Dedicating Your New Relationship to God

Posted on May 29, 2018 by daaorg1214

Many of us wake up, proceed with our morning rituals and routines, and carryon with the day. We get into a groove in our lives, and it can become so habit forming that sometimes we don’t recognize we’re neglecting our souls. When we bring this neglect into a new relationship, things can go sour pretty quickly. Love has a starting point, and we need to give it as firm a foundation as we possibly can. Ultimately, the love we put out there is the love that will come back to us, so if we’re neglecting the very core of our existence, what does this say about the caliber of love we’re able to give?

Self-love is not separate from the love of Christ. Society would like us to believe that the two are separate, that love of self is about practices that indulge and promote selfish thinking; not so. Jesus Christ said in John 15:12 (NLT), “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.” It’s a tall order for sure. Jesus Christ loved us so much that he gave his life for us, and he did it when we were incredibly cruel and uncaring; many of us still are. He commanded us to love each other with a love that measures up to the same caliber of his love. Jesus knows our capability, and he would not have given us a commandment of which we’re incapable of fulfilling.

The highest form of self-love is to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, because when we do this, He will help us to love others unconditionally, and to thereby love ourselves in the most fortifying and fulfilling way. Colossians 3:14(NLT) tells us, “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.” If we begin our new relationships with the intention of clothing them in the love of Christ, something spiritual happens. We have an opportunity to plant a seed of unity that binds them together in perfect harmony.

A word of caution, you don’t want to sow your seeds on ground that will not yield a good harvest. This is a futile exercise. It causes us to lose valuable resources of stamina, momentum, and time on this Christian journey of life. We can regain stamina and momentum, but time is lost forever. So we need to exercise caution, caring, and concern, not just for ourselves, but for the destiny and journey of the other person as well.

God is our everything, and making sure we’re not trying to make a person our everything will give our relationships a solid footing. We must remember always that love gets its start from God. 1John 4:19 tells us that we love because He first loved us. He showed us the way to love. It’s logical, reasonable, and intellectually prudent to let Him increase our heart-space and teach us His most valuable trade-secrets. Wrapping our relationships in His unconditional love will secure His plan for not only our lives, but the life of the person we’ve chosen.

We can dedicate our new relationships to God by introducing newness into our daily routines. We do this by incorporating intentional spiritual practices to cover our relationships in the love of Christ each day. This means we must trim off any selfish motives, commit ourselves to pray daily for the person we’re involved with, and be willing to learn something new about God and His love from His Word. This will help us continue to spiritually grow in Christ, and to maintain harmony in our relationships by always putting God first. ■

Anesthetized to the WHAAM!

Posted on May 22, 2018 by daaorg1214

David, the psalmist, asked of the Lord in Psalm 119:18 (NLT), “Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions.” I’m sure that David’s physical eyes were indeed open when he wrote this, and he could see before him. So, it isn’t a stretch for you and me to conclude that David was referring to a different kind of seeing, the kind of sight where a person sees with spiritual eyes.

As we move about our daily lives, it is incumbent upon us to consider the reality that we don’t always see what we need to. Our eyes are open, and we’re going about our routines, but we often miss the thing that is going to transform our lives into what God intends them to be. Sometimes we don’t realize it until WHAAM! Something happens that completely throws us for a loop. We often refer to these incidents as ‘wake-up’ moments, because they cause us to come alive in ways we haven’t before, and we almost always change trajectories when they occur.

Many of us that have suffered abuse become somewhat anesthetized to the WHAAM! We’ve trained ourselves to become numb to treatment that would normally shock anybody else. This is harmful for all sorts of reasons, but the most troubling one is that we’re running further away from our true identities. In Revelations 3:2, Jesus Christ tells believers to wake up and strengthen what remains, because even what remains is almost dead. It’s not God’s Will that we walk around asleep with our eyes wide open. He wants us to snap out of it. He wants us to recognize that we have a purpose, and it includes our happiness.

God is not the author of our ‘WHAAM!’ moments. They happen because we’re not paying attention to our spiritual lives, and therefore, our souls are malnourished. When we’re in this condition, we can’t see what we need to see, or hear what we need to hear; because our senses are too dull.

