So humbled by how easily one can fall, how easily the enemy had come in and stolen my peace and taken so much more in the process...
I reexamed the areas of my life I was still holding onto. I was holding onto dead friendships, dead relationships, grudges, dead ways of thinking...
I was holding onto the idea that I knew anything at all. I stopped writing for a while. For a while I stopped talking. (I know!)
I started listening.
I heard alot. The things that I held onto, I kept out of my people pleasing obligation. Relying on man and not God. Relying on myself and not God.
I told God I wasn't strong enough to cut ties with the things and people that held me back, that watched me drowning and had no authority to save me...I told Him I was nothing and I was not strong enough. I told Him that I understood that only He could do that for me, only He could remove my scales...
...and like the Almighty delvers, the scales fell away, one by one, and along with them, came clarity to see exactly what lived in those bags I was holding onto.
I now understood, why the Holy Spirit had not allowed me to go home to Texas and write "Housewives after Dark" or return to the arms of the enemy...
I understood why I had to be the student first and not the teacher.
I understood my fights with my sister Tone about my consistency in the written word of God, His gift to us in this life.
Because all things, as is written "work for the good for those who love Him..."
And Indeed they did.
The Father, all knowing, knew that I as I came into a maturing walk with Him, I would need to be ready to resist the painful cries of the enemy, as he was losing his claim on my life.
I opened bags that said "you are nothing to me and never were."
I opened bags that said "God doesn't love you who would...your crazy"
I opened bags that said "you are evil...I am waiting on the real you to come out..."
I opened bags that said "how are you and the Devil doing? Is he still chasing you?"
Those are quotations of things that were said to me. Really.
By the very same people I was willing to separate from God for...
Only but God... could we see that the things we hold so close, want to destroy us. I am thankful He heard me say...
I could do nothing without Him.
Oh, and a sidenote on those "carnal minded sinner quotes" me and my friends were spitting to one another to justify the god we served (clearlynot Christ)...
Reading the Word is so important. The most favorite thing for Carnal minded Christians as I was, is to say, well "God knows my heart."
But the Word says clearly "For the heart of man is wicked above all things, who can know it?"
Oh and let us not forget "only God can judge us"..."remove the plank in your own eye..."
most of the time when we say this it is because someone who loves us is giving correction, and I most of the time it is not even in an area that they are still struggling. If I am about to sin, and I have a saved girlfriend who has been through the pain of this same sin and has turned from it tells me her testimony...that is not "judgement."
She isn't "throwiing a stone" at me. Without proper understanding of what is going on in the ENTIRE context of what was written (the pharrisses were using the adultress they brought before Jesus to stone, as a pawn in their plot to destroy Him.). (John 8:1-11)
So we cannot allow immaturity in His word allow us to "pluck" a word or two to justify bad behavior. No we are not perfect but He expects maturity from those who love Him.
Without a mature, consistent look at prayer and educating ourselves on what He actually says, we miss the bigger picture. Glorify Him in all you do. Be the imitators of God He called us to be.
:-)
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