A while back, I was in my kitchen cooking dinner for my family, I was thinking about my life and all of the things going on around me that so easily got to me. My husband and I had many small things and several big situations, coming up constantly and I just wanted to know, “Where is my transformation, Lord?”. Why was I struggling with the same ol things.
I was exhausted from hearing about the peace that passes understanding but not experiencing the fullness of it, instead just experiencing little pockets of peace here and there.
Anxiety was my moment to moment reality, not peace despite all my efforts to get better.
That evening in my kitchen, with a hungry husband and almost a half a dozen teens and preteens, ready to eat and waiting on me to get dinner on the table, I was silently crying out to God. Inside, I was crying out for freedom from the anxiety and hopelessness, knowing our situations were not going to change anytime soon and longing to see a change in me.
As I was finishing up dinner, boom, the answer hit me and I stopped in my tracks.
What I sensed God saying to me,
Was short and simple yet literally…
Relationship with Jesus restoring
Confidence building
Anxiety healing
Joy producing And
Captive freeing
And it was this simple yet profound statement, I heard in my spirit.
“Sara, you believe IN me but you do not BELIEVE me”.
I stopped in my tracks.
All of this time, I had believed in Him but really in my heart of hearts I had many doubts about Him and His word too.
Before this I believed that the stories were true in more of a fairytale kind of belief.
I had to start believing, in a way that I would stake my life on that Jesus did all that He said He would do, Him would do all He said He would do and be all He said He would be. It started with me meditating on the basics:
He really was born in a manger.
He really did fulfill over 300 prophecies from the old testament.
He really did not want to go to the cross but He really did.
Jesus really died-like dead dead, hanging limp on a tree.
Jesus really stayed dead for days.
His friends and family were really devastated and confused.
He really did defeat death and actually came back to life.
There were really angels that real people saw at the tomb.
Jesus really showed himself to many many people after His incredible triumph against death. Jesus really did ascend into heaven and promise to come back to get his people.
He really did give us a helper to not just live with us but inside of us. The Holy Spirit to guide us and comfort us and give us strength and authority.
The disciples really were transformed from cowards and backstabbers to courageous, loyal unto death followers of Jesus.
The same Spirit that lived in Jesus and the early decibels really does live in me.
And because all this is true;
I really do have a future and a hope.
I really do have a new way of doing life and relationships.
I really do have gifts that the world needs me to use.
I really do have a purpose for being here on this earth.
I really do have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control offered and available to me to then give the people around me.
I really am accepted by Christ and God and have the same Holy Spirit in me that Jesus and the early disciples had in them that CHANGED them.
I really am forgiven for my sins.
I really can forgive others who have sinned against me and wounded me in the battle
I really can hand my burdens over to God to not only carry them but to do something about them.
I really do have authority in the spiritual realm.
I really can be set free from my many captivities.
I really do have a friend who will never leave me or forsake me.
I really do have a new family in Christ.
I really do have a good and kind Father, counselor, comforter and guide.
I really do have someone who has been and will be with me always.
And by really trusting Him I really can have confidence, in exchange for my anxiety, about absolutely everything.
What this revelation in my kitchen showed me is that though I thought my belief in God was wholehearted, my believing God was majorly lacking.
My anxiety was terrible because of my unbelief that I didn’t even know was there.
And here is where it gets tricky for most people….
If you’re like me, life experiences have told you a different story of Gods kindness, faithfulness and His trustworthiness.
I understand that completely. There were and are many times throughout our life stories that we have felt and still feel abandoned, hopeless, unloved unprotected and many more unkind feelings.
Obviously these experiences are really problematic in how we process our relationship with the one we are to intrust our lives to.
That is, if we do not know how to process these experiences and I hope that what I have to say below helps you have a new biblically accurate filter for how to process all of the pain in light of unchanging truth.
Once I accepted that I had not really put my trust in Him by actually believing Him and His word, He set out on the journey with me, to go back through my story and face all of my disappointments, traumas, abuses, foolishness and shame.
I had to work with God to reconcile what I had lived, with the biblical truth of Gods character, if I were ever going to truly believe Him not just in Him.
