Building Faith in Your Dreams

Posted on January 15, 2019 by daaorg1214

Many of us have faced times when we didn’t think we had what it takes to make our lives work. I’m not talking about minor insecurities that every person feels from time to time. I’m referring to those occasions when you sink in your heart. The disappointment and sadness can take you so low you feel as though you’ll never reach the bottom. It’s a feeling like no other, because you can’t imagine anyone understanding the depth of what you’re experiencing. These are the moments where the risk of giving up on the dream that is in our hearts is greatest. Most of us know that anything worth having is worth working very hard to achieve, and that results are not gleaned unless we put in the time. But when our dreams are attacked at our most vulnerable places, our faith in God is sometimes diminished. This is too costly to the core of our beings, and we’ve got to strengthen our defenses.

In Ephesians 4:23, God tells us to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. To renew is to make something new continually. It’s not a one-time deal. Renewing is a habit pattern that must be practiced consistently. Some people think that you can memorize a few scriptures and you’re good to go, but this isn’t so. God has given us each the gift of free-will, and it is a gift that He will never violate. He will never do a take-back or overstep this gift in any way. History proves this. Humanity has done some remarkably horrible things against the Will of God. He commanded us to love our neighbors and to treat them the way we want to be treated, but most of us don’t do this. When we accept God’s Holy Spirit through the Lord Jesus Christ, God doesn’t come inside our body-temples and start throwing all the bad stuff out and putting in all good stuff. No. He made this our responsibility. He commands us in Ephesians 4:23 to feast on the positives of His Word and let it saturate our minds so that we begin to think like Christ.

A parable is a simple story used to pack a punch when it comes to spiritual lessons. It helps us comprehend the lesson in a way that lays a foundation for further wisdom, and it connects with our hearts. It makes the wisdom of the lesson so palatable that we make it a part of us. In Matthew 13, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, used a parable to illustrate the laws of God’s Kingdom and the method by which the gospel is planted. The central character is a farmer. The essential dramatic action is that of sowing, and I would argue that the hero is ‘good ground!’

I call ‘good ground’ the hero because in our Lord’s parable and in life itself, good ground is necessary to produce a good life. Jesus tells us that the farmer scattered some seeds; some fell on a foot path, some fell on shallow ground, some fell among weeds, and others fell on good ground. He later explained that the ground represents the condition of the minds of those that hear the good news of the Gospel. In Matthew 13:22, he said the seeds that fell among the weeds represent those who hear God’s Word, but the message gets crowded out by anxiety and worry about problems, and by being too overly concerned with wealth. Those minds, he said, don’t produce any fruit. That’s not the person you and I want to be.

In Matthew 13:23, Jesus said the seeds that fell on good soil represent those who truly soak in the Word of God and understand it. They connect to it in a way that transforms them. They change their thoughts and begin to produce a harvest that is multiplied many times over. Our minds are the soil, and the soil incubates the dream. That’s why you and I must tune out the chatter of negativity and nurture our dreams with faith in the richness of God’s Word.

God has placed the dream in our hearts, and He wants to protect it. Heavenly Father speaks to us and encourages us through His Word. To build up strength in our inner spirits, we must put on the positives of God’s Word daily. He tells us to renew our minds to it so that while our dreams are incubating, they are nurtured like seeds that fall on good ground. Life is not perfect, and the attacks may still sting, but they will not steal our dreams if we continue to build our faith and keep our defenses strong through God’s Word.■

A Renewed Commitment to Love

Posted on January 1, 2019 by daaorg1214

Most of us have a story about loving someone when things didn’t turn out so well. For some of us, the relationship went tragically wrong, and even though we’ve collected ourselves to look normal on the outside, we’re still dealing with the aftermath on the inside. We’re still not sure if there’s someone out there who will love us completely, the way we’ve always dreamed of being loved. But the most puzzling piece of past loves-gone-wrong are all the unanswered questions we have about ourselves and our ability to choose what’s good for us. Right under our noses, insecurities can take centerstage in our hearts, and instead of moving ourselves closer toward the blessings we desire, we attract situations and people that feast upon our doubts.