We are spiritual beings having an earthly experience, and as we sojourn on this earth, God has commanded that we do so in a certain way. He tells us in Galatians 5:25(NLT), “Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” If we were capable of leading and guiding ourselves successfully through life, we wouldn’t have the hiccups and mishaps that we do. The truth is that we were created by God to be led by His love. He knows what is best for us in every aspect of our existence.

When we’re so out of tune that we’re not even listening to our own spirits, hiccups and mishaps are bound to happen. Among many other wonderful things that it does, God’s Word tells us about His nature, it acquaints us with who God is, so that we get to know Him as our Heavenly Father. One of the most significant aspects of His nature is that He is faithful to His Word, because His Word is truth. He doesn’t ever make a mistake or need a do-over or a back-track. So when He tells us to do something in His Word, He means for us to get it done. He tells us to wake up and be alert. This means that we have the choice to come alive to faith—to get WOKE—or to stay asleep.

You don’t know your full story. You have no idea of the wonderful blessings that God has planned for you, but this one thing is for sure, you must allow Him to lead you to them. John 16:13 tells us the Holy Spirit that indwells us will lead and guide us to ALL truth. He will tell us what he hears from Jesus Christ, and this is the information and navigation we desperately need.

The more we ignore the lessons of “WHAAM!’, the more severe they become. Don’t wait for the next one. Reach out and grab the Lord’s hand. He told His people in Isaiah 41:10 (NLT), “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” He makes this same promise to all of us today. Trust in Him with everything in your being. Don’t just open your eyes, wake-up to His love.■

A Tricked-Out Boo

Posted on May 8, 2018 by daaorg1214

Jordan was not the man Lisa thought she had married. When they first met, she was taken with his spontaneity and good looks. He had a kind of boy-next-door humility and charm that reminded her of her high-school sweetheart. Jordan is a personal trainer, and she met him at the gym where she works out. They dated almost a year before he popped the question, and they got married soon after. Before she met Jordan, Lisa was successful professionally, but unhappy. She had a close-knit group of girlfriends and a very supportive family who constantly consoled and encouraged her. She desperately wanted to be married. Having a family and being a mother and a wife was all she had ever dreamed about, but none of her relationships lasted, and she went through extreme bouts of sadness because of the loneliness.

Lisa was very busy at work one day when Jordan phoned. She told him she didn’t have time to talk, and would call him back. She had no idea that something this simple would cause the barrage of questions she faced when she got home. She just kept thinking that it came out of nowhere, and she couldn’t understand what had gotten into Jordan. In the coming months, it got worse. At first, she overlooked his jealous tendencies, and was a little flattered by them. After a while, he started accusing her of all kinds of things, and her life began to feel like a prison.

Jesus Christ taught us in John 10:10 (NKJV), “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” An abundant life is a life that is filled with love, peace, joy, wholeness, and all the other wonderful blessings that God has made available through Christ. This isn’t just for people who dot all their ‘i’s and cross all their ‘t’s. John 3:16 says that God loved the entire world so much that He gave His only begotten Son as a sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ was needed because humans chose to turn their backs on God and to live in darkness. So when we were at our worse, Christ came to die for us. This is how much the Father loves and cares for us all.

God wants every person to live the greatest life of which they are capable. He wants us to be happy, and not only does He want us to be happy, He’s given us the spiritual accoutrement to acquire the kind of life we desire. Contrary to what many people believe, the devil is real. It is impossible for God to tell a lie, and His Word is true. Heavenly Father has an archenemy, and he is the thief that Jesus Christ talked about in John 10:10. The thief is the devil, and he doesn’t want us to be happy. One of the major ways that the devil destroys our happiness is to keep us blind to his tricks.

God tells us in 1 Peter 5:8 (NKJV), “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” We need to be alert and aware because the devil looks for an opening to come into our lives, and for many women, loneliness and desperation presents just the opportunity he’s looking for.

Being single longer than a person would like can bring on feelings of sadness, but God still expects us to have faith in His provision, no matter how things look. He expects that we will check-in with Him for greenlights and get that all-important “okay to go!” before we give someone access into our lives. When we don’t get an ‘all clear’ from God, we might fall for a tricked-out Boo from the enemy, and that’s not God’s Will for us. It’s not that the guy is so bad, but he may not be seasoned enough in God’s Word to resist being used by the devil against you.

