I know it feels like you are. Losing your lunch in a parking lot because of a panic attack makes you feel broken. Racing thoughts that keep sleep at bay for days at a time can make you wonder if you’re crazy. Having flashbacks that make you leave a full grocery cart in an aisle while you run to your car and lock the doors can make you feel you will never be normal. But please hear this:
There are mysteries that God created in the human body that doctors and scientists are just now beginning to understand. It’s been less than 100 years since scientists discovered neurons and the chemical and electrical functions within the brain. Less than 30 years since doctors discovered that traumas we experience in childhood impact our physical health into our adulthood, even playing a part in our life expectancy. Just in the last 10 years have scientists discovered that trauma can change our DNA, the effects of which can pass genetically on to our children—a truth shockingly relevant considering Deuteronomy 5:9-10.
“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
When the Psalmist recorded that you are beautifully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139), he wasn’t exaggerating to prove a point. God made you in His image—a wondrous masterpiece of cells and synapses woven together to proclaim His glory. When your body recognizes a potential threat and reacts according to the way God programmed it to protect you, that doesn’t mean that something’s wrong with you. Your body is doing exactly what God designed it to do. That you may later be ashamed by those reactions is nothing more than your Enemy whispering lies into your ears to make you feel shame God never intended for you to carry.
When God formed your body in the darkness of your mother’s womb, He did so with love. It doesn’t matter if the instigation of the miracle was rape or the woman who carried you abandoned you in the hospital, God loves you. God has always loved you and will always love you.
Nothing that you have done and nothing anyone has done to you can ever change God’s love for you. Sin is not bigger than your God. Trauma is not bigger than your God.
“Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39
YOU ARE BRAVE.
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.
YOU ARE LOVED.
You are not broken. In fact, the next time the Enemy tries to make you feel less than the breathtaking masterpiece that you are, shout back at him this:
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” – Isaiah 61:10
There is nothing more stunning than a glittering bride, and you, my friend, are the Bride of Christ. Hold your head high and let 2020 be the year you ripped the word “broken” from your vocabulary. You may be quirky, unique, and feisty. You can call yourself a work-in-progress. You can even be a phoenix rising out of the ashes of the past. But you are not, nor will you ever be broken.
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A single word that continues to float to the top of my consciousness over and over again these past few months.
Photo Credit: Janusz Gawron
Dictionary.com defines the word “strive” as
1) to exert oneself vigorously; try hard,
2) to make strenuous efforts toward any goal,
3) to contend in opposition, battle, or any conflict,
4) to struggle vigorously, as in opposition or resistance,
5) to rival.
Striving can be a very good thing. The Olympics are a wonderful example of striving for excellence. We rejoice with those who stand on the podium as the champion sings along with their country’s anthem. It is a well deserved time of recognition and praise for their years of effort and determination. We see in those athletes something that we all desire for ourselves. Greatness. The courage to rise above mediocrity—to stand above the crowd.
Striving can be a good thing, but striving can also be a bad thing.
There are times when we need to strive, to work through the pain, to oppose the difficulty, to fight for what is right. But there are also times when God calls us to rest. For example, God desires for us to enjoy a time of sabbath–a break from the hectic pace of life to rest and reflect on His goodness to us and His ability to run the world without us. We can get so attached to our schedules that we feel it is impossible for us to take a break or the whole thing will fall apart. The truth is that a failure to come apart to rest and reflect is nothing more than a manifestation of our pride. We think that the world revolves around us and our ability to keep it in motion. To continue in that mindset guarantees that not only will our schedules fall apart, but eventually we will too.
God intends for us to rest in Him physically by taking an actual space of time to rest, but He also desires us to rest in Him spiritually. Taking time to rest physically is something that I am better at than taking time to rest spiritually. I often feel that it is up to me to make God’s plans come to pass. It is true that He expects us to work hard and do our best, but there are times that He wants us to step back and let Him do the work. Sometimes things will be going smoothly and falling into place when all of a sudden all of my plans and efforts seem to be thwarted at every turn. Answers to prayers cease and circumstances turn dark. My natural response to these times is usually to work harder and to worry. To strive. This is when striving goes from good to bad to ugly.
I think God brings these seasons of quiet into our lives to remind us that it isn’t about us. God invites us into His plan, but He doesn’t need us. His plan isn’t going to go south because of anything we do or fail to do. He’s bigger than that.