One of the first requirements of being a believer is believing in what you cannot see. 2Corinthians 5:7 tells us to walk by faith and not by sight. This is non-negotiable. We must accept that the things we cannot physically see are more real than the things we can see. We can’t see love, we can’t see hope, and we can’t see faith; but they are all eternal and can never be extinguished. We can in fact see a house, a car, and a person’s body. All of these are temporary, yet, most of us place more emphasis on the temporary things than we do on the eternal. Whenever we’re so turned around in our perception of what is real and lasting and what isn’t, we’ll deny ourselves what it means to love from a place that is real and true.

1John 4:8(NLT) tells us that God is love. Love is who He is. Genesis 1:26 tells us that He created us in His very own image. Our bodies are made from dust, and when they are no longer alive, they will return to dust. Our spirits, however, will never die. Knowing this should make our commitment to love God’s way even stronger, for life is our only opportunity to become what God has destined us to be. As spiritual beings, He’s given us the privilege to abide on earth in order to learn to love like Christ, and our number one lesson is to express our faith in God by loving others; not the way we want to, but the way He has commanded us to. Galatians 5:6 (MSG) tells us, “For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.”

This is so monumentally important because our faith in Christ removes limitations and blockages in our hearts. The heart is the place where love communicates a language unrestricted by words. It flows from the interior of our being and enters a space before our bodies do. When we make loving others about Christ and not about ourselves, selfishness loses its power. We’re not leaning on our own understanding of what it means to feel loved but allowing the love of Christ to flow freely from the strongest place within us—the place where faith in him reigns supreme.

Heavenly Father created us to be intelligent, thoughtful, and loving human beings. His Will is that we are transformed by His love as we learn more about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is knowledge that expands our hearts. When we make greater room for him in our lives and begin to recognize his voice and hear it more clearly, we can’t help but change for the better. It’s an exciting walk, one that we should meet every day with a renewed commitment to love more fully through Christ. Be thankful to God for life! See all the opportunities to love that it presents and be committed to greet them with faith. When you do, insecurity and doubt will fall away, and your love for Christ will draw everything you need so you can become the blessing you’re meant to be.■

Expect Something Good in Your Life!

Posted on December 25, 2018 by daaorg1214

If you and I took time to consider all of the miraculous details that must come together so the sun shines each and every day, we’d have a better context for understanding that our problems are not too hard for God to solve. He loves solving our problems because He doesn’t want us boggled down with them. We become anxious and upset, and instead of focusing on the wonderful things God wants to do in our lives, we become consumed with worry and doubt. These feelings and attitudes take us in the opposite direction of where God wants us to go. He wants us looking forward to life with great expectancy! Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we’re God’s masterpieces, and He created us in Christ Jesus, so we can do all the good things He planned for us long ago.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a few disappointments in my life. Some of them were real doozies, and my heart was broken more times than I’d care to remember. Without me noticing it, I began to develop a habit of expecting the worse. It was a safety net for me, because I didn’t have to risk anything by making myself continually comfortable with disappointment. Well, after a while, I stopped looking forward to each new day, and started to view everything in life as a chore—as something to get through. I asked myself, “Is this really how God wants us to live?”

The answer to this question is a big, giant ‘NO!’ In Lamentations 3:22-23(NLT), Jeremiah, the prophet, wrote, “The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” Everyday, you and I can discover a new opportunity to grow closer to God, so we can have a greater appreciation for His love and grace.

If we’ll notice how others around us are enjoying growth, blessings, and new opportunities, we’ll also see that these were revealed to them within their everyday environments. In most cases, people don’t have to travel far to discover that opportunities for newness are right under their noses. Perhaps a person overheard someone talking or they saw a chance to advance themselves on the internet or in the newspaper. Opportunities to change and grow are all around us, but when we’re not convinced of God’s goodness, and we’re not confident that He wants us to grow and thrive in life, our eyes are blinded to opportunities others see so clearly.