God will help us no matter how bad the situation is, but the best approach is to not get into the situation in the first place. Amping up our prayer lives and understanding what God desires from us is always going to prepare us spiritually. It will help us operate in the gift of discernment, so that we will know a trick when we see it and steer clear.■

Starving for Love

Posted on May 1, 2018 by daaorg1214

There are some things that are just baked into our makeup. They come standard with the packaging, but sometimes we mess with the wiring and cause things to go haywire. When this happens, one of the mistakes that we make is to think that we can let those things continue to run on automatic—that we can let them go unchecked. That’s just not true. God has gifted us with the responsibility to keep our own spiritual houses in order. Many of us do a fairly decent job when it comes to the outside. With all the make-up tutorials out there, we can keep those brows on fleek and that hair snatched with the best of em’. But when it comes to the inside—hmmm—that’s another story.

We all know what it feels like to go too long without eating, and to feel hungry; not exactly the most pleasant feeling, but it’s an extremely beneficial physical signal. When the stomach is empty, it causes a hunger hormone to be released, and it signals our brain that it’s eatin’ time. The body will naturally do this on its own. The hunger signal is on automatic, but somewhere along the way, many of us stopped paying attention to it. We eat when we’re not hungry, and sometimes we eat the wrong things. The problem has gotten so out of hand for a lot of us that many doctors are suggesting that we learn how to get back in touch with our hunger signals.

We overeat and eat the wrong foods for different reasons. Some of us are emotional eaters, others eat when they’re bored, and some of us have never learned to develop good eating habits in the first place. Whatever the reason, taking control will force us to ask and answer questions about exactly what signals we’ve followed and why. Our hunger for love should prompt us to do the same thing.

1John 4:10(NLT) says, “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” God is love. He created us from love, and gave us the honor and privilege through Christ to walk in His love daily. We’re the spiritual children of God, and if there’s one signal that we can be confident in, it’s the one regarding His love. Not only does He teach us to love the right way, He will also help us to recognize when our tanks are running empty. This is often the signal we miss. And because we do, we look for love in all the wrong places.

Sometimes we don’t feed our spiritual selves a healthy diet, the kind that nurtures our relationship with God through Christ, and also makes our souls strong and our hearts happy. Many of us ignore the reality that God’s Holy Spirit lives inside us, and that loving Him is the highest form of loving ourselves.

Through the Lord Jesus Christ, God is constantly delivering the love signal, but one of the things we’ve learned is that if we eat the wrong thing, we begin to crave the wrong thing; so instead of picking up the real-love signal, we race to satisfy a craving that isn’t of God. We get into all sorts of trouble this way, because we’re starving ourselves of what we really need.

The way to make sure that we never starve is to do as Jesus Christ commanded in Mark 12:30 (NLT), when he said, “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” This isn’t a chore. It’s the greatest thing that any human being can do. It’s a privilege to love God. He pours that love right back into us and expands us, makes us more than we ever thought we could be.

1John 4:16 (NLT) tells us, “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” When we feast on God’s love, there’s no starving. His love fills us in every way. Trust in the unconditional, overwhelming love God has for you. Learn to love yourself through the eyes of His love, then your tank will always be full, and you’ll recognize and accept nothing less than a real-love signal. ■

A Treasure to Love

Posted on April 17, 2018 by daaorg1214

I recently heard about a man, a friend of a friend, who’s engaged to be married, and is having a really difficult time getting along with his fiancée. They’ve been together a while, and their rocky relationship is no huge secret. That’s why it’s surprising to everyone who knows them that they’re considering this very serious step. They’ve clashed on just about every decision, and his fiancée has thrown a few notorious tantrums. She calms down after the ‘crisis’ is either handled or averted, but he’s exhausted and said that if she loses it one more time, he’s going to call the whole thing off.

If you don’t know much about the Father’s love, then you might look at these two and say something like, “They love each other, and you can’t help who you love.” Here’s another one, “the heart wants what the heart wants.” These are two very different people, one incredibly outspoken and the other seemingly calm and even-tempered. So, one could even say, “Opposites attract.” We have all these rationales for falling IN love with someone, but some of these reasons fail the test when it comes to sustaining that love and making sure we don’t fall out of it.

Romans 8:38 tells us that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. This gives us a basis for comprehending the depth and expanse of His heart towards us. God’s love is unyielding and unfailing, and trusting this is more important than any of us can imagine. Because the truth is that ultimately you and I will love others to the degree to which we believe WE are loved.

