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I'm making a move, back to my original home. Sometimes you can go home it seems. I have loved being here at Typepad but you know it just never has felt like home.. I miss my Xanga friends. So as of today the change has been made you can now find me over at my old stompin grounds.
Hope to see you there and I'll be getting around to your xanga in the next few days. Oh my it's good to go back home.. Love, Cathie Jo
Aging, whatever made us think when we were younger that aging was all about late afternoons sitting on the porch sipping our sun made tea? I don’t know if it was commercials, the TV or movies but somewhere along the way I picked up a mind-set that being a grandmother equaled moo moo’s and rockers. Not that life was over by any stretch of the imagination but that your usefulness was somewhat lessened.
I have been pondering on this for a few months now. I don’t act almost 50, so it’s not that, but something deep in me resigned to the fact that I had achieved, I guess it were, all that I would in this life. The rest was all about just sitting back and reaping.
So I set out to see if I could find out what God’s thoughts were on that. Now I know He used old people in the Bible, but heck lets face it most lived a heck of a lot longer than I will be able to. I can’t recall but I don’t think I’ve heard of any 600-year-old people breaking any world records. So I started searching this wonderful Internet for the old saints to see if I could find any clues there. And not only did I find clues but I found a gold mine of encouragement, hope, and future.
What I found mostly was it’s never ever too late to move forward, the present is ours to change if our hearts are open and our faith is strong. One woman I read about desperately felt called to the mission field, she applied but her church mission board told her she was too old and rejected her. God, who in fact is a wee bit older than all of us, figured she was too young; He waited two years before sending her into the field.
Have you heard of John Wesley? Did you know he preached over 40,000 sermons and traveled 225,000 miles, on horse no less? Did you know that these figures only pertained to the latter part of his life, from 36 to 88? I was totally impressed until I read about George Muller. He traveled 200,000, preaching in several different languages to over 3 million people. His count only started “after” his 70th birthday and he continued for the next 17 years.
Dr. Robert Lowry, a renowned Christian musician, first started studying music after turning 40. Fanny Crosby was 43 when she found her life’s work writing Gospel songs. It is said she wrote over 9,000 using different pen names. At 63, Clara McBride Hale began caring for addicted babies, the numbers she has now helped run in the hundreds.
Peggy Smith, 84 and blind, and her sister Christine, 82 and crippled, were key people in the great revival in Scotland.
And it seems even God like’s irony, Elizabeth Wilson felt a strong call to China when she was 20. She arrived there 30 years later. Conditions were harsh and dangerous, yet it would seem it was her age that proved her greatest asset. In the Orient, as in most societies outside of our own, age is honored.
In 1968, two middle-aged tourists, florists for over 30 years, were so moved by what they saw in Kenya that they decided to return as missionaries. Denny and Jeanne Grindall, with no engineering skills or even formal Bible training and very little money, instigated the building of a dam almost 80 foot high and piped the clean water nearly three miles to tribes people. The Maasai gradually became so responsive to the Grindall’s message that twenty churches were opened and hundreds came to Christ.
Black American missionary to Liberia, Eliza George, was forced by her mission to retire at age 65. Undeterred, she raised her own support and continued independently for the best part of three more decades.
‘I want to go to the mission field as soon as I can,’ announced an enthusiastic teenager on the day of her baptism. She made it – as a seventy-one-year-old widow. In Papua New Guinea, Guatemala, Thailand, Burma and Communist Russia, Margaret Cole squeezed more excitement into a few years than most people ever see.
Cam Townsend, founder of the Wycliffe Bible Translators, flew to Moscow and began learning Russian to assist in Bible translation work in the Caucasus. The nation was still under the iron grip of Communism and he was seventy-two.
At that same age of seventy-two, Maude Cary accepted her missionary society’s plea ‘to open the city of El Haheb [in Morocco] to resident missionary work.’
Evelyn Brand came to India as a young missionary. After her husband’s death she pressed on, living on a pittance, caring for villagers scattered over five mountain ranges. At age seventy-five, Granny, as she was now known, had grown too old for such arduous work. Having fallen and broken her hip, she had to be carried down the mountain by stretcher, then driven 150 bone-jarring miles to the nearest hospital. By the time her son – a brilliant medical missionary – finally arrived, she was walking with two canes and managing to ride a pony to outlying villages. The skilled doctor mustered all his persuasive powers to lovingly convince his ageing mother that she ‘presented a constant medical hazard,’ riding horseback to such remote, rugged mountains with her paralyzed legs and lacking sense of balance. Brushing aside his pleas, Granny toiled for eighteen more years, despite being ravaged by tropical diseases and suffering concussions and fractures from falls off her pony. She was ninety-three when she reluctantly exchanged her horse for a stretcher; continuing her work by being carried from village to village by devoted Indians for her two remaining years.
In modern China the seventy-year-old wife of a persecuted pastor travels extensively distributing Bibles at great risk. In another part of the nation a ninety-year-old prayerfully studies a map, wondering where to lug her next bundle of Bibles. She hugs her books, rejoicing that the Tiananmen Square massacre increased not just the danger but also the demand.
I don’t care if you’re so out of touch that you’re bumfumled by newfangled things like the King James Bible; so old your grandchildren are fast approaching retirement; so frail you have to rest up to use the remote. God can still use you. Of course, if you’ve already passed eighty-five, I can’t really promise you’ll write 8,000 songs. You might, like Fanny at that age, have to settle for only 250 hymns a year.
If you’re ninety-five, it’s time to go to Bible School. That’s what a man named David Sizer did. The last I read he was 101, still preaching in a prison and five retirement centers every week. There is a tiny man in Brazil aged 105 who had led hundreds to the Lord, still uninspired? A further detail should cure that. He did not know the Lord until he turned 103.
So if you’ve graduated from make-up to polyester, from mini skirts to moo moo’s, hang on to your dentures, it’s ministry time.
Whine and complain, mumble and grumble. How much time has been lost in our life’s to those four small words? It plagued the Israelites and today we have even made up catch phrases when we hear someone moaning, maybe you’ve heard or perchance even been told, “Would you like some cheese with that whine?” Do you know someone that is a perpetual whiner? We all have run across them, it will be the person you see coming from a distance and you do an about face and head in the opposite direction praying, “Lord don’t let me get caught by them I don’t think I can listen to another hour of their moaning.” That sounds horrible doesn’t it? But that’s the effect whining has on other people. It’s no wonder God was so harsh to the Israelites when it came to their grumbling and murmuring. He has a better way for us, and every week I am blessed to be given an example of that.