Proverbs 15:15(NLT) tells us, “For the despondent, every day brings trouble; for the happy heart, life is a continual feast.” Many of us walk around fearing something bad is going to happen, when nothing is wrong. This is a form of darkness; it brings trouble every day, but we can stop it with God’s help! Heavenly Father tells us in 1John 4:18 that there’s no fear in His love, because His love is perfect, and it expels all fear.

The way to live love and live life with expectancy is to get close to God. You might think, “Well, I don’t know how to do this.” Don’t feel bad. None of us knew the way to God’s heart until Jesus Christ helped us find it. He said in John 14:6 that he is the way to the Father, and if we will humble ourselves and be willing to swap out our disappointment for his joy, he’ll inspire our hearts with his love. God is waiting on us to get our faith moving in the right direction, and when we do, our minds and hearts will be open to the good things He wants to do for us.■

Don’t Miss Your Blessings

Posted on December 18, 2018 by daaorg1214

In the New Testament Book of Acts, chapter 10, the Apostle Peter was the first person employed by God to break down a barrier that once existed. In Old Testament times, God was looking for a people that would welcome a relationship with Him, and we can learn much about His unyielding faithfulness, love, and power through those He chose. They were not a perfect people and made a ton of mistakes. He didn’t destroy them, but loved them beyond their faults, just as He does with us. In the Old Testament, God’s people were the Israelites and they were called His ‘chosen ones.’ Again, it wasn’t because they were particularly special. He chose the Israelites because they recognized Him as their Almighty God, but He didn’t stop there. Expanding His family was always the plan.

1John 4:8 tells us that God is love. Love is who He is. Through Jesus Christ, God has demonstrated how His love behaves. One of its truths is that it expands. Love grows! It is the nature of what it does. God, being a God of supreme love, wanted to expand His family to include you and me. He chose Peter to break new ground, and to welcome others into His fold by showing them how to follow Christ. For the longest while, Peter and others saw things only one way, and it took quite a nudging for Peter to expand his heart for God’s purpose.

Philippians 4:19 (ESV) says, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Heavenly Father promises to supply our need. In 2Corinthians 9:8(NLT), He also tells us that He will “generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.” And Jesus Christ said in Matthew 7:11 that if sinful people know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will our Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him. We’re His kids, and He wants to see us happy and blessed all the time. But we must be mindful that the blessings He gives are not always based on what we want, but on what He knows we need. He tailors them for our lives, and sometimes we need a little nudging to see this.

Our Heavenly Father gives us good gifts, but we can be so preoccupied with the packaging that we don’t see the gift God is presenting. We’ve been burned before, and we’ve taught ourselves to only accept something if it looks as though it will meet our expectations. We miss a lot of blessings this way. Our need to control outcomes causes us to set up barriers so thick and high that nothing penetrates them.

These barriers are a form of fear, and fear is the enemy of love. Not only do the two not run in the same circles, they can’t survive in the same space. One of them will destroy the other. So, fear has got to go if we want God’s good quality love entering our lives and bringing with it all the yumminess He offers. For operating in the world day to day, a healthy fear reflex is one that warns us of impending danger, but it has no place in our relationship with God.

Many of us are complaining that He hasn’t answered our prayers, when truthfully, we’ve blockaded ourselves with such fear and negative thinking that we’re not even thankful for the air we breathe or the sun that shines every day. If our hearts are not overjoyed with blessings like these, the small stuff we want doesn’t stand a chance. Don’t miss your blessings. It’s a conscious choice to break down barriers around our hearts, and no one can do it for you, except you. Start by giving God some quality time. Talk with Him often so you’ll learn to recognize His voice. He’ll speak to your heart, and you’ll have confidence in ALL the gifts He gives, regardless of how they’re packaged. ■