There is a song called “Holy Spirit” written by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. It is a prayer to the Holy Spirit seeking His reviving work, His presence and His power. The end of verse two says, “Turn my striving into works of grace; Breath of God, show Christ in all I do.” Those words speak right to the core of my soul. We can do nothing for Christ apart from His grace. Even when I stand to sing a song of praise to Him, I need His power and grace and strength to form the words, to support the breath, to vocalize the notes, and to do it all without seeking the praise of man and stealing His glory for myself. We can truly do NOTHING without the Holy Spirit. If we try–if we strive when God desires us to rest in Him–all that will be shown in our works is ourselves. But that isn’t what our goal should be. As the song says, it should be our prayer that Christ be glorified in all we do.
And so I close, begging the Holy Spirit to please “turn my strivings into works of grace.” Spirit, help me to surrender my will to yours in every thought and deed and attitude, so that He may increase and I may decrease. “Breath of God, show Christ in all I do.”
Listen to Kristyn Getty beautifully sing “Holy Spirit” by clicking here. If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
“I’m overwhelmed.” “I have so much to do.” “I don’t have enough money.” “How is this ever going to work?”
Sound familiar?
There are times in my life (like today) when these questions and a dozen more crowd my mind and make it hard to breathe. If I allow myself to play these thoughts in my mind, by the end of the day I am completely overwhelmed, frustrated, discouraged and have accomplished nothing. Why? Because all of my energy was wasted on worry.
David understood this very thing. In Psalm 61 he prays to God and confesses that he is completely overwhelmed. He requests help to remember that he had a higher power, a shelter, a strength that was greater than himself and his problems. We need to do the same.
Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. – Psalm 61:1-2
We have a Rock to run to for protection from the storms and for safe haven from the rushing waters that threaten to overcome us. We can choose to stay where we are and drown in our emotions, or we can cry out for help. We can’t climb the cliff ourselves, but when we call on the Lord to rescue us, He is quick to reach out and lift us to safety.
Your circumstances may not change. You may still have a to-do list a mile long and a list of bills to equal it. What will change is your heart. You will have peace that no matter what happens, Christ has a hold on you. You aren’t going to fall to your death. You will be able to take one step at a time with a mind free of worry because you have given your fears over to the only one that can really do anything about them.
Sometimes I think we women tend to worry and fret and plan and manipulate as a way to control the situation. We feel that handing our fears to God is giving up. We think that if we let Him work out the details that things won’t happen the way we want them to. But what we fail to realize is that we aren’t in control no matter how much we try to be. The only thing we are doing when we hold on to our worries is adding sin to our already difficult situation. This pulls us away from God instead of drawing us to Him.
So the next time you are tempted to push play on the recording labeled “What am I going to do?” push pause instead. Take a moment, or several if necessary, and take your concerns to God. Let Him know what the problem is and ask for Him to intervene. Ask Him for the peace needed to think clearly, the grace to leave the problem in His hands and the wisdom to know what to do when the time is right to act.
Do you have a special verse that you turn to when you feel overwhelmed? I would love for you to share it with us in the comments section. It may be just the thing that someone needs to hear today to take courage in the trial they are facing.
I’m addicted to check marks. At any given time I have multiple to-do lists running through my mind or jotted in my planner. Currently I have my work list, my once I get home list, my before school starts back up list, my blog list, my things around the house list, and my shopping list. It gives me great pleasure to place a big, fat check mark next to one of the items on that list. In fact, I sometimes write down things I’ve already accomplished just so I can mark them off! (Am I the only one that does that? Tell the truth…)
Lists are good and they can help us accomplish a lot of things, but they have a downside. They can help us with things we need to do, but they fall short in helping us with things we need to be.
This morning I received a fact check before I even got out of bed. I read a message from a friend that mentioned how she had noticed that I had changed recently. At first I was excited to hear that someone had noticed what God had been doing in me and I started to give myself a big, congratulatory, pat on the back for the progress I have made, (ridiculous, I know) but then God threw reality in my face. I felt Him ask me, “How are you really doing, Donya? You have changed, yes, but are you as close to Me as you should be?”
FACT CHECK.
OUCH.