Her name is Tina, she is a precious woman of God that I have the good fortune to call my friend. Tina battles Lupus, a battle at times we thought she was close to losing. I had only heard of Lupus in passing until Tina came into my life. Now I’ve learned more about Lupus than I ever prayed I would have had to since meeting her. Her days are choreographed around her dialysis. Every other day she goes to Dialysis to be hooked up to a machine for three hours so that it can do for her what her body no longer can. Yet to this day I have never heard one self pity remark escape her lips. Some Sundays I sit in my pew and just watch her as she drifts from person to person, offering all an “I love you”, then I catch her body lean in towards someone and I know they are sharing with her their trials and I know she is encouraging them in ways only Tina can. You would never know that she herself has battled death more times than it seems is humanly possible, the only hint you have of her struggles is when she goes to the altar for prayer. She radiates Jesus, you can see Him in her eyes, you can hear Him in her voice, and you can feel Him in her touch.
Tina doesn’t have a clue to the impact she has on my life and others, and therein lies the most wonderful thing about her. She is void of self, and without self - self-pity can not exist. I think the key to her ability to overcome all that has been laid at her plate can be summed up in two words; “But God.” Where we might say, “But God, why does this have to happen to me?” Tina will say, “But God is my Jehovah-Rapha, the one who heals.” Or “But God, if I’m too sick to go to work today how will my bills be paid?” her response would be, “ But God is my Jehovah-Jireh, the one who provides.” You see it’s an attitude, just two simples words but two completely different outcomes will emerge.
If we would all stop long enough to consider “But God” in our own situations we too would find, like Tina has, that there’s no problem that can’t be solved; there’s no mountain that can’t be climbed, no river that can’t be crossed, and no door that can’t be opened. Our Lord holds the reigns of time in His hand; He knows our coming and goings, even down to the number of hairs on our heads. So how can we even entertain the thought that there is anything too hard for Him?
Not all of us are fighting a disease like my friend, but we all have areas that we battle to see the “But God” in. We might be facing a situation that seems so hopeless to us we are crying out, “But God”. It could be your child that has fallen away and you have done all you know to do, “But God” is able to deliver. Your marriage might be broken into a thousand pieces, “But God” said that what He has joined together, let no man put asunder. You might be battling people who are out to destroy your name, who are lying about you, gossiping about you, “But God” said that He would make your enemies your footstool and that vengeance belongs to Him. Satan may be attacking you and beating you up on every side and you just can’t seem to get the victory, “But God” is our Jehovah Nissi, He who reigns in victory.
The storms may be raging in your life and peace seems a million miles away from you right now, “But God” is Jehovah Shalom, the Prince of Peace. You might have fallen once again, “But God” is a God of second chances. You might not be able to forgive yourself for sins you have committed, “But God” forgives and threw those sins into a sea of forgetfulness. You might be confused, “But God” consecrated your mind. Your load may seem unbearable, “But God” said He won’t put more on you than you can bear. It may seem like time is running out, “But God” will step in right on time.
How can we be so sure about that? Because God told us so through those that have gone on before us. Abraham could tell you about the time that he was commanded to sacrifice his only son Isaac, “But God” was found to be a ram in the bush. Daniel could step forward and share how the lion was a mighty beast, strong and ready to devour him, “But God” was the key that locked the lions jaw. Shadrach, Meshach and Abindigo could tell you that the fire in the furnace was tripled what was needed to kill, “But God” was the fan that cooled the flame. Today there is a “But God” in your circumstance too, regardless of what you might be going through, regardless of how bad it seems. You see the work has already been done, we all were dying; “But God” gave His only begotten Son so that we might have life.
Two uncomplicated words - “But God”, that is the secret to Tina having joy in her trials, hope in her battles, and victory in her life. Where we would say, “But God, why me?” she says, “But God why not me?” May I learn all I can from her.
Ephesians 2: 4-7
“But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved; And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in Heavenly places with Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus.”
Less than eleven hours after I wrote my last entry about “How Low Can We Go” I received a phone call from my daughter. Her voice jolted me out of bed; it was the sound of shock, never before until that moment did I realize that shock had a sound. She told me that her husband’s best friend had just committed suicide. The next few days brought a full range of emotions for so many people that loved this young man, and for many it will be a long time before the roller coaster ride of emotions stops to let them off.
There will be questions that have no answers, there will be guilt that will bore itself into their hearts, there will be anger at how could he, and there will be grief deeper than they thought humanly possible because he did. I can’t speak to the gulf of emotions that his family and friends will ride; I can only speak to what God led me through these last few days. God took me somewhere I hadn’t visited in over twenty-five years, a place I worked the next twenty-five years to stay away from.
If clinical depression hasn’t been a shadow that has trailed you, more than likely you won’t be able to understand how a person could get to a place of such despair. I not only understand it, I lived it twenty-five years ago. Questions flooded my mind and heart this weekend of why him and not me? What made my suicide attempts fail and not his? I cried out to God, why? Where were his angels, an unexpected visitor at that moment could have stop the forward motions of things, the limb could have broken, any number of things could have stopped his world long enough to maybe allow a rational thought to push it’s way into this mind.
These are questions I won’t find answers to this side of heaven, I don’t understand nor do I have the answers for why it seems some have incredible testimonies of how their angels intervened in their lives, while others it would seem their angels stood by silently watching. It’s only this human mind I have to reason with, and I can’t see into the heavenlies unless God lifts His hand for a second to allow me to. It didn’t matter the amount of crying out to God I did this weekend begging for answers, they just weren’t going to come. So I was left with remembering and recalling.
At the most unexpected moments depression will slip people its dark poison. You never even notice its initial sting. Slowly, insidiously, the poison spreads until you find yourself cut off from life by a dark veil. It’s a dark veil that drapes itself across your mind. Life and hope seem beyond reach. You lose the ability to feel loved and needed; it’s a feeling of being locked away from everything and everyone, including God. A depressed person will cry out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” and then add “I really can’t blame you for doing so.” It is pure and utter unworthiness, forsakenness, and hopelessness.
One of the things I heard most this weekend, was something told to those that lost their loved one, “God never gives you more than you can bear.” Every time I heard it, I kept thinking but what about him? He had been convinced in his own mind that what God had given him to bear was more than he could handle. It’s easy to come up with a thousand and one reason why a non-Christian loses all hope, but a Christian this isn’t suppose to happen to them, we aren’t without hope ever. But yet, he felt that way, I have felt that way. It smacks us in the face because we don’t have answers; it causes us to take things we think out of the boxes we so neatly store them in. One of those being if we are dedicated Christians we will not ever be in a situation where we will feel emotionally and spiritually powerless, helpless and hopeless. If we are committed Christians we will never find ourselves in circumstances where we will feel all options are closed to us. The reality for some is depression can leave you helpless in a pit, defeated by the veil that lays itself on your mind, and life can become more than you can bear.