You Can’t Fake Self-Esteem

Posted on December 4, 2018 by daaorg1214

I once heard a very prominent person say that feeling good is everything. At the time it came across my ears, I truly felt it was one of the most striking statements I’d ever heard. I felt this way because I had spent a good deal of my life feeling bad, and I never looked upon the notion of feeling good as a right. It also occurred to me that I had not viewed it as a possibility. Years ago, I wasn’t enlightened enough to say that I had low self-esteem. I knew that I wanted others to like me and respond to me positively. I thought the way to accomplish this was to minimize myself in a way that made others comfortable and less likely to criticize me. As the years progressed, it became apparent that my desire to make others comfortable around me was making me uncomfortable in my own skin. That had to change.

Low self-esteem is generally characterized by a lack of confidence and feeling badly about oneself. As the prevalence of self-awareness has grown, the term has become very widely used. It’s a sad predicament when the symptoms of low self-esteem—feeling unlovable, incompetent, and less-than—are so common that millions of us have diagnosed ourselves with it. We accept ‘feeling bad’ as part of the human experience, but when it becomes a way of life, there is a real danger. We make ‘feeling bad’ part of our identities, and we do this because we don’t believe there’s a viable alternative. For some people, treatment is necessary and feeling better has to come from a prescription, but this isn’t true for everyone.

For some of us, feeling bad is rooted in feeding our souls the wrong food, and we’d rather fake it than accept this truth. But no matter how you try to fake it, feeling crummy at such a deep level effects your core. Those feelings camp-out and make themselves comfortable when we believe the wrong information about who we really are. God tells us in Ephesians 2:10 that we are His masterpieces, created brand new in Christ so that we can do all the good things He’s planned for us. Low self-esteem will tell us the exact opposite. This is a spiritual problem, and the fix requires spiritual surgery.

Wires get crossed by believing the wrong things, and when those wires become deeply imbedded, we don’t know how to uncross them. We run the risk of being conformed to what society says, when God tells us in Romans 12:2 to be transformed by renewing our minds to what He says about us. Only God knows us through and through. He’s our Creator, and He knows us as intimately as we can be known. The wonderful thing is that He desires us to feel good way more than we could ever desire it for ourselves. He’ll shine a light in our dark places if we’ll let Him.

An arrogant person is one who refuses wisdom, neglects the Source of it, and foolishly believes they don’t need to seek it. It is the one thing that a person with low self-esteem can never afford to be. Feeling bad about yourself is akin to feeling small—of devaluing your ability, potential, and worthiness. It is a level of feeling that is so low, we forget to look up. To look up is to look to God for what we need. In Luke 11:9(NLT), Jesus Christ said, “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.” The Master has informed us that asking, seeking, and knocking are actions that must be persistent. They are habits required to replace repression, backwardness, and apathy.

Most people will say that low self-esteem can be turned into high self-esteem when we become confident solely in our own ability. Well, history has proven that all of us are pretty fragile, so I don’t know how far being confident only in ourselves can really take us. God tells us that He is our sufficiency and that we should place our confidence solely in Him. Philippians 4:13 says that we can do ALL things through Jesus Christ who gives us strength. He’s our Source, and if we’ll learn about him and seek him when we’re feeling bad, his love will deliver strength to our cores. He’ll plug us into God, so that our wires make sense, and feeling good will be a way of life.