This quiet question in the early morning pierced my pride and helped me to see what I was missing. I have been so busy checking off things on my list that I haven’t been giving as much attention to the most important thing—simply BEING with Christ. Not being busy serving Him or writing about Him or helping others draw closer to Him. Just being with Him. Sitting outside and looking at the stars He created and talking with Him. Sharing my dreams with Him.
Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t neglected Him altogether. I’ve still been doing many of the things that we say are good to do as part of our relationship with Him, but it has been lacking some of the intimacy that has been there in recent days. His gentle reminder was just the nudge I needed to make sure to set aside my lists for a time today and just hang out with Jesus for a little while.
Are you a list addict like me? What do you do to break away from the to-do and give yourself time to just be? I’d love for you to share in the comments below.
Everyone is afraid of something—and not usually just one something, but a lot of somethings. The list of common phobias is extensive.
Attribution: KickAss Pics (Forgive the name please. I didn’t choose it!)
Reactions to fear
Avoidance
Fear can be paralyzing or motivating depending on how you handle it. Personally, I am afraid of spiders. I don’t care if they aren’t poisonous, there is something just inherently evil about something with that many legs creeping about my house. My common reaction to spiders is avoidance and delegation. In college, my friend Naomi was my designated spider killer (and I kept her quite busy). After college, my roommate and I had a deal. She killed the eight legged creatures and I disposed of the lesser legged intruders. It was a great partnership.
Procrastination
There is also a great deal of fear wrapped up in my writing. This manifests as procrastination. What if I say the wrong thing? What if someone disagrees with me? Will people expect me to have all of my life together and be disappointed when they find out I have a basketful of faults that I struggle with every day? If I let it, these fears will keep me from writing. They cause me to delay posts my heart is begging me to share and they turn every chapter that I write for publishing into a spiritual battleground.
Motivation
My greatest and most personal fear is personal harm. I believe a lot of people share this fear or something like it and that it is paralyzing us in our efforts to reach the needy of this world with the power of Christ. However, I believe that my fear of being raped is part of what motivates me to fight on behalf of the thousands of women and children that face that reality every day in the multi-billion dollar sex industry. The Lord has given me an enormous burden and passion to help these souls, in part, because I am so afraid of becoming a victim myself.
Control
When Jesus visited the Gadarenes in Mark chapter 5, he had just performed an amazing miracle. He had cast out a legion of demons from a man that had been so tormented by them that he was forever crying out and cutting himself. Any attempt to restrain him had failed. So the people of the town avoided him as he roamed the graveyard and mountains near the city. Jesus came along and had compassion on the man. He cast out the demons who then entered a herd of pigs causing them to run into the sea to their deaths.
You would expect the people to be angry at their loss of livestock and income at such a turn of events, but that isn’t what the Bible says happened. It says that when the witnesses to what happened told the other townspeople, they were afraid and begged Jesus to leave their region. I’ve always wondered at that. It would seem that if they weren’t angry at him for the loss of the pigs that they would be grateful that a legion of demons had been sent away from this neighbor of theirs, and by nature of his proximity to their families and homes, had been afflicting them as well. But instead of offering their thanks and praise, they ran Jesus out of town.
Results of letting fear rule
Recently have I started to see this story in a new light. I realized people are afraid of what they can’t control and what they don’t understand. Things like homelessness, human trafficking, divorcees, single moms, low income families. These problems don’t have easy answers. Dealing with people in difficult circumstances can be draining, costly and even dangerous. So instead of showing them the love of Jesus and letting loose the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts as we minister to them, we turn away, avert our eyes, come up with excuses not to help, turn the channel on the news broadcast, or even blame them for being in such a mess. We do what the people of the Gadarenes did—we ask Jesus to leave us alone.
What are you afraid of?
So I wonder—what are you afraid of? What is it that you feel motivated by the Holy Spirit to do, but that you aren’t sure what might happen if you try? Is there something you’ve always wanted to attempt, but never felt like you were qualified or the time was right? Jesus wants to do amazing things through us to change our lives and those in our communities. We have to let Him work through our fear. We have to invite Him into the mess and let His Spirit cast out the inner demons keeping us trapped in complacency.
Face your fears with Jesus
Let Jesus bring life and healing into your fears. Can you imagine what other miracles the people of that town missed out on because they were afraid? Don’t be like them. Face your fears and let Jesus have His way with them.