The Bible is filled with psalmist and prophets that were drowning in anguish and despair. As I wrote in my last entry, Job, Jonah, Jeremiah, David and so many more were in spiritual and emotional hell, and these were real emotions expressed as a result of real tragedies. These emotions were cries of anguish and protest that God had left them without hope and without help. These prophets had to endure more than they could bear.
That tells me that God is big enough to deal with our honest emotions and our anger, even if it is directed at Him. These are the times we truly wrestle with God. This past weekend I cried out to God, “Where were you?” I know with all my heart that God could have done something, He did with me, what I don’t know is why He didn’t. It was an honest emotion and question I was having. God didn’t speak to me through His voice, this time He sent me back to His Word.
I went back again and reread the stories of these prophets and I found a common thread in each. God never judged them as deficient or faithless for becoming depressed, instead He comforted them. God showed me that depression as He sees it is a problem you have, not a problem you are. He can and does discern between it and you and stands with you against it. Depression is a heart shrouded in dread and darkness. I also found God did not give specific thoughts on suicide regarding the whole will they go to heaven or hell. So I got on the Internet and searched how we, as Christians, got to a place where so many denominations say if you commit suicide it’s hell for you period.
What I found was in the early Christian era suicide was not only tolerated, but also condoned by the church. As a result of this there was certain sects such as the Donatists and the Circumcellions that started jumping off cliffs in great numbers to hasten an afterlife that promised greater reward than those found on earth. It actually reminded me a lot of the beliefs of some religions today. Faced with the loss of so many of its members, in the early 4th to 6th centuries the church decided that anyone else who committed suicide was going to hell.
Also we need to recognize that God created our very minds. We can only use our minds to the extent that He allows, we can’t know all the answers and we won’t. And because of that we can’t judge anyone’s heart and mind. We don’t establish the standards for what is right. Only He can do that. I wrestled with God this weekend, pleading for answers and in the end I settled in my mind and heart, that it doesn’t matter if I understand it or not, that whatever He chooses to do is right.
If there is someone in your life that battles the darkness of depression I found online a few things as a sister in Christ you can do to help that person.
Do not discount or belittle the negative feelings and apathy you encounter, but listen intently, gently, point out reality, and offer reassurance. Nothing is more counterproductive than trying to nag, badger, cajole, or discounting a depressed person into a healthy place. Both you and the depressed person will become frustrated by these approaches. Instead use patience, understanding, affection and encouragement. Like gardening, you don’t grab plants and tug on them to make them grow. You water and cultivate the soil around them and growth happens quite naturally.
Don’t take the indifference you sometimes encounter personally. Remember that in the middle of this perplexing fog there is a unique and precious person with a special history, someone that God loves very much. Honoring the image of God in that person means affirming their human dignity in the face of their inability to affirm themselves.
And lastly but most importantly commit yourself to pray for the duration of the illness. The Psalmist who knew the darkness of depression wrote, “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up out of a horrible pit—and set my feet upon a rock.” Depression is a deep pit into which many fall. Within all the forms that your compassion takes, you are asking God to reach down into that pit. Those who would be God’s hands reaching out to the depressed must first extend those hands heavenward in pray.
My experience has taught me, painfully, in the reality of suffering among faithful Christians. I have no easy answers. But I felt the pulse of pain and, by looking to the Cross, and His Word, I gained some understanding. No matter how deep and dark your valley, there is a God of love who is waiting for you to let Him guide you through your tunnel of despair, and out into His wondrous light. He is your sure hope, He is Jesus.
This Jesus, the sinless Son of God, identifies with you in your time of rejection and humiliation. The prophet, Isaiah, wrote of Him, "He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him. Nor appearance, that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely your grief’s He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His stripes (whipping) we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him" (Isaiah 53:2-6).
God stands ready to repair what is "broken"... namely, the life you have now, that you want to end by suicide. The prophet Isaiah wrote: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners...to comfort all who mourn; To grant those who mourn...Giving them a garland (crown of beauty) instead of ashes; The oil of gladness instead of mourning; The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified" (Isaiah 61:1-3).
It will be a hard walk for this precious child’s family and friends, some will battle guilt, others will struggle with why wasn’t I enough, and then the questions they won’t get answers to this side of Heaven. For myself, I understand a little better what I am called to do, I still don’t have the answers to why I was spared twenty-five years ago, but I do know I can touch places of darkness that most have never encountered and prayerfully never will. And this much I know about my God, He will use my times of despair to help others who are drowning in them. Because in the end God can’t so much use my mountain top moments, nobody needs help during those, but He can and will use my struggles.
I sit here writing in my little trailer, I hear the birds chirping, I see a robin flitting to and fro building a nest for new life to emerge from. And life goes on. And that is my lesson in this; I can draw on my past to help others - it’s no longer an options, it’s now a mandate, a drive and a purpose in my life. And that’s our God, He took a horrible tragedy and He will bring good out of it. How? I don’t know, but I have all assurance that He will… it’s where my hope rest… in Him.
Do you think it is possible for a Godly, Spirit filled Christian to get so low that they feel like just giving up? Now, I am talking about a Sister in Christ who loves the Lord with all her heart, who knows His heart, who has battled in prayer, and who has seen His hand move miraculously in her life. Do you think it is possible that she could get to a place of being so downhearted, discouraged, downcast, and a multitude of other ‘d’ words that she wasn’t sure she had it in her to keep fighting? Well I do, I have been there before and I am there again.
I won’t go into the myriad of reasons to my ‘why’s’ that brought me here for a couple of reasons. One being I refuse to give lip service to the enemy until I can call it a victory for the Lord. And secondly, the ‘why’s have nothing to do with it, everyone’s ‘why’s’ will be different because he knows us just that well. The important thing that we all need to know is once we find ourselves here how to we get from a place of defeat to a place of victory. And God being the loving Father He is has left us wonderful instructions for just that.
You know Job? Poor old Job, if there was ever a man of constant sorrow with reason it was Job. Scripture tells us that Job was, “…perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil.” He was a man who loved God, who feared no evil, was perfect and upright yet he got to a place where he just couldn’t take anymore suffering. Job cried out to God saying he only had one request…let me die; I’ve had it God, cut me off! Job like so many of us was in anguish because he saw no end to his suffering and worse yet they seemed unsolvable. He had come to a place of his end, all options ran out, he couldn’t reason his way out, and all his reserves were gone.
