Tag Archives: God the Father

Personal Growth

Whispers from Above

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Why does life have to be so hard? We try to do what is right only for others to see it differently. Then in an attempt to explain our motives, the problem somehow gets even bigger.

For years I have been on a journey with Christ that is unlike anything else I have ever experienced. After trusting no one but myself, God stepped in and revealed His heart. Even to this day, His love and understanding shake me to the core.

After a series of events that took place about a month ago, God revealed that the time had come for some dramatic changes to take place. I trusted Him, setting some very clear boundaries. These boundaries weren’t to upset the other party, but to protect my heart from further damage.

As expected, those boundaries created quite an uproar. I then find myself wanting to revert to previous behaviors just to end the madness, but God said to stay, so I am listening. I am trusting Him and following His lead.

After an evening of second guessing myself, which ultimately is me questioning God, I woke up with a sense of peace that I have never felt. And as if that wasn’t enough, God shows up.

A little while ago, I put in the video for a new bible study that begins tomorrow. Instead of the DVD going to the menu for me to select Session 1, it started on its own. So I watched.

These were the words that God shared with me…When someone has ears to hear God’s voice and follow His guidance, He provides an unquenchable thirst for righteousness. He tends to tap that person for help in solving a societal ill. It is the eerie calm before the storm, where God places a quiet whisper of insight into us, then He sits back to watch as a storm of justice begins to build. Once that person follows that initial direction, all bets are off. Their world gets irreversibly rocked as their role in this world takes a radical, justice-focused shift.

It wasn’t until the session ended that I realized I had just watched the last session. I was overwhelmed with such a tremendous sense of love. Not only does He know, but He cares even more that we do and He has a plan.

I don’t know what your being led to do for Christ, but I do know this: He is speaking to each and every one of us in profound ways. He is calling us to step out of our comfort zones and to fight battles that seem impossible from where we are standing. But He is God and He can use anyone He wants to bring justice to the world. It is only our job to obey, no matter the cost!

The words God shared with me came from, “The Power of a Whisper” by Bill Hybels. If you want to hear from God but aren’t sure how, I highly suggest reading this book. The way you see and hear from Him will be forever changed