You Can Be A Conduit of Healing for Others

Posted on November 13, 2018 by daaorg1214

I always thought of the town where I grew up as a little slice of heaven. Individuals that I counted on in my faith community were always there for me. I’m sure they had imperfections, but I never saw them. I have many fond memories of hayrides and festivals in the fall, and fireworks and bike rides in the summer. But behind this backdrop of loveliness were pockets of dysfunction and abuse. They were utterly astounding given the size of our small community. Growing up, I looked upon my neighbor’s daughter as an older sister. She was my ‘big sis‘. She braided my hair and taught me how to paint my nails. We got on like normal small-town girls, but there was a familiarity between us that was comforting and tragic. We were keepers of the secret. The unspoken had robbed us both. We should have used our voices to scream to the roof tops, but instead we suffered in silence like the good girls we were taught to be. The lives of my pretend big sister and I took very different turns. I went off to college and she tried to carve out a life for herself in the town where we grew up. No matter how much you love a place, sometimes you must move away to reclaim your destiny or stay on its path. Proof of this is found in God’s instruction to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-2(NLT), “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.” Abraham lived among a close-knit community of family and friends, like many of us. These are the people who love and want the best for you, but often their words, attitudes, and behaviors make us comfortable being the person we’ve always been. This will prevent us from growing into the person God has destined us to become. There’s a saying that no matter what you’re going through, there’s always someone out there that has it worse. I think of this saying when I’m reminded of the horrible abuse my ‘big sis’ endured. I was clueless about the extent of it until I came home from college during a break one year. My old neighbors had relocated to another area in town, and the parents had been separated for quite some time, but I had always been fond of my big sister’s mother. I paid them a visit. We started to talk about faith, and out of the blue, sis became very angry. She accused her mother of being a hypocrite. She said, “How can you call yourself a Christian when you knew what Dad was doing to me all along.” Her father was notoriously abusive to her mother, and many people were fearful of him because he looked as mean as we all thought he was. Her mother was constantly in the hospital or doctor’s office with broken bones and bruises. Sis grew up way before her time and took care of her mother and four brothers. She had no real childhood to speak of. Only God knows if her mother knew about what she alleged was going on and did nothing, but I know firsthand that when pain is severe, it can blind us to the truth. We can become so consumed with licking our own wounds that we can’t see the wounds of others, even our own children. For many years, her soul was screaming, but no one heard my sister’s voice. As an adult, she would not reach out for help, and her mental health declined very rapidly after our last meeting. She never recovered to the point of having meaningful dialogue. 1Corinthians 6:19(NLT) says, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” The Holy Spirit quickens us. This means that when we receive the gift of Holy Spirit through the Lord Jesus Christ, we become alive to Heavenly Father, because our connection to Him is restored. The more we grow in Christ, the more heightened our awareness and sensitivity mirrors that of our precious Lord and Savior. We see and feel things we haven’t seen and felt before. Not only do we have greater empathy for people’s pain, but the Holy Spirit will help us aid and pray for them. We all have people in our lives that look just fine but are in great distress. They desperately need us, if for nothing else, to pray for them. In Matthew 25:45 (NLT), Jesus Christ said, “I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.” As God’s beloved sons and daughters, we need to wake up before it’s too late. Our destiny is to be whole and complete in Christ. We can’t do this work on our own. The Holy Spirit will help us, and we have a responsibility to let God heal our pain. Invite the Spirit to do the work in you that God wants, so that you can become spiritually strong, and prayerfully one day, you can be a conduit of healing for others. Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. “You Can Be A Conduit of Healing for Others” written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2018. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Kick Ambiguity to the Curb!

Posted on October 23, 2018 by daaorg1214

Growing up, the elders in my community would rarely commit to the success of anything before its completion, and even then, they were careful not to let the slightest hint of arrogance interfere with their assumptions. They would only speculate about their ability to be victorious over any challenge or task by making the statement “If it be God’s Will”. They had tremendous reverence for God’s omnipotence, and from them I, too, learned to honor His Will; but as I got older, I realized there was a pivotal piece of knowledge that I had missed. Because of this, I looked at everything from the perspective of disappointment waiting to happen, and not success.

This was especially the case with romantic relationships. My tactic was to try to overwhelm the throne of God with my sobbing pleas, asking for tons of assurances that the person I was with was indeed the ‘one’. I’d be terrified that he would do something to hurt me the way others had done, or that I would do something to mess things up. In my erroneous thinking, God was pulling all the strings, and could cause, if He so chose, the person to respect, neglect, or mishandle my heart. So I begged Heavenly Father constantly to please let everything work out the way I wanted…‘this time.’