Then came his friends. And like friends will do I’m sure they wondered what is going on with him? Why doesn’t he snap out of it? Surely he must be sinning. I’ve had it up to here with this, get over it move on. I’m sure they were concerned for Job, scared for Job and wanted to help Job figure out why he was suffering. As I play the scene out in my mind, I can hear their words, their questions, and I can hear Job saying, “I don’t know, I don’t know why or what is happening.” Let me list just a few of Job’s complaints to the Lord.
"Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?...I am full of confusion..." (verses 10-15). In other words: "Lord, You've stirred up my life, and I'm losing it. I'm totally confused!"
"Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?" (13:24). "God, You've taken my children, everything I have. Why have You made Yourself my enemy?"
"My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death" (16:16). "My eyes are red from crying. My face is like a dead man's!"
Have you ever thought those things, come to that place in your walk? Now I don’t for a second compare anything Job went through with anything God has put me through, but oh how I praise Him that He put this book in the Bible, this story of Job. With all the trust Job had for and in God, he still came to a place of confusion, not understand what God was doing, and that comforts my soul like a wonderful salve.
And lest you think God only gave us Job as an example, check out Elijah, Jeremiah, David, Joseph, Paul, the Disciples and a multitude of other saints of God. At one time or another they all found themselves in a place of confusion and wondering if God had forgotten them.
As I’ve read over these precious peoples lives again in the last few days, I am reminded of how often I have grown weary of people who can’t seem to see past this second. I have found myself many times wanting to just say, “Oh my good gosh, snap out of it, get over yourself. Have you forgotten all that God has done for you, count your blessings and move on” Course I don’t, but saying it or just thinking it are pretty much the same thing in God’s book since He does know my thoughts.
And honestly theologically I would probably be right. But this is the real world and these are real people, with real human emotions and sometimes theology just doesn’t work. It sure didn’t work for Elijah, good gosh he ended up in a cave, he found himself right at home in a dark, dark place of hopelessness.
Can you relate to Elijah? Have you ever just ‘dropped’ out for a while? Have you ever withdrawn and gone into hiding, so hurt, so down, you didn’t want to see or talk to anyone? Your particular cave may be a cave of silence- a withdrawal from people. Or then maybe you still aren’t really convinced that as a Christian we can be in that much anguish. I mean surely no believer should live in fear right? And there shouldn’t be any depression going on in God’s house most definitely.
Turns out as I have studied more and more this week that Paul actually addressed this very thing. Can you imagine even for a second what it must have been like to be Paul? He was a man that Jesus not only revealed Himself to, but through. The Spirit took him right into heaven and showed him unspeakable things. But read on about Paul, specifically his trip to Asia. Remember all the great miracles the Lord was doing then? Demons were being cast out, the lame and sick were being healed. He anointed handkerchiefs and laid them on people and instantly they were healed and delivered.
The miracles were so convicting that the Ephesians brought all their occult stuff to be burned. Because people were not buying these idols anymore, that put a lot of other people out of business. In the midst of this great revival, a great riot broke out. They dragged poor Paul into a theater and made him defend himself. Paul eventually just left Ephesus. But can you see the picture; Paul had given two years of his life to these people and this revival. Paul actually says in 2 Corinthians that it was all over, he wasn’t going to make it or come out of this alive, the sentence of death was on him.
Have you been there? Boy howdy I have. I’ve grown weary and tired, and then just like clockwork the enemy will come in when we are at our most low physically with no strength left to fight. This is when he will generally start the whispers, just look at yourself if you were half the Christian you claim to be you could rise above hormones, hurricanes and the like. The whispers start getting louder and louder until it’s all you hear anymore. No matter how much you try to quiet them, they drone on an on.
Then like Job the friends start noticing the change, the quiet, the withdrawing. They ask what’s wrong, and you simply answer I don’t know. It has taken me a several months to even start to walk through my confusion and sorrow of my heart. What I have discovered is this type of burden can’t be explained physically. The enemy just comes in like a flood, with all the power of hell aligned against you and within a moment’s time you find yourself in a pit, and completely unable to explain it as much as you want to.
I don’t know exactly what Paul was speaking of when he said, “…. Our trouble, which came to us in Asia…” but I have a feeling it was more than just physical. It was more than shipwrecks, being stoned and beatings. I think it was also mental torment, a very deep and hard spiritual warfare that just knocked him out physically. We might not like to think this can happen to good solid Christians, but man am I ever glad that Paul spoke so truthfully about his feelings. Otherwise I would be left to think I was the only one ever going through this type of thing.
The truth is many Godly men and women from the beginning until now have spoken that the enemy has charged at them in this exact same way. He comes with his lies, discouragement, and hopelessness. One day we are rejoicing, secure in our walk, and the next second we find ourselves feeling worthless. Just suddenly, for no reason we know of, our peace is gone, we can’t sleep, our joy has left, and hopelessness sets in. You’re left feeling undeserving and unacceptable to God.
And I ain’t talking about a physical sickness, or a sense of rejection, I’m talking about an unexplainable mental anguish, something that can come upon you out of nowhere. One-day things just begin to pile up in your mind, you can’t explain it, it’s not explainable. And nobody can reach you, you find yourself not even wanting to talk to anyone, all you desire in that moment is to run and hide.
Whatever happened to Paul it was overwhelming to him. He was brought so low all his strength left him. Did Paul really get to a place so low that he wanted to end his life? It would seem so because scripture tell us that. And more than that, it tells us he was fearful. Yep, this great man of God the very same man who spoke so much about having victory over fear, he himself had fear. And that was satan’s plan all alone, it is the same plan today to plant fear in us. He wants us to lose our faith that God will answer our prayers, that we haven’t been abandoned by Him.
Now watch here, here is the key I found just this week.. Paul goes on to say, “the sentence of death.. Ok we know that he was ready to give up the goat, but watch here, “that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raised the dead.” Booyah, and there you are it is all about faith.
I STRONGLY believe not only do Godly people go through these times, but God Himself allows it for one reason. So that our faith may be built up. You see I can talk and talk and talk about all the scripture that points to why you or I should be victorious and not downcast, but until I have walked it, I don’t have a clue what I am saying. I am just a clinging symbol. There is no mercy, there is no grace. But now I can speak of it from a personal standpoint. This is why Paul said, I don’t want you being ignorant of how the devil tried to take me out in Asia. I want to share with you how God brought me out of it so that you can be healed and delivered.