My Journey, Personal Growth, Truth

Unmasked

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emotion
Behind a mask, your fear resides.
And you carry with you a shield of pride.
They may protect you from the pain,
But they also insure no significant gain.
The very walls you think protect,
Leave you lost and alone in a life of neglect.
Your very soul is dying inside,
So why would you choose to continue to hide?
Remove the mask and walk into the light,
Cause it is there that truth and love collide.
I wrote this poem after the realization that so many of us put on a facade to hide who we really are and what we are struggling with from people around us.
For years I lived in my dream home driving my dream car with three beautiful kids and to outsiders I had the perfect life and everything money could buy. Everyone wanted what we had and we were very good at pretending everything was wonderful. But in reality I was dying a slow painful death. My husband (now my ex-husband) had an addiction to pornography which escalated to full blown affairs before long and I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. I was told that our personal lives were no one else’s business and sharing would be disrespectful to him, which was frowned upon by God. And since I wanted to be the woman God called me to be, I kept silent for a very long time.
So I put on a mask. I wore the mask of joy. I put on a smile and pretended to be so happy with my life. After all, God had blessed us with all the material things we could ever dream of. Who wouldn’t be happy with that? Right? I wore the mask of love. God says that love conquers everything so I loved my spouse with every ounce of love that I had in me, but inside I hated him for putting his insecurities and wants ahead of loving his family and God. I also wore the mask of contentment but deep inside my soul something was missing and as the days passed, my love for life grew weaker. And I wore the mask of fear. Fear of the future. Fear that my prayers would never be answered. Fear that I would never escape the living hell I felt trapped in.
After a decade of hiding and pretending, the truth was brought into the light. I removed my mask of joy and found true joy in God. Psalm 30:11-12 says, “You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!” God met me right where I was and my mask of joy was no longer necessary. Even though my circumstances remained, my new found joy in the Lord allowed me to experience joy no matter what was going on around me.
The mask of love was a little harder to tackle. I can honestly say that I didn’t love my ex the way God called me to love others because he was my enemy. I knew that the bible said to love your enemies but I just couldn’t do it. I truly hated him and there were many days that I wished death upon him so that the pain he caused others would cease to exist. But God was using him to teach me how to love those who persecute you. Letting God love me was the key. Once I gained a true understanding of how much my Heavenly Father loved me, then I was able to give that love away to those who I thought didn’t deserve it. Don’t get me wrong, I still get angry and hurt by the decisions of others but I now choose to respond in love. And on days that I can’t find the strength to do that, I don’t respond at all. Instead I take it to God and lay it at His feet.
It wasn’t until reading, “The Wall Around Your Heart” by Mary DeMuth that I gained a deeper understanding of why I wasn’t content. God created us for relationships. When sin entered the picture, with it came a multitude of disagreements. Those disagreements created strife in a key relationship and without harmony, contentment was very difficult and almost impossible. It wasn’t until I closed that chapter of my life that my contentment returned.
The most difficult mask to remove was the mask of fear. That very fear paralyzed me,  keeping me torn between doing what I knew was right and doing what I was told. If I did what God called me to do, I would cause more problems in my marriage. If I did what my husband wanted, I would go against everything I believed in. But along my journey God was giving me little nuggets of hope by showing me that as long as I was walking with Him there was nothing to fear. He revealed Himself in such a way that I finally let go of all my fears and nailed them to the cross. Letting go allowed me to finally become the woman God created me to be without hiding behind another mask.
If my story resonates with you, know that God is with you. He lives in you as a believer and He will never leave you or forsake you and He will work everything for your good and His glory. Just be patient, cry out to Him when you are at the end of your rope and let His love engulf you during the trials. And never forget that He loves you more than anyone on this earth so don’t put on masks to hide who you really are from the world. He created you for a divine purpose and you cannot fulfill that purpose if you are hiding behind a mask.
Dear God,
Please give each of us the strength and courage to remove our masks so that we can become men and women you can use to further your kingdom. Teach us how to be authentic in such a materialistic culture. Let your love heal our hurts and your truth capture our hearts.
In Your Precious and Holy Name,
Amen.
My Journey, Personal Growth

Call To Christ

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My childhood consists of bits and pieces of memories that fade in and out of my mind as I journey though life. My earliest memory of church was one I attended with my parents. We sat on the back row every time we went, which wasn’t very often. Maybe half a dozen times at the most. I recall sitting through what seemed to be hours of hymns that made me very sleepy. I often would lay my head in one of my parent’s laps and I think I slept through the rest because that is all I can remember. So my experience with church was one that put me to sleep. Not a good start towards living a life for God.
When I started middle school, I met lots of new kids that attended Lakepointe Baptist Church. They always talked about how much fun it was and I wanted to go more than anything. But my family owned a pizza restaurant and worked late hours on Saturday evenings, so Sunday mornings were the day they would sleep in. My seventh grade year I spent the night with a friend and finally got the chance to experience what the hype was all about. It was such an awesome experience. It was then that God started stirring something in my heart.
For the next two years I was blessed to have the chance to bum rides from friends and my knowledge of God started to grow. At the end of my Freshman year of high school, I applied for a scholarship to attend church camp. It was approved and that experience changed my life forever. I will never forget the moment God spoke to me. We were singing and the worship leader invited us to accept Christ. My heart was racing and tears were streaming down my face. Time stood still and it was as if my Heavenly Father had stopped everything to share this moment with me.
Everything changed that day. I was suddenly very aware of things in my life that were no longer acceptable if I was going to live the Christian life that I had been called to. So my journey with God began. I continued to attend church and my faith in Christ grew stronger everyday. I even wore a t-shirt everywhere I went saying, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Go to Hell.” I wanted others to experience the love I had received.
Ever since that day that God met me where I was and invited me to have a personal relationship with him, my heart has been leading me to help heal others. Through the years, others have broken my heart, betrayed my trust and taken what wasn’t theirs to take, but God’s voice forever tells me to forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing. They are lost and hurting and they need to feel the love of Christ from people that have no reason to love them. God has always done just that for me and if I am to call myself a Christ follower, it is my duty to do the same.
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My Journey, Truth

Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned

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Over the years, God has been speaking to me very subtly. His voice would start as a soft whisper and over time it would magnify into a loud roar if I didn’t catch on in a timely fashion. Most of the time I caught on at the whisper stage, but then there were times that I needed to hear Him yell to get the point.