I didn’t understand that God never violates His Word. So, my approach was not one of believing the right things about what God wanted for me. Even though I thought I was headed in the right direction, what I believed wasn’t the truth. I believed what I had been taught, and it wasn’t yielding the results I wanted for myself. God was not orchestrating the details of my demise. He was not trying to teach me a lesson by punishing me, nor would He alter someone’s mind or heart to make them love me. God offers liberty, but I was so accustomed to living in fear that it was difficult for me to see it.

The lessons I learned as a youth were very beneficial on one side. I was correctly taught to honor God’s sovereignty and holiness because He is all good, all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present. But many of those who taught me believed Him to also be a punishing God, waiting to really give it to you if you did something wrong. They believed that you could never know what He wanted, that you could never know in advance whether His Will would provide for your success or failure. It was a dance of reverence and ambiguity that ultimately left me confused about what God desires for our lives.

I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to straighten me out, and as he did, I became a lover of faith! He taught me that fear doesn’t ask much of us, and we’re very comfortable with it, but in order to walk by faith, fear must be released. Ephesians 4:22 tells us to put off the former conversations we had with our old selves. You know, those chitchats we had with our souls about not being—looking—loving good enough; and don’t forget those feelings we had that made us wonder whether God truly loves us and wants the best for us. All of that stuff has to go. It doesn’t create a cozy place for faith to feel at home, and God isn’t pleased with that.

James 1:8 tells us that a doubled-minded person is unstable in all their ways. We can’t be wishy-washy when it comes to believing with all our hearts that God wants the absolute best for our lives. Faith requires us to kick ambiguity to the curb! 1John 1:5(NLT) declares, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” What a magnificent truth! God is light, and He has made us children of His light through Jesus Christ, His Son! In my life, I knew darkness. I was in it long enough to know how miserable it makes you feel. I wanted God’s light and took the leap of faith to get it. This meant that I had to abandon some of the things I believed and had been taught by people I love very much. They did their best, but we all will face a point in life where we must go higher, and leave behind things, beliefs, relationships or situations that hinder our journey forward and upward.

We can’t have both faith and fear at the same time. That’s a doubleminded person, and James 1:8 says only unstable folks operate that way. 1John 4:18(NIV) tells us, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” God’s plan is to help us to grow in love and grow in the knowledge of His Will. Approaching life as if it is an accident waiting to happen is not the mentality of someone who walks in the light. God is waiting to bless us in ways we’ve never imagined. Open the door of your heart, kick out fear, then, let God’s love drive you to the infinite possibilities His goodness holds for you.

What If No One Believes Me?

Posted on October 2, 2018 by daaorg1214

The time in which we now live is teaching us many lessons about, first, the value of truth; secondly, how the masses can interpret it, and lastly, how detrimental it can be when we don’t recognize it. Without truth, we are utterly lost, and there is no doubt about this. In John 8:31, Jesus Christ said to those listening that if they believed on him, and continued in the Word that he taught them, they were his true disciples. Their discipleship would be judged authentic and solid if they believed the Words of Christ, because Jesus Christ only spoke the truth. He then said in John 8:32(NLT), “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Knowing and acknowledging the truth ushers in freedom. This is an incredibly important piece of knowledge for any person that is afraid to speak a truth of their own.

The effects of abuse have many tentacles of pain and harm. One of them is its ability to rob a person of their voice. An individual can be articulate and well-versed in a wealth of subjects, but the trauma and violence of abuse will sometimes render its victim speechless; not for a lack of ability, but because the depth, width, and breadth of what has been stolen is inexplicable. It is inarticulable.

Shame is undoubtedly another of its tentacles. Brother Adam and Sister Eve taught us that with shame comes the instinct to hide, to cover up so that truth is never spoken, and the weight of the lie that shame tells is left to fester in our souls. There, it does its greatest harm. The weight of shame becomes heavier as time passes. Meanwhile, the one who has been silenced is split apart, one side managing to look the part of a functioning, sometimes highly functioning, individual. The other side is slowly self-destructing, The other side is slowly self-destructing, starved of the healing medicine of God’s truth and the restoration He offers us through Christ.