Perhaps like Paul and me you are being pressed beyond what you can handle, tested beyond what you can stand. Your strength is almost gone or has been gone, and you stand on the very edge of giving up. You can’t see any way out. You want to run, but there isn’t one place to even go. Now... now is the time to say with Paul, THIS IS WAY ABOVE MY STRENGTH.
So how do you get out of it? Well dear friends all I can do is tell you how God continues to bring me out. These are things He keeps bringing me back to. Remember Job, Jeremiah, Elijah, Joseph, David and Paul and even little ole’ me. What you are going through is completely common to believers since the beginning of time. Read 1 Peter 4: 12-13.
When you can’t go on one second more, when there is absolutely no hope left, run to God, cry out to God, get alone with God with all that is in you cry out, Lord, help. Then get your bible and read the Psalms. God will not turn a deaf ear to your cries, I promise you that with all my heart.
Soak yourself in His Word, grab a promise, take it to your prayer closet and hold God to it. What He has done for one He will do you for you.
And lastly, trust… Trust the Holy Spirit. He is residing right there in our hearts. God doesn’t need to send an angel to help you, or a friend to console you; He has already put His resources in you, the Holy Spirit.
And that’s it; it seems too simple doesn’t it? As you face your flood of suffering, confusion, and hopelessness turn to the Lord and say, Only you Lord know the way out of this. I don’t have a clue; it is completely and totally beyond me. So I’m quitting, I’m giving up all attempts to figure this out. I know for a fact that what I am going through is not uncommon for those that love the Lord. And I’m calling on You for help through it. I’m holding You to your promises, and I trust You to do the rest.
And that sweet sisters is all we do, He will remain faithful to deliver us. He hasn’t let the first person down in the history of time; He won’t start with you or me. We just ain’t all that, ya know? I’ll be praying for you during your time of flood, please pray for me too.
Do you ever have those moments when you stop and think, “When did life happen?” Was I sleeping? Surely it can’t be almost thirty years later. Yet it is, my marriage is rapidly approaching the thirty-year mark. I can look back and see all the different seasons of my life highlighted much the same way I do my Bible. It just happened so fast, never once stopping to ask me if I wanted it too. Today I look at our two grown daughters living their lives and I think, “This is it, this is what it was all about.”
Last May my husband and I were camping up at the lake. After backing in the trailer we both stepped out of the truck to start unloading. The second my feet hit the grass up out of it came hundreds of Mayflies. It looked much like snow except backwards, instead of falling to the ground they were rising up out of the ground.
Yes, it was Mayfly season again. What a strange occurrence, but like clockwork it happens the same time every year. We glanced at a nearby tree trunk and it looked to be wearing a velvet coat, as we walked closer you could see thousands upon thousands of Mayflies had stopped to rest I supposed.
Mayflies are really nothing more than an annoyance to us, however to certain fish they are a wondrous delicacy, a meal sent straight from heaven. My husband and I would sit in the evening under the awning making sure to keep moving our legs and arms, because if we sat too still soon we would look much like those velvet trees. Mayflies will come to rest on anything sitting still. Their purpose in landing? To molt. Mayflies are the only known insect to molt again after they have wings.
But my goodness what a sad life they have, they live to only produce it seems. The male will die right after mating. The females die not long after laying eggs in the water. What Ty and I were witnessing were the last hours of the Mayfly when it lands and molts for the last time. A Mayfly lives for only twenty-four to forty-eight hours after molting.
Adding insult to injury, not only do they have an incredible short life, but also they don’t even get the blessing of eating, they only live to be eaten. Can you imagine a life like that? So very short, everything you were designed to do in this world you were able to do in just a matter of hours.
Yet, when I think about it this is exactly what God told us about our life.
Wasn’t it? We all remember the scripture that tells us our life is nothing more than a mist. Now stop and think on that, actually get a can of air freshener and see for yourself how long it takes to disappear. You spray it, you see it, and within a second it is gone. Our life is that short as well, in God’s timing.
Knowing one day the chariots will come to take me home to that great by and by; I have to ask myself, “What was it all about Lord?” Of course I know it was about my salvation, and about my doing the work of the Lord. But I think God had much greater plans than just me.
There are a multitude of scriptures that point to what God’s greatest concern is for our short stay here, and what He really wanted us to understand about our time in this world and our call. Psalms 78:5-6 says, “He decreed statues for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which He commanded our forefathers to teach their children, SO the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Wow, so even our children or grandchildren that are yet born are already being influenced by decisions we make now.
When you cut to the chase our life is about our legacy. What will we leave our children, grandchildren and those yet to come? For every deed we plant a seed. Do we fully understand the ramifications of that statement? I’m staggered by it. For every deed, not just my good deeds, not just my bad deeds, but every deed I plant a seed for my children, grandchildren and on to the fourth or fifth generations. I either hand to my girl’s blessings or curses. I will surely hand them something, but what will it be?
When we open our mouth, what are we handing them? When we read something we know we shouldn’t, what are we handing them? When we allow something into our home that doesn’t glorify God, what are we handing them? When we don’t go to church because someone has wounded us, what are we handing them? When we can’t let go of anger, what are we handing them? When the need for wanting things more outweighs the need to spend time with the Lord, what are we handing them?
In a given day, are we robbing more from our children’s future than we are planting into it? I think one of the saddest, heart wrenching verses in all of God’s Word is found in Judges 2:10, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel.” Their parents knew God. Their grandparents knew God, but something happened. The legacy that should have been passed on got dropped, much like a runner who goes to hand off a baton and misses the other runner’s hand. The parents here in this verse missed the mark, by dropping the baton so to speak for their children.
Today we give all kind of reasons and excuses for why this generation of children doesn’t hunger after God. But the bottom line is we have dropped the baton. It shouldn’t matter what the world is doing, if we Christians are doing what God has called us to do for our children, they should be growing up strong in the Lord, hungering after the things of Him.
I think it starts with our dependence on God. If God doesn’t come through in our lives, our children are not going to have a heart for God. We can make our children do a lot of right things when they are smaller than us, but we all want more than that for our children, don’t we? Of course we do, we want them to love God, to have hearts that pant after God. Psalms 127 says we can’t do this without God, or else the watchmen (us) watch in vain.
We all bear a responsibility for passing on to the next generation the heart and the ways of God. Much like those Mayflies our time is short, we are only given a few years to mold and impart to our children a legacy filled with blessings.
As Ty and I were packing up to come home on that camping trip we walked back out to that tree. Not a Mayfly was to be found on it, but at the base of the trunk were piles upon piles of empty shells of what use to hold life. Their time was short, they accomplished all God had planned for them to do, and that’s why like clockwork today we can depend on the Mayflies showing up every season. We aren’t promised tomorrow only today, in it what will you leave to your children?
