God is so good. I can’t explain how many times God has had His merciful hand on our lives lately. He gives us eyes to see and ears to hear the subtle way that he intervenes in our lives to propel us to change… to be free… to be saved… to find peace. We, as Christians praise Him for the trials knowing that He is at work in those who are experiencing it. The world just does not know the lengths that God will go to save them from themselves.
I visualize a cracked vessel, pouring out pain and
brokenness from every damaged space. But God fills those spaces with His love
and mercy making us whole again if we let Him.
I watch my family and those that I counsel with great
interest. It may be age or experience or God’s divine hand in it that helps me
to see behind what they say and do. Perhaps it is a combination of all of it. I
watch women struggle with acceptance and insecurity. I see people running from
God and digging deeper into their mess out of self -loathing and physical
addiction because they think they are too weak to fight.
I see how easy it is for others to manipulate people
into ‘needing’ them because they see weakness, smell it out almost, and abuse
their power over others to keep them chained to situations that they do not
wish to be in. I see perfectly wonderful people being used and ignored; convinced
that they would be less than nothing if not for this other person in their
lives… when in fact, the person is holding them back from their true potential.
I have been chained to self-destruction and God saved me. I broke free and
learned, through Him, who I was meant to be.
It is easy for me to say all of this. I was a battered
woman for seven years and before that I had a childhood that broke my spirit…
for a long, long time. The residual damage that it caused me, my walk with God
and my relationships with others was instrumental in holding me down.
By God’s grace, I see the beauty in the broken. All my
pain and experience brought me to a place where God could remove my shame and
rejection and use my experiences to help others. That is part of how He turns
it to His Glory and our good.
People, I see you. I see your pain. I feel your doubt.
I know you are believing the enemies lies about your life because it is easier
to believe that you are beyond help than it is to see a new life for yourself. Our
experiences may differ, but the result can be very much the same. We become
broken.
I find that the hardest sins to remove are the ones
that I could hide. It wasn’t the physical sins, although those can be hard as
well. The hardest stuff to repair was the thoughts and feelings that I had.
Pride, vanity, anger, judgement, condemnation, and things that are easily
hidden.
1 John 3:15: “Everyone who
hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life
abiding in him.”
Your addiction isn’t worse than someone else’s. Others
may try to hide anger, resentment, vanity, pride and all of those sins that
cannot be seen but God sees it. They are just as sinful. All sin must be
irradicated from your life. Your sins can and will be forgiven if you lean to
Him.
1 John 5:17: “All wrongdoing is
sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.”
I was thinking of ala-non recently for a friend who had
a husband who was an addict. I say was because at 34, he died, alone, in his
car at work from an overdose. He was a loving Christian and father who just
didn’t love himself. He thought that he couldn’t win against his physical battle
with drugs. The truth is, it was his mental battle with himself and God. I can’t
say for sure because I am not him, but I think that he just didn’t believe that
God loved him enough or He just didn’t realize God’s power. He didn’t lean in
and let God take control. He thought, like many of you, that God loves everyone…
but has little reason to love ’me.’ The evil one loves that lie.
Mark 7:21-23: “For from within,
out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,
adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride,
foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Then I got to thinking… addiction programs can be very
good for helping us see our addictions to other people… people who are bad for
us and not really reciprocating our love for them, not fulfilling their part of
the relationship, people who manipulate the broken into submission and
acceptance of the selfless existence that they want us to live for them. Because,
in fact, we can be addicted to other people as well. They call it codependency.
I had that.
Prov
29:25: “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
The whole point of Jesus’ death on the cross was for
us to come to Him, believe in Him and be forgiven. We can have a closer relationship
with God through Christ. But because of free will, we have to want it. Do you
want to be set free? Trust me, I like who I am much better than who I was. Each
time I broke the bonds that held me captive… and there were many, I felt a
weight lift from my soul. The evil one used every trick that he could to hold
me back, but that just made me fight harder.
1 John 1:9: “If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.”
God
didn’t promise a rose garden if we come to Him. He promised us the Holy Spirit.
He promised us eternal life. He promised us a peace that surpasses all
understanding if we utilize His word in His way. That peace can remain in us
through our trials if we learn to harness it right as a conflict develops.
TRUST GOD.
John 16:33: “I have said these things to you, that in me
you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I
have overcome the world.”
John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to
you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let them be afraid.”
There
is hope for ALL of us. Even those of us who think that ‘we made it’ and that we
don’t have to reach for Him anymore. We need more help than those who are still
struggling with sin… because we are deeply sinful for thinking we are more than
we are.
Listen,
this isn’t a one and done deal. You can’t just come to get forgiveness and then
think you are all good. This is a relationship. It is a world-wide ministry
that relies on connection. Maybe I can liken it to a network or computer
program for those of you who are tech savvy. Not the greatest analogy but it
will do:
Pretend that being Christian is a computer. As time
goes on, the system gets bogged down with junk,
cookies and errors and such. If just get a new computer and never clean it, it
can become corrupted and break down. But if we take time to maintain it, clean
it and update it, it stays healthy. Christianity, our relationship with God, is
a lot like that.
As new Christians, we need the fruit of the
Spirit, the Word, the fellowship and filling of His presence to keep us going.
Over time we can become complacent or lose interest or be lazy and think that
we have arrived and do not need that filling anymore. But then, without the
steady influx of His Word to update where we are in life, we forget who to
reach for when we need ‘cleaning’ so to speak.
Stay
connected to strengthen your walk with Him. Don’t just call on Him when you
need something. It doesn’t’ work that way. He wants to show you how to live
your life in peace regardless of circumstance.
To
the broken, come to Him. We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.
Find peace. If I can break free of all of my sins and continue to this day to
fight the battle in my mind, you can too.
I
love you