The fear of not being believed is the enduring curse from an evil manipulation of power. Generation after generation, this fear is often passed down. It silences our soul’s greatest cry for help, as our ownership of the basic right to be heard is undermined and paralyzed. When it comes to abuse, the ignorant and unsympathetic resolve of lesser and fallen angels has birthed a culture where lies seem to breathe, and truth is suffocated. Let’s pray the tide is turning. Let’s pray that we all rise up with the strength to move with that tide and help it along.

1John 4:18(NLT) tells us, “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” The love of God demonstrated through the life, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection of Christ, expels ALL fear. In other words, God’s love obliterates fear! This is the liberty blockbuster, and the enemy uses every tactic to keep it from falling upon our ears. We don’t speak the truth of what we’ve been through because we fear the punishment. We’ve seen others punished, and to us the risk seems too great. Exactly the opposite is true. The greatest risk and harm to ourselves is that of not speaking our truth, of not ridding our souls of their burdens and giving our Master Jesus the load.

Our discretion and privacy can be preserved, and even honored to a degree, but not if it is surrounded in the lie that fear tells. There are individuals that cannot bear to hear the truth, because the truth is not in them. This is a quorum we must not join. Truth affords us the undeniable luxury of standing in it with unfeigned dignity, and with an absolute and unrelenting hope for liberty. Ephesians 4:15 encourages us to speak the truth in love—in love of self, and most importantly, love of God and truth. This is the way that we are released from fear’s grip and to be free to grow in the blessed existence that Christ has given us. ■

An Energy Rub

Posted on September 18, 2018 by daaorg1214

The air was thick with tension in the court building downtown, and I felt it before I got off the elevator. For some, I could tell that this incredibly nervous energy was what they were used to. Their lives were always on the line in that way, and they were seemingly immune to the waiting game, legal jargon, and haggling of attorneys. I was there to support my dear friend who was trying desperately to untangle the last vestiges of a very abusive marriage. Her husband’s attorney was unfriendly and carried an aura of ruthlessness, and her husband was there beside him; he seemed unrecognizable to me. I stepped out of the courtroom briefly, and outside of it, I observed a young woman. My eyes immediately locked with hers, and I couldn’t take them off her. I tried not to stare, but found myself compelled to do so. Attempting to be a bit more inconspicuous, I came to my senses finally, and took a seat. Something was about to play out in front of me, and my spirit knew it before I did.

There are times in life where you rub up against the energy of a person that seems to match yours precisely. It’s serendipitously eerie. It’s not a match that equals where you are in your life at that moment, but perhaps at a time when you knew less—had less wisdom, but was trying with every fiber of your being to live your truest self. I saw this in the young woman, and my heart both ached and rejoiced for her.

A young man approached her, and there it was. It was the look that I knew so well—sheer terror. Outwardly, she was beautiful, and so was he; but I immediately saw right past the exteriors. Companions of fear, immaturity, obsession, chaos, and ignorance were attached to his person. I could tell they had been with him for quite some time. So much so that he no longer felt the pain of them clawing his soul unmercifully. He couldn’t see them, but finally she could, and was trying to get as far from them as possible. A restraining order had been the required method of her survival.

I ached for her because behind her beauty I saw battle wounds and extreme sadness. Like me at one time, she was in the throes of survival’s most crucial and uncomfortable phase. It is often necessary to go through it before confidence in God’s delivering power is fully entrenched in our hearts. It’s when the pull of going back to what you know is the strongest, and you have to fight hard for your life.