Malachi 2:15 - Malachi is speaking of God’s hatred of divorce he says, “Has not, the Lord, made them one? In flesh and spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was seeking Godly offspring.
We come into this world trusting as babies, our very life depends on that trust. We trust those around us to feed us, clothe us, comfort us, and to change our diapers. But somewhere along the way, sometime around elementary you start learning that everyone can’t be trusted. Sometimes that trust is so broken that it takes years upon years to ever learn to trust again. It seems a lot of our time here on earth is spent learning then unlearning, and then relearning things over and over again.
It must have been sometime in junior high that I first heard the word Oxymoron. I not only loved the way the word sounded, but I loved the very idea of its meaning. It was about this same time that I figured out that our English spelling had no consistency whatsoever and my spelling grades drove that point home. For example - if you spell the word “do”, you would assume “to” would be spelled the same way, and you would be right except it can also be spelt, “too” or “two”. I heard a comedian once do a hysterical skit on just this subject.
The other day I was thinking about a couple of words I learned as a child and their meanings. The words were “empty” and “full”, and I found that again I’ve had to unlearn something to allow God to instruct me in His definitions of these words. We make every effort to live our life to the fullest. When I pour my coffee in the morning I want it filled to the top. When I was little we would pull up to the gas station and my dad would say, fill ‘er up. The best thing that could be said about someone was that they lived a full life.
It would seem by the way we use the word full that it would be equal to good. We can be full of energy, a politician can serve a full term, after eating a great meal we are full, and we can be full of good cheer. So if by today’s standard full is a good thing, what does that say about empty?
Well, there is the empty nest syndrome that immediately tells someone that you are going through a time of grief. For procrastinators about the time they notice their car sputtering they find their gas tank is on empty. Nothing is worse then craving some ice cream, only to go to the freezer and find someone has put the carton back in empty. And we would never want to show up somewhere we were invited empty-handed. When we get tired, have no energy, and are feeling worn out, we are said to be running on empty.
So by our own definitions it would seem full is a good thing and empty is a bad thing. Do you agree with me? If so then take everything you’ve just read and throw it out. As is most always His way, God takes our own wisdom and turns in upside down.
Take for instance, “the first shall be the last”, or how about, “whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.” Another great reversal of our thinking was when He said, “He who is the greatest among you shall be your servant.” Kind of the opposite of what we were taught isn’t it?
But the greatest of all of these is this one, “Because the tomb is empty, we can live a full life for Him.” God tells us empty isn’t bad, empty is the greatest word that has ever happened in all our lives. Because the tomb was empty, I live. I have to empty myself to be full of Him. Completely opposite of what this world taught me.
So we are back to trust. Do we trust what the world has taught us, or do we step out on that proverbial limb and trust what God is telling us? We need to be reminded that things are not always what they seem, most of the time they aren’t. It is we humans that give double meaning to things. God’s Word is simple; He died so that we might have life. To become born again, I must lay down my life so that I might live a life with Christ. Die to live…. another one bites the dust. For anyone who’s keeping score that would be God’s wisdom – unlimited, mans wisdom - zilch.
May today find us running on empty of self, but full with Him.
Have you ever done something so many times for so long without ever seeing any results, so much so that you can almost physically feel your spirit weakening? I know I have been in that place many times. Then the Lord will remind me that it is in these little everyday things that He is seeing He can trust me, and it’s in the small daily things that my greatest dreams are being built. Mostly though it is in the small things that I am learning and growing.
In China there is this unique kind of Bamboo tree that does something no other tree can do. This Bamboo tree is planted and for five years daily without fail it must be watered and fertilized. During this five year period there is absolutely no growth, not even one little twig shoots forth. Can you imagine doing something for five years daily without any sign of change? That’s one thousand eight hundred and twenty five days of watering and feeding. Yet daily they carry the water and fertilizer to this little plant. You have to wonder why? What keeps them going day after day? I would imagine it was because they had faith in not what they could see, but in what they couldn’t see. Even though there was no sign of growth, things were happening.
So it was on one day, one glorious day as they went out to feed and water the Bamboo tree that they notice a change. Overnight this tree had started to grow. And within a five week period it would grow to be over ninety feet tall. After five years of no growth in just five short weeks it would now stand ninety feet tall. It’s hard for a mind to wrap itself around that isn’t it?
My spirit just cries out, Oh Lord, that we could see this in our own lives. It’s the daily feeding and watering on Your Word Lord that will one day produce great and mighty things. There are those believers that can tell you every single thing about their own spiritual growth, where each watermark was in their walk. And you can truly see the actual changes in their lives. We enjoy rejoicing with these believers in their victories and their growth.
Yet I believe these types of Christians are the exception not the rule. Most Christians are totally unaware of any spiritual growth in their lives. These Christians are hard-working in their walk, they pray, read the Bible and seek the Lord with all their hearts. They turn their back on their fleshly lust and habits, in short they are living the life Christ would have for them.
But they can’t seem to recognize any progress in themselves. Sometimes they don’t perceive anything spiritual is taking place at all. Typically they will get down on themselves whenever they do or say anything “unchristian”. I can hear them now, “I’ve been a Christian for years, why don’t I ever learn?” They will judge others to be more spiritual and holier than themselves. Yet what they are missing is that God is doing an amazing spiritual growth in them at that very moment.
Spiritual growth is a secret, hidden thing. Scripture even tells us it is akin to the unseen growth of flowers and trees. God’s Word tells us, “Go to the lilies. Just try to watch them grow. Take your watch with you and grab a seat, cause you will be there all day long. But I tell you by days end you won’t be able to see any growth whatsoever. But just know this, I water the lily every single morning with the dew I send and it’s going to grow.” Or, how about when the Lord tells us to watch the growth of the cedar tree? Even after six months you probably won’t notice any growth. Yet, regardless of what we see or don’t see that tree is putting down roots. Because you see any tree that is watered properly is going to grow. It may not be perceivable to our human eyes, yet it grows, but in secret.
The same can be said about spiritual growth. Our human eyes might not perceive the growth, yet we are growing. I can hear some Christians even now, “I’ve been a believer for five years, and I still don’t feel like I’ve grown spiritually.” To you I say look to the book of Isaiah. God promises, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground…” He also calls us His “trees of righteousness.. The Lord God Himself says, we’re His trees, His tenderly watched over trees. How beautiful is that picture?