There’s a saying, “Don’t just talk about it, BE about it!” Commitment and action should back up our words so that our love investment is believed. John 3:16 (NLT) tells us, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” God didn’t just tell us He loves us, He demonstrated His love by sparing not His only begotten Son. He gave us the most precious gift that could be given. He, who is the best, gave the best to us, so that we could make good on His investment.

God is teaching us through our earth experience to love like He loves, give like He gives, and live like Christ lives. In Ephesians 5:25(NLT), Heavenly Father delivers another benchmark for love, “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.” God’s letting us know the human heart’s tremendous love capacity through Jesus Christ. He wouldn’t tell us to love this way if we weren’t capable of it. The truth is that we were created out of His love for the purpose of His love. If we’re not well-formed in God’s love, we need to allow Him room to help us to grow and mature, so that we learn to love through Him.

When someone just adores you, and it’s from a place of light, humility, strength, and honesty, it will plant a seed within you that influences your life in the most spectacular way. You won’t become emotionally exhausted, but continually inspired by God’s goodness, because He’s given you a person that is a treasure to love. This is what God wants for all of us. It’s available, and we should want it for ourselves. ■

“If You Feeling Froggy, Jump!”

Posted on April 10, 2018 by daaorg1214

“If you feeling froggy, jump!” Back in the day, you wouldn’t say those words to someone unless you were confident in your ability to back them up. It was a dare—a challenge—an invitation to sho’nuff throw-down on the playground. And after you duked it out (if it came to that), you would have solidified your reputation. If you were a smaller kid with glasses, like my cousin, Steve, and you were looking to make your mark, a lot of mileage could be gleaned from making a dare like this. The thing is, it only worked if you were serious. The other kids could smell your bluff if you weren’t prepared to do battle during recess and back up all that talk.

Faith can sniff out a bluff talker in less time than it takes to blink an eye. Lots of folks will tell you they’re believing God to receive one thing or another. Maybe it’s a single sister or brother praying to cross paths with the quality person they will ultimately call hubby or wifey. Many of us are praying about our finances. We’re on the grind every day, but the 9 to 5 just ain’t cuttin’ it; and some of us are facing circumstances that are much more serious. We need the intervention of God’s miraculous power in a major way. Whatever the need, whether it’s finances, good relationships, better health, or an improved well-being in every area of our existence; faith is required. We need it to move us from point A to point B, and its necessary to go higher and progress further in every aspect of our lives.

James 2:24 says that just as the body without the spirit is dead, faith without works is dead as well. This tells us something extremely important about faith, it doesn’t respond to our whims. Faith responds to authority. Hebrews 11:1(NKJV) gives us the definition of faith. It says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is a substance. We can’t see it, but it’s a heavyweight. God has given it to us to get some things done in the earth. Faith is the title deed to what we’ve prayed to receive even before it has arrived on the scene. In other words, a bluff just ain’t going to cut it. We have to believe in the Father’s love so much that we don’t doubt for one second that He loves us, wants to see us blessed, and is willing and able to do just that…to bless us!

If you felt froggy enough to jump, it meant that not only were you willing to go toe to toe, but you most likely would dive in first. If you got caught brawling it out, you’d take the blame in the principal’s office for instigating things. My cousin, Steve, was never in trouble and was the last person you’d ever expect to see in front of the principal, but he was tired of this one kid who’d snatch his glasses, and then hide them. He got to a point where he was no longer going to be afraid to fight. He was ready to put it all on the line.

For those seeking to stand with the spiritual armor that God has provided through Christ, we put it all on the line every day, but we brawl with faith! Challenges are unavoidable in life, and we can’t bluff our way to victory; we have to get froggy when it comes to anything that seeks to separate us from the life God desires us to have. James 1:2-4 The Message (MSG) tells us exactly how to do it, “2-4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”

Trying to get out of something prematurely is the same as trying to meet a challenge with undeveloped confidence. It’s shaky ground, where a person doesn’t really believe that God will back their steps. It’s when your mouth is trying to write a check that your heart isn’t prepared to cash. Deep down, this person isn’t in the faith for the long haul, and the devil can smell it. Best not to play that game. Instead, get cemented in the real deal—the all-in commitment to God. That’s when you get froggy with any challenge the enemy throws your way. You’ll fight the good fight of faith, and Jesus will make sure you always win. ■

All Day, Every Day Love

Posted on March 27, 2018 by daaorg1214

God has given every person that is living, or that has ever lived, a wealth of good stuff. It comes baked in by virtue of our humanity and habitation on this earth. Although not everyone sees it this way, the truth is that even before our first breath we are blessed beyond what we deserve. We have life, and therefore, we have hope! And not just hope, but the hope of God’s glory! Colossians 1:26-27 The Message (MSG) tells us, “This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple.”

