I learned when flying a few years ago. As the attendant went through safety protocol with us, she explained that, if the oxygen masks dropped out of the ceiling, parents of small children must apply their own masks first. Wow. And the reason being, if the parent were to pass out, he or she wouldn’t be able to save the child. How many times over your life has guilt caused you to do some things in the exact opposite order? We become so busy doing the work of the Lord that we neglect to walk in the cool of the day with Him–and when I say “we” I’m even including you pastors who find yourself in this same position! May I remind you, if you let yourself go physically and spiritually to pot, you will be of no benefit to anyone else.
Go ahead and take that day off. If someone offers to float you out, take him or her up on the offer. Go for a walk and then watch a clean, funny movie (maybe with popcorn or an ice cream!). You’ll feel a whole lot better. Remember, if you turn down help, not even then will guilt leave you alone. It’ll always try to be there telling you that you should be doing more. Since guilt won’t be satisfied, you may as well go ahead and find some joy and peace in your life! Let guilt go aggravate someone else for a change. Most importantly, ask GOD to order your steps. When you are starting to dip into your reserves, He can replenish you. Be prepared for Him to say no sometimes. Our pastor, Mitchell Bias, shares sometimes how his late mother-in-law, Edith, has called him on a couple of occasions and said, “The Lord says you are to do nothing but REST today. Don’t even leave the house!” Give yourself permission to back away and rest. Ask God to put people in your life who will affirm what He’s ordained for you–a life in harmony and balance. God won’t wreck your health to advance His cause. He has too many resources and people out there to rely solely on you. We need to be reminded of these things once in a while!
Guilt perpetuates your bad habits onto your posterity. It will make you a bad parent. It won’t let you discipline your kids or allow them to grow up and become independent. It will keep you from letting them encounter some hardships that develop character, because you’re always being the buffer between them and their problems. Guilt will have you paying off all their debts (and there will always be more where that came from because they know you have deep pockets and…yes…guilt). Moreover, it will have you raising your grandkids instead of requiring their parents to shoulder the responsibility. Guilt will even superimpose itself on your kids…because once you are infected with guilt, you’ll use it to manipulate and control them all their adult lives. You’ll pout and get mad when they aren’t coming around often enough to suit you. You’ll use guilt as a wedge between your kids and their spouses, between your kids and their kids. IF YOU ARE AN “I SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE” ADDICT, YOU WILL IN TURN MAKE UNREASONABLE DEMANDS ON THOSE YOU LOVE!
When we consider setting up boundaries of moderation, the enemy is not going to like it. Guilt says, “You selfish thing…you call yourself a Christian and Christians are not supposed have a life.” What a bunch of baloney! Jesus came to give you ABUNDANT life, not an empty-shell existence. Somewhere among the day-to-day demands of your life, He can help you find that happy medium which gets you to the other side of the season you’re in.
Difficult seasons are temporary. They’re MEANT to be temporary. And when you’re on the other side of them, if you truly know who you are in Christ, your self-worth isn’t going to require you being a human vending machine for the rest of your life. After the time passes when you were under great demand, re-calibrate and learn to enjoy NOT being on call 24/7. You really can enjoy being fruitful without being overburdened, endlessly under life-leaching pressure, and always at everyone else’s beck and call. Don’t allow guilt to turn you into a codependent…or you’ll imprison yourself in a mode that allows others to exploit your inability to say no!
Guilt…its own reward? You can let guilt or even the need for people to recognize “poor old noble you” drive you to play the martyr. I’m being harsh here, but let’s face it: having people recognize you as indispensable is a cheap swap for walking in God’s best will for your life. When guilt has its way with us long enough, we start craving affirmation from man rather than God. Whether it’s pity or admiration we wind up desiring, it becomes the drug of choice to ease the guilt throbbing between our temples. So we wind up trying to do even more so that people when notice our sacrificial nature and praise us for it. Although Jesus was using a parable concerning giving alms, I want you to take this to heart: He spoke of people who give to the poor, in ways that they could show it off to other people and be recognized by man. He said that they already have their reward. Did you know that if you neglect what God’s will is for your life just for the recognition of being the person no one else can do without, you already have your reward? When I’m in up at night over interest-bearing debts, because guilt motivated me at Christmas to max out my credit cards beyond my means; or I’ve gone 3 years without a vacation because I was “too busy” to take time off; or the doctor says I’ve developed some degenerative disease because being a workaholic was more attractive than following God’s plan for discipline and balance…I don’t like the idea that the mess I’m in is actually my reward. It’s pretty hollow. When you’re in over your head, who really cares whether someone else admired you at one time for your lack of moderation? Walk after the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill these pesky lusts of the flesh that are the devil’s dirty bombs designed to steal, kill and destroy! Sometimes God is going to move you away from the spotlight, away from sowing into bad ground, or wasting your time and energy on what won’t bear real fruit…and believe me, it’s a good thing that He does this. Listen and be obedient when He pulls you out of involvement in matters He doesn’t want you meddling in! Only HE is omnipotent and omnipresent!