Do you wonder if you are growing spiritually? Let me ask you this are you thirsty? Do you want more of Jesus and His holiness? If you answered yes, then you can know you are growing. How can you know that? His Word says, “Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
The bottom line is God Himself judges your spiritual growth by how much you hunger and thirst for Him. So if your sincere about your walk, and if you are reading and searching, please don’t be discouraged by any seeming lack of growth. Real spiritual growth is taking place in you, whether you can see it or not, God promises that all who hunger and thirst after Him will be filled by His own hand. He’ll water you from heaven. He’ll feed you everything needed to create a plentiful life in you, whether you see it happening or not.
We just have to remember to lay claim to God’s promises, we have to be sure we are doing all He requires of us. He promises us He will fill us, but only if we are truly seeking, spending time on our knees, and digging into His Word for buried treasures. If your heart is truly seeking you can rest in the knowledge that you are growing.
So tell me, do you think the Bamboo tree grew ninety feet in five weeks, or do you believe it was growing all those five years under the surface where man could not see? I believe it was always growing, and I believe you are too. Right now God is watering your spirit, feeding your soul, putting down strong roots in you. Your precious Father is preparing you for a mighty harvest.
Hosea 14: 5-6
“I will be as the dew unto Israel, he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.”
There was a song popular in the 70’s when I was in High School that would cause me to cry every time I heard it. The name of the song was “At Seventeen” (lyrics below) and it spoke of the angst in teenage years. I was listening to it this morning and started crying again for all the hurts that have been afflicted on people by people. And though teenage years are far behind us, so many still carry that pain with them today. So many still react from that position of a wounded child either inflicted on them at home or in school. It’s that child I want to always see, God gave us each spiritual glasses to be able to see past the rough edges of a persons exterior into the very heart of His child. Without those glasses we just see what is presented to us, and nine times out of ten it’s all mirrors and facades. Masks are worn like Band-Aids desperately trying to protect a wound that will never heal.
There are so many different ways Jesus presents Himself to us. A lot of times they are unexpected and sometimes we don’t even recognize Him at all. People in Jesus’ time failed to recognize Him as the Messiah because they had expectations of what they thought a Messiah would be like. Expectations can be so misleading. What we can expect is that God will love us and do good for us, but the second we have expectations about how and through whom He should love us, we generally end up disappointed.
Jesus can and often does come to us in the people we don't like, but since we don't expect Him to show up in jerks and other sinners, we reject Him. It takes effort to find Jesus in people who are behaving very un-Christ-like. But He is there. He is teaching us to love the unlovable.
Jesus presents Himself to us in the shape of our enemies, those who oppose us, belittle us, and make fun of us. There are those that take advantage of our Christian kindness by using us to serve their purposes. They call us names; they insult our character only to hold us up to show others this is how a Christian shouldn’t behave. Sometimes they can be family members who criticize us for having “too much religion” or “being too involved” or “giving too much to the church.”
I think Jesus understands that our natural, human reaction to our enemies is to retaliate in kind, to strike back. But He was also very clear that believers are not to react out of our own nature however we deem fit. See Jesus’ doesn’t hold us to human standards of behavior, but heavenly ones. We are to love our enemies, do well to those who hurt us, and to pray for those who despitefully use us.
Agape, that is the love Jesus talked about. It is a holy, divine, all encompassing concern for the well being of others. It’s more than our emotions – it’s selfless love. Agape love recognizes that every single person born on this earth is valuable, regardless of his or her outward actions. It was the love that God showed us when He provided a plan of salvation for a wicked, uncaring and ungrateful creation. It is the same love Jesus showed when He accepted death on the cross to redeem us.
Jesus never tells us that we have to like someone who is treating us badly, and we certainly don’t have to like what he or she does. What He is teaching us is to decide, by a free act of our own will, to show a positive and loving concern for them. We are to take the initiative to love them.
It’s so important that we understand that Christian love does not depend on the actions of others. They don’t have to deserve it; it is something we are to do out of obedience to God. We are supposed to deny our natural instincts for retaliation and demonstrate the love of Jesus.
Why is that? Why would Jesus ask that of us? Why does He ask us to love those that hurt us? The answer is simply this: to glorify God. To demonstrate the love of God to the hurt people, to the wounded people, to the lost people. We are to point others to Jesus as the standard that we are held accountable, and that we strive to live.
Christians act no differently than sinners if we love only those who love us, or those who do good to us, or those that mesh with us. It’s when we love the unlovable then the world sees that we are different. When we love those that are unlovable, we are demonstrating the same love God showed toward us.
We are supposed to show the love of Jesus in our lives, not by following the world's standards, but by following God's standards.
I guarantee you Jesus is presenting Himself to you in unexpected ways today. Look for Him. But I assure you He is not standing where you’re looking. Turn around and look in a different direction. You might even need to turn toward a direction you don’t like. A place where Spiritual glasses are needed, a place where your eyes won’t want to go, a place that could bring you more misery, a place that will push your last button and walk on your last nerve. But He is there, turning the bad into good, for His sake and His glory.
Janis Ian
"At Seventeen"
I leaned the truth at seventeen that love was meant for beauty queens
and high school girls with clear-skinned smiles who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew, the Friday night charades of youth
were spent on one more beautiful. At seventeen I learned the truth.
And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces,
desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone
who called to say, "Come dance with me," and murmured vague obscenities.
It isn't all it seems at seventeen.
A brown-eyed girl in hand-me-downs whose name I never could pronounce
Said, "Pity, please, the ones who serve; they only get what they deserve.”
The rich relationed hometown queen marries into what she needs.
a guarantee of company and haven for the elderly.
Remember those who win the game lose the love they sought to gain.
In debentures of quality and dubious integrity.
Their small-town eyes will gape at you in dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received at seventeen.
To those of us who know the pain of valentines that never came,
and those whose names were never called when choosing sides for basketball.
It was long ago and far away; the world was much younger than today
And dreams were all they gave away for free to ugly duckling girls like me.
We all play the game and when we dare to cheat ourselves at solitaire.
Inventing lovers on the phone, repenting other lives unknown
that call and say, "Come dance with me," and murmur vague obscenities
at ugly duckling girls like me at seventeen.
Matt. 10:8 "Freely you have received, freely give."
Down with da roots! That’s my victory cry this morning as my body is crying out, “Uncle.” Ty and I spent the weekend digging up everything the hurricane wasn’t able to pluck out of the ground in our front yard. And my body today is fighting against the slightest movement I make. Another valid reason as to why I should not peeshaw the whole idea of exercising anymore.