Colossians 1:26-27 beautifully informs us of the awesomeness that God is offering to each person. As His sons and daughters, we are replicas of Christ; therefore, like Christ, part of our purpose for being on earth is to walk by faith. We must learn to call those things that are not, as though they were. In other words, we confess our faith by speaking God’s promises into and over our lives even though our conditions are less than optimum. This means that we cannot allow ourselves to always be sold-out to the things our physical eyes can see. 2Corinthians 4:18 (NIV) puts it best. It says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

As a spiritual being having a human experience, not only must you come to recognize that those things which are unseen are more REAL than the things that are seen, but you must know that SPIRITUAL TREASURES that are unseen to the physical eye are more VALUABLE than those treasures that are tangible and can be seen. A Christ-kind-of-faith demands that we operate from this level of spiritual awareness. This is why Jesus Christ taught us in Matthew 6:19-20 (NIV), “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

We were not there when Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross for our sins, but as Christians, his sacrifice is more than the air we breathe; it is more than life itself. His ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection is the very essence of all that we are and could ever hope to be. It is something we have never seen with physical eyes, but with spiritual eyes we can see it clearly, because the Spirit of Christ within us bears testimony of it. The totality of Christ exceeds whatever we are in this moment. It is more real than the body we live in and the skin that clothes it.

God has made it possible for us to walk in the reality of Christ every moment of every day. It is not a ‘walk by sight’ thing; it’s a ‘walk by faith’ dynamic. Hebrews 11:6 gives us the barometer to measure the importance of this. It tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith.

Not only does faith make it possible for us to respond to God’s goodness, mercy, and grace with gratitude, but faith gives us the bandwidth to express God’s nature. These are the treasures we should be interested in laying up. They are enduring, and not only impact our lives, but the lives of those within the span of our influence.

1John 4:12 (NIV) says, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” This is huge! The nature of our God is love, and His love—love from the Creator of all that exists—is made complete in us! Through the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love expands us. It will stretch a person beyond his or her comfort zone, and make them all that God created and intended them to be. Nothing in life is better than this. The question is whether we will actually live and walk in the reality of all God has made us. This is our choice, and if our aim is to honor Him, we’ll choose love all day, every day. ■

The Once Hopeless and Now Grateful Onion Peeler

Posted on March 13, 2018 by daaorg1214

I was raised in a rural community, and our house was on what used to be a long dirt road. It was paved with asphalt when I was a teenager, and our neighbor’s son must have thought it belonged only to him. Young and sometimes very foolish, Frankie would speed down that paved road on late Saturday nights like a crazy person, and there was no way he would have been able to safely stop for anything in his view. As we ran for our lives down that newly paved road in the dead of night, oddly enough that’s what was on my mind. Not the fury of rage that was chasing us, not the abuse we’d spent the entire night trying to fend off and would spend the early morning trying to conceal. My concern was to motivate my mother and sisters to push through exhaustion, to keep running so we’d be nowhere on the road if Frankie came through. That’s how anesthetized I had become to our weekend traumas.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I don’t sleep well at night. I sleep like a baby during daytime hours, but nights, forget about it. Growing up, my nights were often filled with terror…unspeakable terror, and I was never not aware of it. My constant state of being was a cross between nervousness, nausea, and numbness. No one outside the walls of our home suspected a thing. My siblings and I were always impeccably dressed, and very well behaved. We were bred to be keepers of the secret—to keep our mouths closed about family business. We were quite good at it.

I didn’t know that I had a right to speak about my pain or to hope that I would be free from it. The heaviness was crushing me, and my soul, oh my soul was tired. But I couldn’t give it a name. I was too young to be tired, my grandmother would say, and I was too old to cry. When I did cry, no one tended to my tears, and I truly had no expectation that they would.

