It is raining outside! How long has it been since I've heard the rain?
And He is reigning on my exhausted heart. If you get close enough, you might just hear it.
Be surprised by the joy of it!
I've recently been faced with...
my self.
my thoughts about...
my self
How terrible I have been believing that I am! Where did all of that come from? I've been seeing it lately. Oh, Jesus, my Light! You are shedding YOUR LIGHT into my dark places. I realize now how many chains I've been dragging around with me...they come with me everywhere. I've foolishly used them to protect myself. The tragedy in doing this, though, is they have erected a cold, lonely, painful fortress around my heart and disguised themselves as protective walls. There is NO WAY to see anything truly and clearly through chains...
although...
The Light can still penetrate.
Hmmm...
Chains just don't make very good walls, now, do they?!
"...mine eyes have seen Thy salvation..." Luke 2:30 KJV
The way You fulfilled Your promise to Simeon, allowing Him to see Israel's salvation before he died, You are also fulfilling Your promise to set me free! I can see it. You have opened the eyes of my heart to SEE Your Salvation!
As I have been looking to really SEE, you brought this quote in an email from a very dear friend. A bit in answer to the above question of where do these terrible self-thoughts originate. And what to do with them...
This is from a book entitled The Three Battlegrounds by Francis Frangipane
"...the essence of who we are is made of events and how we responded to those events. Who we are today is the sum of what we have encountered in life and our subsequent reactions...With few exceptions, those events which we remember the most have shaped us the most...We are what the past has made us. Yet, we are commanded to not look back and to ' forget...what lies behind.' With God, this is not impossible, for although the events of our lives are irreversible, our REACTIONS to those events can still be changed. AND AS OUR REACTIONS CHANGE, WE CHANGE. In other words, although we cannot alter the past, we can put our past upon the 'altar" as an ACT OF WORSHIP. A worshiping heart truly allows God to restore the soul....God, who is the essence of life, must reach into our experiences and REDEEM us from our negative reactions. The channel through which the Lord extends Himself, even into our past, is our love and worship of Him."
I don't know about you, but I can hear the CLUNK. THUD. CRACK. of a chain fortress toppling over! To think Light could be so powerful...I just had to let Him in close.
New walls...a strong fortress...a truth tower...is being carefully, solidly, perfectly built in its place. Taking captive the lies that once held me captive. I have been set free, I am being set free, I will be set free!
I love this passage from Paul:
"I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. 3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete." 2 Corinthians 10:2-6 NIV
Toppling over in love with Him,
Wendy:)
You inspire me. Your words flow soul-over like healing water. Like rain. I can't believe you're my friend!!! Thank You, Jesus!
ReplyDeletePLUS we are free to enjoy ruffles on coats, EOS lip "bomb" and scratching our heads together.
ReplyDeleteI love it! The Lord is so good. He brings us a revelation of truth; and then, when that revelation has been incorporated into the fabric of our beliefs and we have learned to live in it, He brings a deeper revelation of the same truth. The deeper revelation helps us walk in even more of the freedom He has already purchased for us. We see how that truth has impact on even those things which we thought would never be able to change. Having Jesus show us the truth of His love, presence, and consistency even in the worst things that have happened to us sets us free from the prison of our old responses.
ReplyDeleteWhat you wrote set me free from an old response I had regarding my brother's tragic death. I have held God in suspicion ever since. The lie that I have to somehow anticipate and provide a contingency for any bad thing I could imagine happening kept me ever tired and fearful. Even though I had owned some of this very truth from Search for Significance, the new revelation gave me greater freedom than before. Thank you Jesus for persevering in bringing this to me through Wendy's writing. I repent of holding the Lord in suspicion and ask for His forgiveness once again. I also ask for the grace to walk out and incorporate this deeper truth into the fabric of my life.
thank-you!
Mom
Again! I read and reread this entry.
ReplyDeleteI read a book by Skip Ross in the 80's that had a great impact on my life and my choices. It was called "Say Yes to Your Potential". I am not sure how biblical it was, but it gave me a semblance of power to change my life which seemed hopeless and stuck. His premise was that we have today the sum of all the choices of our yesterdays. There is some truth in that.
But, speaking of the Lord's faithfulness to bring us into a greater revelation of His truth when we are ready to receive it; I have a new revelation about choices.
My identity does not lie in the my choices of yesterday; my identity lies in my "CHOSENESS".
Amen for that!! It is not all up to me and my ability to always make the right choice. Jesus made a way for me through some very poor choices in time. Because of Him, I try to make good choices; but because of Him, I have hope when I don't.
GOOD NEWS!!
mom