But, back to da roots they’re the reason I am so sore this morning. Let me explain the roots I’m talking about came from weeds, just ol’ good for nothing weeds. I have yet to find their purpose in life, however many times I have discovered their purpose and reason for being in my life. Yep, once again God spoke to me through His nature, this time in roots.
The thing that always amazes me each spring about weeds is when you actually take the time to get a shovel and dig up the entire root, you find the root is at least 4 times longer than the weed itself. Some we had to literally run our hands over the ground to find, the weed itself was barely showing its ugly self yet. As Ty dug, the root system was just incredible, Ty had to dig on down deeper than the shovel was long. That thought really struck me. Before the weed was even seen it was already deeply rooted. Just like before we speak or do something, there is the whole process of birth that has to happen first.
Hatching snake eggs is a biblical term, I’m not joking it really is. It has to do with walking in Holiness before God. Isaiah discovered the cause of the spiritual breakdown of God’s people. God told Isaiah, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Isaiah 58:1. Now watch closely, God told Isaiah to expose the sins of His people who were seeking Him daily, those who delighted to know His ways, and to walk in righteousness. Keep reading in Isaiah 58 and you’ll see that God was talking about people who sought Him daily, they delighted to know His ways, and as nation they were righteous. Yet, their prayers were not getting through, and their fasting was in vain. So they came to the conclusion all on their own I might add (sound familiar?) that all their praying and fasting wasn’t paying off. That wasn’t the case at all, in fact God was hiding His face from them. Isaiah 59:2
So what sin caused God to withdraw His presence? It was the sin of hatching snake eggs and weaving spider’s webs, Isaiah 59:5. Our mind is the womb of our hearts, and our thoughts are the seeds. Our wrong thoughts are bad seed, which will become eggs if not immediately destroyed. God judges the womb of our mind; He doesn’t judge on outward appearances, He considers the heart, Proverbs 23:7. You see God’s people were giving a whole lotta lip service; they appeared to be devout lovers of truth. But their mind was a den of snakes. They were sitting in the presence of God all the while hatching evil thoughts. Spider webs were being weaved with each excuse to indulge in thoughts God said stay clear of.
I’ve heard so often that as long as I don’t act on the thought I’m not sinning, and while that is true, it’s also a trap. There is nothing harmless about wrong thoughts. You let the enemy sow wrong thoughts in your mind and then let them linger doing nothing about them – the trap closes and he’s got you. In Matthew 13:39 Jesus talks directly to this. Our life involves casting down imaginations and every proud thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Satan plants the thought, and he is determined to keep it alive and protect it until it becomes a stronghold in our life. To put up with an evil thought is to hatch a snake.
One of the most common ways the enemy uses to get us to latch hold of a thought is when someone misunderstands us, says hurtful things about us or gossips about us. Do you ever find yourself replaying those words over and over again in your mind? If so, you are birthing snake eggs. Now, if you brood over those hurtful words you are hatching snake eggs - they are called bitterness and resentment.
God tells us “Don’t play that game, don’t kick it around, don’t react at all.” In Isaiah 59:5 is says, “….crush the egg and a serpent breaks out.” If you find that you get injured easily, fret, brood, stay up at night replaying every word, watch out you are in a dangerous place, a place where snake eggs are getting ready to hatch. We are told to let the heel of Christ crush the serpent’s head. Suffer the wrong; take it; and swallow the hurt. Is that a hard pill to swallow? Consider this Psalms 35:11-16 & Psalms 41:5-9, read them then come back and read that again, I bet your answer will be different.
Do you play and replay all the terrible things said about you and done to you or wrong you perceived? Forgive and forget, let the Word of God cleanse it away. God said, “….vengeance belongs to Me, I will repay...” Hebrews 10:30. I promise you if you will cast down any thoughts of vengeance and thoughts of defending yourself, you will see the day that God will balance the books, and in a way you could never do. This is where a root takes hold, you have the choice to either cast down the thought of allow it to take hold, become a stronghold then give birth to sin.
God has shown us clearly what the outcome is when we allow our thoughts to rule us. First He says, “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.” Isaiah 59:7 Isaiah here was talking to people who had been free, they rejoiced in their newfound freedom. But then satan returned (which he always does) and dropped a seed in their thoughts, and they didn’t cast it out so the eggs were hatched.
Another consequence when we allow our thoughts to reign and guide us is we lose all peace and discernment. “The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings. They have made them crooked paths. Whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.” Isaiah 59:8. They soon became miserable people, nothing could satisfy them. Why? Because they knew better, because they had once tasted peace. But now they are crooked and everything in their life is haywire. They don’t enjoy their jobs, their home lives are all in disarray, and they steal and rob the peace of people they love. “…Whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace” Isaiah 59:8.
In the end the mind that allows thoughts to rule it will be blind and full of complete darkness. "Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us. We wait for light but behold obscurity, for brightness but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the night. We are in desolate places as dead men" Isaiah 59:9-10. Satan is a prime example of a heart turned cold and blind. The coldest, hardest hearts in the entire world belong to those who once loved and tasted the knowledge of the Lord.
You’ll also notice a very Jekyll and Hyde kinda personality they possess. “We roar all like bears and mourn like doves..” Isaiah 59:11. One minute they are bound on tearing a friend or enemy apart, they can be sharp tongued, mean and angry. The next hour they will say, “I’m so so sorry, I didn’t mean it.” You see Israel hatched snake eggs and they became like raging bears and mourning doves towards God and each other. They would volley between violent temper tantrums back to sorrow.
What God did then and thought then, God does and thinks today too, God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He would have nothing to do with those up and down moods then, and He won’t now. Wild mood swings means the enemy is trying to get you to conceive snake eggs. The Spirit of Christ is gentle, loving, kind, and long suffering.
God never tells us to do something we are unable to do, or that He has not given us direction on how to do them. He has assured us that no evil thought has to be conceived in any Christian and become a snake. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee – because he trusted in thee” Isaiah 27:5, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” Romans 12:2, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind…” 1 Peter 1:13. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence come my help… He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber… The Lord is thy keeper… The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; He shall preserve they soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.” Psalms 121:1–8.
The weeds are annoyances no doubt and as long as they have roots they will flourish. I can’t see what roots are growing in our yard to run ahead and stop them, however that’s not the case in my walk. Praise God He has given us guidance, examples and instructions on how to prevent a seed from taking root and becoming a stronghold, which will then become a sin.
Spring has sprung here in Southeast Texas, which means weeds are now even as I type, taking root all over in my yard. It’s the time of the year to do some pulling up of those roots in the yard and my life.
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