Some of the places He asked me to go in my story were confusing and difficult to face and understand and others not so difficult but instead, exciting to close the book on that chapter with understanding.
Each step of the way, over time, Him helped me make sense of my story and the truth that, every word He said in His word about Himself is true. Including that He is faithful and that He really will never leave me or forsake me. And He helped me understand why I had felt as though He had, many times over.
Listen… This is not easy stuff. I know that.
It is so important to me for you to know that, I do not tread on this ground of your heart anything but cautiously because I know that it is hard to step into this territory and I am so proud of you for even continuing to read this.
I understand being equal parts angry at God and ashamed at yourself. But I have even better news than that I understand… God understands.
Not only does he understand the cosmos and how it all works and why it has to work that way, He actually understands YOU and all of the stories that make up your life. He understands exactly why you question Him and His care for you. And He is not afraid of your questions.
Listen to me because this matters, a lot. He understands your questions because friend… He knows your story by heart.
He has deep compassion for you and why it is hard for you to take Him at His word, He knows why the trust issues with Him, yourself and others are there.
He literally was with you every step of your story and He remembers the pain even better than you do. He saw the moment you made the agreement in your heart that He was not truly good and He wants to undo that agreement.
He understands and remembers EXACTLY where the enemies planed pain entered into your story and the specific lies the enemy whispered to you to cause you to make that agreement.
He knows where you left your peace and He wants to take you back to get it back!
We all have to take this journey back through our pain in order to go forward with peace.
And to do that…. there is a truth that we must accept that we just do not like. However, like it or not, this truth really does account for all of the damage that has been done to you and to me and to all of us.
This truth is that just as we really live in a world with an amazingly faithful God…
We really do live in a world with an amazingly diligent and hateful enemy who actually loves abuse, death, destruction, pain and lies.
We really are living in a war zone of good vs evil and there are rules to the war.
We really do have an enemy who knows all of the rules in the playbook and he misses no opportunity to mess with our minds and our identity, even though people we love.
We really do live in a world where angels who fell from heaven are now an army of demons siding with hatred of mankind because mankind is made in the image of God, their worst enemy.
We really do live in a world where people get to choose, what side they are on and how hard they will fight for their side.
We really are in a battle against an enemy whose native language is lies who whispers lies that are counter to the truth in Gods word every single day causing us to doubt Gods goodness. (Think about that.)
We really do all have free will to choose each moment, each day, each hour, who we will serve. And people who hurt us chose to side with pain instead of healing, evil instead of good, even if only for a moment.
There is just no way around it, we are ALWAYS being lied to in solicitation by our enemy to be a traitor to Jesus.
Ever single painful experience in our stories was from the enemy not from our God.
Even when we were children. But the enemy got us to blame God instead of him and so we doubted our Father and friend just as Adam and Eve did.
Because of all of this coming against us our confidence was shaken. Our peace, stolen. Our joy, abandoned to fear.
And the only way to get it back is to believe Jesus and His word not just in Him. Side with truth and hope and love and grace.
Then allow Him to walk you back through your story, step by step and let Him bind up your broken heart.
To do this we have to believe His word that our wounds came from the disobedience of ourselves of someone else siding with the enemy and not answering the calling on their life, from our good God.
We have to choose to believe that the pain we have suffered or caused is really from humanities free will to believe the enemy lies over God’s truth and act on those lies.
Because in reality if we all subscribed to the Lords truth over the enemy lies, we would have considered the other as more important than ourselves and not have sinned against them.
Listen, it is not God who has disappointed us or abandoned us. NO! It is the enemy who has attacked us though humanity abandoning the mission of God on their life.
But know this, God is not ashamed, stressed out or mad at you about the story you have to tell. As a matter of fact He wants to use it!
Do not worry, He knows how the whole thing works. He knows the rules of war we are in and the lay of the land and how sly our enemy is.
And He has given us the rules of the war as well, in His word. And He will help us be strong and courageous.
If we simply will love Him, He will take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for our good and His glory.
That evening in my kitchen, Jesus invited me to believe Him not just in Him.
He asked me to give Him alllll the broken pieces of my heart and mind, He asked me to give Him my story and my shame and trust him to bind up my broken heart.