I heard someone say that they couldn’t face another day in the shape they were in. I didn’t have a day to spare. I was the epitome of weary, wounded, and sad. I sought the face of Jesus at a point where I couldn’t face one more minute of life as I had known it. When I gave my life to him totally and completely, the light came on, and I knew in that moment I was changed. Many people have made that statement, but I don’t believe one can do so as veraciously as someone that understands the depth of how ravaging fear can be on the human soul.

Jesus Christ said in Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT), “28 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.” I learned this passage in Sunday School. For years, it cascaded about my shoulders like a warm shawl, but I didn’t wrap myself in it. That took some time.

Jesus said come, rest, then take. This was not an instantaneous process, and most of us are far too impatient to see the beauty of it unfold. I came and rested. It was glorious. Then came the work.

Like an onion, I had layers; most of us do. The first is peeled lovingly by our blessed Lord, and there are tears of joy. We experience his freedom, but then we realize that there is so much more. There are more layers to peel, and deeper wounds to heal.

All these years later, I’m still peeling back layers, and still crying tears of joy and sometimes sorrow as I do, but I realize that this surrendering work in Christ is vital to life. Our precious Savior does not force his way into our hearts. Peeling away the layers of hurt and pain is part of our life’s work. Through it we learn how deep Jesus will go to heal us.

I’m very aware of how the abuse I suffered has affected me. It’s given me survival skills that no longer serve me well, but often hinder me. It’s given me an almost obsessive need for peace, and it has also allowed me a front row view of my own life as I’ve transformed from hopeless to grateful. What I received from God through the Lord Jesus Christ was a drenching that completely deluged my pitifulness. The memory of it so impacts me today that I find joy in being an onion peeler. The deeper I go into my wounded self, the deeper I feel his unyielding, unconditional love. ■

My Heart Hurts, But My Soul Feels Good

Posted on March 6, 2018 by daaorg1214

God has created us to be three-part beings; spirit, soul, and body. People often wrongly identify the parts, but 1Thessalonians 5:23 clarifies it quite nicely. There are three parts that make us humans, and our soul is the part of us that we must constantly keep in check. It’s governed by our will, and God won’t violate our free-will choice. We can do whatever we want to do. We’ll pay the consequences of our wrong actions, but the choice is squarely ours to make. The soul has a couple of gates. Stuff goes in and stuff goes out. That’s an over-simplified statement, but true nonetheless. The mind is the thinking center, and the heart is the feeling center. Both have storage capacity, and sometimes they hold on to the wrong things, and this causes us major problems down the road.

In Proverbs 4:23, God tells us to guard our hearts, and to let this be one of our chief occupations in life. If Heavenly Father has told us to make guarding our hearts a priority, then it means that the heart is pretty important, and not guarding it will cause some serious malfunctions. To guard something is to be careful about what goes in it and what comes out of it. In other words, we must be extremely discriminating about what we let through the gate. This places us in a position of discernment, and sometimes we’re not so good at it. We can’t predict the future, things don’t work out as we expect, and the people we choose to have relationships with are not always who they purport to be. These are just a few of the reasons why we desperately need the help and guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit. He’ll help us discern what is true and righteous.

With the heart, a situation might make us feel really good, but be bad for us. On the flip side, a situation that is for our overall well-being might break our hearts. That’s the tricky part, because oddly enough, what’s best for the soul doesn’t always feel good to the heart at first. But here’s the whopper piece of information that none of us can afford to miss, whenever we do what is best for the soul, we increase spiritually. God tells us in 3John 1:2 that He desires that we prosper, be in good health, and that our souls will flourish in His goodness. This is why the adversary blinds the minds and hearts of people through his tactics of bombardment and chaos.

Distraction is his game, and so often we fall for it. We become so consumed with the heart business that we neglect the soul, and end up missing the blessing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed this in the lives of others. They feel as if they can’t catch a break. It’s one problem right after the other for them, and it’s because a pivotal blessing is coming their way. Causing them to miss it by distracting them is the name of the devil’s game.

We have to open our eyes and begin to see these distractions for what they are. They are sent our way to keep us from making the very decision that’s going to usher in what we’ve been praying to receive. Our choices can be doors to opportunities that will advance us in Kingdom pursuits. These are the choices that are before us every day; choices to nourish our souls with God’s Word, so that it will cause all aspects of our lives to thrive.