I had just purchased the car of my dreams and had been toying with the idea of a personalized license plate. I wanted something that would be a testimony to others. After brainstorming for a couple of days, I thought “I’m His” would be perfect. I procrastinated a little too long and the dealer plates arrived. I placed them on the trunk of my car to install and got sidetracked with the kids. Later that day I went to the grocery store. It wasn’t until I arrived back home that I realized the plates were left on the car and were now gone. I drove my route hoping to find them on the road somewhere between my house and the store, but no luck. So I ordered replacements. Two weeks later my plates arrived and I opened them to see 850 HYS. My heart stopped. Was this for real? I thought I was seeing things. At that moment I knew God had something very important he wanted to share with me. I went straight to my bible in search of verse 50 in chapter 8.

Before I tell you what I found, you need to know what was going on at that moment in my life. I was married to a man with a sexual addiction. In my brokenness, I had justified certain behaviors of my own. The lines between right and wrong had turned from black and white to grey in our household. After years of pain, instead of relying solely on God to comfort me, I found comfort in things that never gave me what I was longing for. I turned to friends for ungodly advice, spent countless hours easing my pain with shopping, and even turned to another man to meet my needs for emotional support.

I found three verses in the entire bible with a chapter 8, verse 50. All three of them hit my like a ton of bricks. 1 Kings 8:50 says, “Forgive your people who have sinned against you. Forgive all the offenses they have committed against you.” The moment I read the verse, I realized my pain and agony had not subsided because I had unforgiveness and fear in my heart. I had forgiven myself but I was holding captive the forgiveness towards my spouse because I didn’t want to get hurt again. Luke 8:50 says, “Don’t be afraid, just believe.” This verse was God’s way of telling me to trust Him and believe that He had a plan for me and that He would meet all of my needs. John 8:50 says, “I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.” Through this verse, He revealed that He is the judge, not me.

God took something he placed in my heart and used it to teach me a very valuable lesson that day. Healing will never take place the way God intended for it to until we forgive others the way He forgives us, trust Him and believe His promises, and let Him be the judge of those who disobey.

If you find yourself in pain, whether it is the result of your own sin or the sin of someone else, know that God is right there waiting for you to give it all to Him. He is the only one that can heal and restore what Satan has tried to destroy.

 

Prayer

Thank You God!

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Dear God,

I want to take time to remember all the things you have done for me through the years. Oh there are so many things. You have carried me through dark valleys of the shadow of death. You have rejoiced with me on the mountaintops. You have held my hand and helped me take a leap into unknown waters. You have applied healing balm to my hurts and warm sunshine on my soul. You have given me precious friends whom have stood the test of time…and more. You have given me a loving family to grow with and be with. You have increased my territory spiritually. You have picked me up when I have stumbled and nearly hit the ground. You have provided for me when I did not know where my provisions would come from. You have surrounded me with prayers and support from the family of God in time of need. You have shown me miracles and blessed my soul. You have given me the desires of my heart — desires that are in line with Your will and word. You have given me the privilege of helping advance Your Kingdom through gifts, talents, and resources You have entrusted to me. You have always been patient with me. You have felt my cries, laughed at my silliness, and gently guided me back onto the right path. You have loved me with an everlasting love. I could go on and on. God, I am thankful for You and all You have done and all You will do in my life. I love you and appreciate You and want to shout, “How great is my God!”

With loving gratitude, in Your sweet and holy name,
Amen.