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| So I'm going through this study called "Breaking Free" by Beth Moore. I've done this study several years ago, but felt called to go through it again. Have any areas in your life that you still feel captive or in bondage to? Behaviors that you feel chained to, maybe for years and years? I do. So I determined to open my heart to God AGAIN to surrender this to him and allow him to heal me.
So yesterday's study was on unbelief. Do we belief that God is big enough to free us from anything? It struck me that I don't have any problem believing that God can set us free from bondage, but I do really believe that our free will heavily comes into play and frustrated I wrote off to the side in the notes... "I don't trust myself to follow through on what you ask me to do, God. That I am what keeps me in captivity and you allow my free will to keep me there. That you can't break through because of me!"
I've always seen God as a gentleman not stepping over our free will in any area, whether it be salvation or bondage. So actually I left my study yesterday feeling more discouraged than hopeful...feeling I was deemed to a life that the apostle Paul describes of "doing those things that I don't want to do and not doing the things I want to do."
Then today I pick up my study and it is on pride. Now I have to preface this by saying that over the last months, every time I go to God to ask him to show me what I need to surrender to him I hear "pride". So I've repented of pride more than I care to admit, not really understanding where I was being prideful. So I go into this study thinking, no problem, I've got this covered! Until I reach the point in the study where it says
"Pride often disguises itself. Too often people think they are too far gone to save, too wicked, too sinful. Such people would be shocked to hear that their attitude is a form of pride as well. They think their sin or problem is bigger than God."
It struck me that my pride had kept me trapped in believing I knew what I needed to do to break this addiction, either through my own understanding or what the world said I needed to do. Instead of humbling myself before HIM daily asking for his grace and mercy. Self reliance run amuck. Isn't that what happens to us before we are saved by our loving God?
So when did I forget that it was God who saved me from myself in the first place?
So God brought back to mind the verse, "Humbly submit yourself to God, resist the enemy and he will flee." I had been resisting the enemy (which was sometimes myself) and forgetting totally about the humbly submitting myself to God.
So as I began to repent of my pride, I felt like a I had just been handed one of the missing pieces of the puzzle, if not THE missing peice. So my prayer now will be very different. It will be humbly surrendering not only the stronghold, but all my thoughts about how it can be broken. It will be asking God to break this addiction on my behalf and show me what total reliance on HIM looks like. | | |
| Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. John 14:11-13
So I was at a pre-meeting last night for my missions trip to Mexico City (leaving July 15th). As we worshiped I was asking God to speak to me about why I was there. Long story short, I wasnt really interested in going because it was more of a service missions trip, rather than those more oriented to revival stuff, healings, miracles, etc.. I know this can sound snobbish, but I have always believed acts of kindness should be accompanied by power for them to have their full effect. That's what Jesus did right? Proclamation of the gospel and then demostration of it.
As I was worshiping, God brought this scripture to mind. I kind of brushed it off and told the Lord, well we won't really be praying for people, at least one on one. "Oh let me pray for your eyesight to be healed...opps guess that didn't work, so here are your glasses" kind of thing.
I love how God, in one fail swoop, can shake our paradigm and slap us around ever so gently. As soon as I thought that thought I felt him say "Small acts of kindness are greater things. So few acts of kindness are done today and they are ONE of the many greater things you will do. When you do these things for the others, you do them for me."
Now I've never associated small acts of kindness as being greater than the healings and miracles that Jesus did. Then I wondered, how a timely bottle of water can change the course of a person's life much like a volunteer named Beth at VCC. How a haircut and a pair of eye glasses given to those who live in a cardboard shack can reflect the glory of Jesus amidts opression and injustice in their society.
So again, maybe it is not an either/or situation but a both/and. God is showing me alot of both/ands. Seeker sensitivity vs. Holy Spirit empowered is not an either/or but a both/and. Small acts of kindness vs. power encounters are not an either/or but a both/and...hmmm maybe a same..small act of kindness can be a power encounter?
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| Hmmmm ashamed to admit but for over a year~
So why the sudden interest, you might ask. I find myself being drawn by God to start stepping out in writing again. When I was younger, I loved creative writing and more recently love journalling (handwriting UHG! typing so much faster!). But I find this even more sporatic. So in an effort to do more mind dumps, get what's in my head out on paper (so to say), xanga here I come!
So anyone out there feel like some of their thought life has been operating on auto-pilot? My mind just thinks what it needs to to get what needs to be done, done, without too many new thoughts or ponderings. I hate that! I want my life to be of imaginative ponderings and dreaming, strategic thinking and emotional processing, musings and celebratory meditations. Instead of turning to numbness (whether it be t.v., food, margaritas, mindless movies).
Well no more I say, no more! At least until bedtime...Letterman is pretty funny. | | |
| You know when you've been busted when your children catch you on the same thing you are trying to teach them. Laying in bed tonight with my daughter, who is really struggling to like herself and her body (fairly normal for a 12 yr. old) with all the changes going on and I am giving her the "You need to love yourself inside and out talk". When she pipes up and says, "well you don't and so I don't have anyone to model that!" CRAP!
As I lay there silently and wonder to myself, "How have I reflected that to her?" Overall as a person, I am loving how God is shaping me and molding me on the inside. And that has nothing to do with what I do. I am seeing God pour out His wisdom into me, His compassion for others, an ability to call out in others what they can't see in themselves and that God is calling out in them. I am a person of honesty, transparency and integrity in my relationships. I've had many tough times laying on the altar and dying to myself, but I can certainly see the spiritual muscles toning up, so to say.
But she's right. After years of abusing my body, it has taken it's toll on it and as much as I wanted to tell her tonight I love myself on the outside...UUMMM nope, couldnt do it. We lay there in silence. The best I could squiggle out was I accept myself. And that might even be stretching it. Not sure she bought it.
So God, I truly need new eyes for my body and a thankfulness for the inner and outer beauty that he has given me. Give me the grace to reflect that to my daughter and help both of us see what you see. Dont' let either of us be swayed by what the world says is beautiful, which is so often perverted and not real, but that we measure it by your standards.
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