You have to face the reality that when it comes right down to it, it’s YOUR soul on the line. When you stand before the judgment seat of God’s throne, you can’t take anyone with you. This should motivate us to move everything in our lives aside so that we can get quiet and spend some quality time with God in His Word. This is a very important way that we can hear from Him.

Looking at romantic movies or reading novels, you might have come across the advice, “Just listen to your heart.” This sounds like the right thing to do, but it isn’t always wise counsel. Jeremiah 17:9 warns that the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and Proverbs 26:23 cosigns this. It warns that smooth words sometimes hide a wicked heart. So, when it comes to someone else’s heart, as well as our own, we need the Lord’s help to discern the right choices so that we can make good, solid decisions.

God has a treasure waiting for you, and He doesn’t want you to miss it. Don’t let chaos and bombardment confuse you. Isaiah 26:3 tells us that God will keep us in perfect peace when we trust in Him and keep our thoughts fixed on Him. Your heart may want what it wants, but let God take control, because only He knows what’s best for your soul.■

“I Cry to You, But You Don’t Answer”

Posted on February 27, 2018 by daaorg1214

My friend, Maxine, ran into a rough spot when she got sober about nine years ago. Her personality is bubbly and infectious; she never had a problem landing a job, just couldn’t keep it. With her prior arrests, background checks always caught up with her. It made her employment history sketchy at best. Maxine’s dad worked in maintenance and janitorial service most of his life, and she had picked up a few skills here and there. She decided she’d try her hand at cleaning homes. When she told her friends about the idea, everyone was on board, and she was off to a good start.

Maxine was introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ in rehab, and her relationship with God continued to grow. She began to meet new people, and her housecleaning jobs increased. She decided to specialize in cleaning floors, rugs, and carpets, and make a go of a small business. Things really began to take-off from there. Her friends continued to be very supportive and gave her lots of encouragement and referrals. Maxine gained a reputation for good, reliable service at a good price. It wasn’t until six years later, when she started to take on larger clients, that her business hit a snag.

She enjoyed the initial building stage, but things took on a much different tone as the business grew, and her faith took a hit as well. As the money stream tightened, Maxine became anxious. She felt as if the Lord was letting her down. Many of us have been in this place, where our backs are against the wall and we don’t know quite what to do. The things that used to work for us are no longer working. We cry out to the Lord, but it seems that He isn’t hearing us.

In the Book of Job in the Old Testament, Job said as much. He said to the Lord in Job 30:20 (NLT), “I cry to you, O God, but you don’t answer. I stand before you, but you don’t even look.” These moments, when it seems that God isn’t responding, His mercy is speaking loud and clear, and we have the distinct privilege to press upon our spiritual hearing to receive what His mercy is saying. Heavenly Father is incredibly patient with us. 1John 5:14 tells us that He always hears our prayers. He’s interested in every detail of our lives, but we must also remember that God’s number one priority is our spiritual growth in Christ.

Heavenly Father wants us to succeed in life, but sometimes a subtle shift slips in. It’s one that causes us to lean less on the Lord Jesus and lean more on the flesh. We begin to walk more by sight than by faith. We forget that the goal is that our view of who God is and what He is willing to do for us grows, as our reliance on self-effort and ability diminishes. Hebrews 13:5 (NIV) gives us some extremely good counsel when this happens. It tells us, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Everything happens for a reason, and although you may not understand it, the lesson learned will inevitably be that God didn’t bring you this far to leave you. He’s working in you to will and do of His good pleasure through the Holy Spirit. He’s helping you to grow into the person that He desires you to be.

Romans 8:28(NKJV) tells us, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Maxine had a dry spell, but things got better. She learned many spiritual lessons during that season, like how to wait on God before making big decisions. Her eyes were also opened to being more thankful to the Lord for having people in her life that were willing to support her the way that they did. But the greatest lesson she learned was how quickly doubt can slip into our hearts when situations in our lives change. Doubt is not a part of God’s Kingdom. It doesn’t come from Him, and it takes up space that only trust and love for God should occupy. So yes, dry seasons will sometimes occur in life, but our commitment to hold to God’s unchanging hands will ensure they are only temporary. He promises that ultimately, everything will work together for our good.■

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Category Archives: Spiritual Encouragement