No one’s taking this away from me. In recent days and weeks, I’ve been trying to take all these things to heart. I’ve been experiencing burnout big-time, and God is calling me to start lightening the load. The first things that get sacrificed when someone wants something of me are the very things that give me life. I’ll skip exercise…and I’ve done it for years. I’ll shorten my prayer time or try to do it on the fly. I’ll neglect my housework and not even see the mess I’m stepping over to get to that next thing on my to do list. I’ll deny myself recreation and travel and the solitude which is so important to the writer God has called me to be. I will go days at a time without looking into a mirror, and when I do, I see someone I don’t recognize. Older, not vibrant and enjoying her life.
When I woke up this morning, even though I’d been busy till 3 AM and had cleared out my inbox before nodding off, it was already filling up again. Part of me wanted to say, “You know, people will think I’m a slacker if I don’t fly right into these things for them.” Guilt. But you know what? I got dressed and I got on the elliptical machine..something I wasn’t doing for myself even as recent as a week ago. And for 30 minutes my chubby self said out loud as I sweated and panted, “No one’s taking this away from me. This is mine.” Yeah, I’d rather have been doing something a little more enjoyable, but I’m going to MAKE myself become disciplined to set some boundaries. And if I have to psyche myself into thinking that exercise machine is something I can’t bear to do without, I’m going to learn how to fight for my fitness time. I’m making it my goal not to give up any more real estate in my life in areas of spiritual and physical maintenance. God has something important for me to do, and I can no longer afford to neglect the one vehicle I’ve been given to transport me through this short vapor life. Neither can you…I don’t care how important you are.
Jesus did not cower to guilt, and neither should we. Remember, Jesus was moved by love, by compassion, by empathy, by the faith of others, and even a time or two, by righteous (sinless) anger…but He was never moved by guilt. I can’t find one instance where He got out of the will of God because of someone or something pressuring Him or guilt-tripping Him into doing the wrong thing. He got talked about sometimes, and was misunderstood by many, but He never let that manipulate Him out of His identity. Even when Satan tempted Him to prove that He was the Son of God, He was not moved; He stood His ground. He would not be bullied into proving Himself. And a number of times we read where He regularly separated Himself from people to just get alone with God. There were folks who would just had to wait on Him, but He wasn’t going to cut His time short doing what was needed in order for Him to really do what was needed! I want a Jesus kind of restraint. I want to be steadfast and immovable. I want to be disciplined and balanced and have self-control that shuts out the drive to under-prepare and over-achieve. I don’t want guilt to have a ring in my nose, leading me to live in ways that compromise my health and my peace. I only have to please God; and if I am feeling a spirit of guilt instead of peace, then I’m hearing the wrong voice. Jesus says His sheep hear HIS voice and another they will not follow! May we all recognize whose voice we are hearing at any given time, and discern whether that voice is to be followed, ignored, or even silenced!
“Father, help us to voluntarily remove ourselves from the court of public opinion! May we keep our eyes and ears focused on You rather than the endless expectations of others. Help us to shut out the voice of the Accuser which says we can never do enough, never be enough. Conviction is Your righteous voice that will never place unreasonable demands upon us. Conviction releases peace and never an insatiable unrest in our lives because obedience brings a finality and a reward. Condemnation, however, keeps us walking by works instead of faith, and that’s never where You intended us to go. We rebuke the spirit of guilt from our lives, and will stop living in the dimension of always owing and never being able to pay in full. We submit ourselves to You and we resist the Accuser! He must flee from us, and take all his unreasonable demands with him! In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
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.
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.
“Dear brothers and sisters, pray for us.” — The Apostle Paul, in his first letter to the church at Thessalonica (1 Thes. 5:25)
“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)
Probably the loneliest day of Peter’s whole fishing career was when he re-launched the S.S. Simon and tried to just be a fisherman again after following Jesus. The romantic call of the sea and the nostalgic smell of the salty nets held little sway over him now. After all, a Simon reed can easily sway in the wind; but now his name was Petra, a solid rock. The wind of recklessness and wavering was no longer his domain. I wonder if his pivotal decision to finally return to the disciples and Jesus came from an instant replay of that day when Jesus asked the twelve whether they, too, would abandon Him like others who were turned off by certain elements of His teaching. Peter replied, “Where else would we go…YOU have the words of eternal life!” Perhaps it was the memory of this moment that caused him to finally sever all ties with his backup plan and dedicate the rest of his life to serving his True Source.
“So, my brothers and sisters, you owe the flesh nothing! You do not need to live according to its ways, so abandon its oppressive regime.” (Romans 8:12, VOICE translation)
CALL THOSE THINGS 