Monthly Archives: August 2020

God Is Validating the REAL You!

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Do you feel honored, valued, appreciated, and loved by others? Do you feel as though people know the real you—the ‘you’ that you believe yourself to be at the deepest level? We all want validation from those we care about, but the truth is that it doesn’t come that often. I will venture to say that there are more people that feel undervalued and unappreciated than those that feel valued and appreciated. This doesn’t paint a very pretty picture I know, but so many of us feel as though we’re doing all the right things, yet it doesn’t appear we’re being rewarded. Well, God has something to say about this, and if we’ll open our hearts to receive it, I believe that it will make all the difference in the world.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a young woman that is very disillusioned with life. She was raised with parents that love the Lord, and she doesn’t remember a time when their lives didn’t revolve around their faith. She told me she does all the things that she believes a Christian should do—reading God’s Word and praying often, but something doesn’t feel the same she said. She’s reached a point in her spiritual walk where she feels depleted—like no person or thing can fill up her empty spaces. She has feelings of hopelessness and is emotionally exhausted.

Back in the day, and in many churches today as well, the diagnosis would be one of judgment and perhaps not one of compassion and spiritual maturity. We can’t get it twisted, we live in complicated times and the enemy is busier than ever. There are a multitude of darts aimed at our direction, and they are aimed at various and important areas of our existences. Sometimes we are attacked on all fronts. Someone or something at the job is weighing heavy on our minds; boyfriend or girlfriend ain’t acting right, and maybe a family member or friend is not providing the support and care you expect. When you add financial instability, environmental craziness, and the state of the world today in this mix, becoming weighted down emotionally is a very real possibility.

Jesus Christ has told us to cast our every care upon him, and most Christians know this passage in the bible. It’s Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT): 28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Many of us do this. We give our burdens to Jesus Christ because we know the awesomeness of his power, and initially we trust him, but many of us take our burdens back. There are a couple of reasons why we do a take-back and why our commitment to surrender, release, and let it go doesn’t stick. I’d like to put a few out there for your consideration.

Lack of Prep for the Next Phase
Like the young lady I mentioned, many of us have been on this journey a while, and we know that God requires a commitment to His Word. In our minds we might be doing all the right things, but this doesn’t always mean that we’re growing spiritually. A routine can turn into inflexibility in a hot minute. It can lock us into habit patterns that work for a season, but what about God’s plans to take us higher now and in the future? Heavenly Father created life to be dynamic when it comes to spiritual growth. In this arena, stagnation is a minus and not a plus. When our spirit has received the message it’s time to go higher, but our soul is not in a listening mood, the disharmony gets translated to our hearts and minds as feeling bad. Surrendering to the reality that God wants us to cling more tightly to Him and that it’s time to move up, this will prepare us for the next phase of our spiritual journey. Praying for guidance through His preparation process will aid us tremendously.

A Misleading Need for Emotional Validation
Heighten emotions of praise and thankfulness are such a big part of the way we worship and experience God. But some us have developed a kind of dependency on emotions, and we start to trust our emotions more than we trust what God says. We have to switch that around. Our emotions should follow what God says. In other words, when we turn our dials all the way up to believing and trusting God, we might not feel like skipping through fields of daisies, but we have to trust Him anyway. The skipping will follow.

Looking to the Wrong Source
Validation is part of the soul’s appetite. All of us will seek it because it’s part of being human, but the source of our validation is monumentally important. Many of us sense this big hole inside, and it just feels awful sometimes. So, what do we do? We try to fill it. We seek to feed our souls validation from those we love, admire, and support. The trouble with this is that their food is not eternal, and it can’t affirm the truth of who we are and who we’re meant to be. So, if we’re looking to feast on any other source than Heavenly Father, we will be in a constant state of soul-starvation. This is where many of us are right now.

The soul can only be as fulfilled and whole as its most hearty and healthiest meal. When we understand this, the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 4:4(NKJV) magnify exponentially. After fasting forty days and nights, he was tempted by the devil to turn stones into bread. He responded to the devil’s temptation with “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. ” The eternal wisdom, counsel, and promises of God’s Word is the food our souls were meant to eat. The psalmist lays out God’s spiritual menu in Psalm 34:8(NLT). He tells us, “Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!”

God knows us intimately. He knows the REAL you better that you can ever know yourself. When we’re depleted in our inner beings because our souls are starving spiritually, God can give us what we need. He has the very best medicine, and He knows exactly where to administer it. We are spiritual beings, created to thrive from spiritual nourishment. When we’re feeling depleted, devalued, and low, we need not cling to what worked in the past. God’s resources are infinite, and He loves to help us tap into His treasures. Let’s be good to ourselves and surrender totally to Him. Let’s be willing to release the things that hold us back so we can make room for the things that propel us forward. Then, we will be prepared for the next level of spiritual growth. As we feast on His Word, we’ll learn to trust the Lord in a greater way, and He will validate our souls and keep us continually satisfied.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

“God Is Validating the REAL You!” written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2020. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Better and Not Bitter

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I got out of a relationship with someone that I thought was a really good guy. He loved the Lord, preached on Sunday at times and was a really good father to his children. We loved each other but after about a year together, the relationship took a turn. His love became painful. If he called and couldn’t reach me, his insecurity would rear its ugly head. It wasn’t apparent at first, but as the relationship progressed, I saw that he handled his own pain through manipulation and playing mind games. I was just not willing to remain in a place where hurt and pain became the constant, and love took a backseat.