But I also saw hope in her. Romans 12:12(NLT) tells us, “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.” No matter who you are, you can’t rejoice in something unless you’re confident that good is on the horizon. The mere fact that she was in that court building, fighting to let her light shine, speaks to the reality that darkness was being dispelled. Jesus Christ is our hope, because he loves us, and he IS the light! Philippians 4:13 tells us that we can do everything through him, because He gives us strength. By ourselves, we can’t accomplish much, but through faith in him, we can see the pitiful weakness of darkness, and refuse it.

The trouble that God’s Word talks about in Romans 12:12 is the fight to get to the other side. It’s being patient with ourselves even though we’re tired…even though we don’t feel strong enough, and we’re scared of what the other side might look like. Christ will be our rest. He is our refuge, and he’ll be our strength so that we have the courage to make it through.

I walked away that day knowing I had been strategically positioned to pray for her continued strength. It reinforced my belief that our tribulations leave a trace of victory for someone else. Our troubles can deepen our reservoir of compassion and insight, so that we pray well for them. A brief energy rub that day with this young woman was a reminder of how far God has brought me, how He has empowered me through the Holy Spirit to stand in courage and fight for my life. He gave me the strength of Jesus Christ when I had no strength of my own, and He’ll do the same for you!■

The Biggest Cause of Emptiness

Posted on September 11, 2018 by daaorg1214

No one needs to tell me what it feels like to have a big hole in your soul. I have some personal experience with this, and I can’t think of anything more miserable. I was very young when I started to feel it, and as I got older, of course the hole seemed to get larger. I had an appetite for something I couldn’t name, and like many people, I started to look for love in all the wrong places. I wish someone had told me that growing up in an environment where domestic violence was common place can cause an individual to develop false beliefs about why he or she feels empty. We tend to think that it’s because we didn’t receive enough of something or that our lives are unfulfilling and boring as heck. Unfortunately, many people who feel this way try to address the symptoms and not the cause.

I walked around with this dark cloud until my mid-twenties. Then one day, I decided I had to put a stop to the way I was feeling, because I was becoming increasingly angry and disillusioned about my life. I was sick of that cloud, and I grew determined to help myself, because I really believed it when I learned that Jesus Christ suffered miserably so that we wouldn’t have to.

I don’t think I was ever an impatient person, and believe that this is one of the things that has helped me most; because I’ve given myself time to build my relationship with God, and have allowed Him to take the lead. I also must state that I’ve never been able to stomach the ‘pie in the sky’ stuff. I could always see right through folks who were power-hungry, cultish, or fake. So my approach to understanding the Gospel of Christ has always been based on finding real answers to real problems. It didn’t hurt that I met loving Christian people who I believed genuinely cared about my well-being, and took the time to help school me about the deep things of God.

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus Christ instructs us to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first; when we do this, the bounty of His blessings will be ours. In my quest to fill up my empty places, the first clue that I discovered was that a spiritual transaction happens when we seek God first. Something that we need for our souls shows up.

1 John 2:11(NLT) says, “But anyone who hates another brother or sister is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness.” Every spiritual person knows that what we focus on grows. For a very long time, I focused on my emptiness, and it kept growing. I was so consumed with being unhappy that darkness blinded me. The discipline of Christian love escaped me, because I thought that another person owed me something that I was without. This is the biggest cause of emptiness. It’s waiting for the hole to be filled, and letting anyone who talks a good game try to fill it.

Emptiness is caused and perpetuated by abandoning the person Heavenly Father created us to be. We are not weak. We are not empty. We are vessels meant to be continually filled with His love. 1John 4:16 tells us that God is love, and the person that dwells in love dwells in God, and God dwells within him or her. We are His children, made from His love, and made in His image. 2Corinthians 3:5 tells us that He’s our Sufficiency. We were not designed to be sufficient unto ourselves. We were created to depend on His love, and when we open our eyes to this, we’ll step out of darkness. It may take a little while to see the light shine brightly, but if we’ll put our trust in Christ, Psalm 23:3 says that he’ll restore our souls, and lead us on the path to right living. ■

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Breaking the chains of domestic abuse through the power of Jesus Christ.

Category Archives: Spiritual Encouragement