I left this man, and it was indeed a difficult break-up. I was truly committed to him and the relationship. It took months before I could even think about him without shedding a tear, but I endured the pain, because I’ve lived long enough to know that trouble doesn’t last always. When we face heartache and trouble, God tells us exactly how to handle it. In Romans 12:12(NLT), His Word says, “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.” Instead of letting myself become bitter, I followed the Lord’s commandment.

As I busied myself, going on with my life, I happened to see this man in passing one day, and before I knew it, I had given him a smile. It was not forced or fake but came from a place that the love of God had created in me. He emailed me and said he was so happy to see me, but he said he was even more happy to see the smile I had given him. He thought I hated him.

James 1:2-4(NLT) tells us, “2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” God wants us to get to a place where we are not dependent on a person to do for us what only God can do. Heavenly Father is the Source of our joy, not a person.

If a relationship is harming us, it’s harming our relationship with God. He will give us the strength to let it go. One thing I know to be true, time causes us to forget some wounds, but only the love of God can truly heal them. Just as 1John 4:11 tells us, because of God’s love for us, we should be able to love one another. Even if we want to hold a grudge or be angry for a lifetime, our growth in the Spirit of Christ will not allow us to do this. We can let go and be better and not bitter, and we’ll be so much stronger for it.

Pray and ask God to give you a new heart, and let His love blanket all your pain, as only He can.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Better and Not Bitter” written by KYada, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2020. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

A Hero’s Blindspot

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The women I grew up around were warriors in my eyes. They were not champions of academia, didn’t have loads of money by any stretch of the imagination, and not all of them would measure up to what we consider to be spiritual veterans of today. They were the ‘least of these’, women that were incredibly humble, fiercely determined, and in many cases, fantastically resourceful; they had to be. Survival depended on their ability to take what most consider to be nothing and turn it into something that added beauty, comfort, and sustenance not just to their lives, but the lives of their families. I will always consider them heroes, but like most heroes, they had a blindspot. It was the very thing that ultimately broke their spirits and left their souls depleted of all life’s joy.

Love is our life’s work. A person can run a billion-dollar company, go to the moon and back, or entertain millions with their talent and abilities, but if love has not been their motivation, their accomplishments will have been in vain. 1Corinithians 13:2-3(NIV) tells us, “If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.” This is profound wisdom. It is the machinery of life, and it is a truth that can never be refuted no matter how much we might try. Everything that we do will be judged on whether love was purely and solely our motivation.

Talking about love immediately summons imagery of ooey gooey feelings, but this isn’t the love 1Corinithians 13:2-3 is referring to. Most of us associate love with feelings, but if love’s work was dependent only on how we felt, very little could be accomplished. God is our Father. John 3:16 tells us God so loved everyone in the world that He gave them the most precious gift He owned, which is His only begotten Son. He paid the highest price that could be paid. Why? John 3:16 tells us why. He did so that everyone that believes in His Son will not perish but will have eternal life. His love for everyone knows no boundaries, and He didn’t just talk the talk so to speak, He walked the walk. He demonstrated His unfailing love for us all.

Jesus Christ said in John 15:13(KJV), “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” We are the friends he’s referring to. If you don’t believe in the value of the life of Christ, you will not have the heart depth to be grateful for his sacrifice. In truth, there is nothing that exists in all of eternity with the capacity to measure what Christ gave up, and what he accomplished on the cross. Nothing can compare with the suffering he endured. Philippians 2:8(NLT) says, “he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” The suffering he took on was the suffering humanity deserved for its rebellion against God, and although Christ died over two thousand years ago, humanity is still rebelling.

The value of a treasure is recognized by the price that is paid to acquire it. The highest price was paid for our souls, and by this we can know a little bit about the value God has assigned to them. He treasures us. When we live in such a way that we honor God with the gift of life that He has given us, and we demonstrate our gratitude by celebrating it the way that He does, we are no longer blind. It is through this lens of God’s love that love’s work begins.  

My beloved heroes loved the Lord, but they didn’t realize the beauty of the destiny He had for them. They allowed the men that were used by satan to keep them blinded to their worth. Through the domestic violence and abuse that was afflicted on them, their voices were silenced, their opinions were belittled, and any attempt to be strengthened in confidence and faith was brutally attacked. It is impossible to rise above that which we do not know or haven’t been taught. We can only rise to the level of which we are willing to believe in our worth.

Heavenly Father is our Creator. He is the only One that can assign our value. No other human being has that right. Jesus Christ lives within us, and God tells us that we are the hope of his glory. The suffering of domestic violence and abuse can make a hero a victim, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. You don’t have to settle for scarcely getting by. You don’t have to stand by as someone maliciously tries to dismantle the hope that is in your soul. You can begin to change the way you think about yourself. You can recognize that you’ve underestimated your ability to capture your destiny and carry it out through the Father’s love. Trust God wholeheartedly through Jesus Christ. It’s how you demonstrate that your eyes are open to the glory of all He’s created you to be. God will continue to light the way as you honor the worth of the life that He’s given you, and only make room for those who do the same. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

“A Hero’s Blindspot”,  written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2020. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!