Finishing the Race

I am on a journey of discovering the abundant life that the Bible tells me that comes with Jesus.   I know that I have to die to myself in order to discover that life, but how that is difficult to do!  I truly understand the angst of Paul as he wrote in Romans 7:15 "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."  I want to have a vibrant, exciting relationship with the God of the universe, to know Jesus so intimately.  I know that to have that relationship I need to set time apart to be in His word, soaking in His truth and communing with Him in prayer, yet I let everything that seems so insignificant to take up residence in my mind and heart. Worry, anxiety, busyness seem to demand my attention.  I have always been under the impression that to meditate on God's word was hard and I couldn't do it, but that lie was laid to rest the other day when I heard someone say that if you worry, you can meditate.  Well I must confess I am a master worrier so it gives me hope that I can meditate on God's word.  The other lie that I have believed is that I am not a deep thinker and I have always approached God's word as just tell me what I need to do and I will do it.  A bit of a Pharisee I am!  When Jesus talked he talked in parables, and I believe he did that so people would have to think about what he was saying and not be quick to jump into doing!
I also must confess I have a very hard time finishing anything I start as my family can attest to the many unfinished projects lying around in my house.  I don't know why it is so easy to start something and so hard for me to finish.  I do know one thing I do want to finish this race of faith.  There are many times I have wanted to give up, but the Holy Spirit continues to push me and encourage me to finish and finish well.  
Confession is good for the soul.  
I am continuing on this journey in figuring out who I am in Christ.  I think this is the best place to start.  I know who Jesus is and I love Him so very much. I am so awed by what He has done for me at the cross.  I want to live Christ, but for me to do that I need to understand who I am in Him and understand the authority I have in Him.  Is this journey going to be easy?   I am afraid that there are so many lies I have believed about myself that the enemy of our soul has whispered into my ear since I was a child, but I am trusting that the Lord will replace those lies with the truth of Himself.  I filled with excitement for I know that I will never be the same, but also with trepidation that this is yet another thing I am beginning that I will not finish.  So I will take this day by by.  One step at a time......into the abundant life that Jesus has for me!

 Here I sit, 39 years to the day that my mother died.  I woke up so heartbroken this morning, not realizing right away what the date was.  I felt compelled to go to my quiet place at the beach so I got up, got dressed, and left for my favorite spot.  The heartbreak so real, so overwhelming that I could not hold back the tears that flowed down my face.

 

 I thought to myself "oh no, not another bout of depression." Throughout my life depression has been the thorn in my side, a thorn that makes me scream out to God for deliverance, and the tool by which He uses to tell me that something needs to be dealt with in my heart or my life.  "What could I possibly need to deal with now?" I asked God through my tears.  At that moment my phone sounded that I had a notification and I picked it up.  It was just an email or something, and I went to put it back down and it was then I saw the date.  September 25.

Immediately, my mind flashed back to the day that my life changed forever, the day that my mother died.  This day had the most devastating effect on my life and has impacted my life more than I could have ever expected, so much so that today was the day that the Lord wanted to deal with my heart. 

Since I was 6 years old I had prayed often, "Lord please protect my mother and don't let her die."   I always had this irrational fear that something was going to happen to her, and that fear was realized at 12 years old as I stood and listened to the words being spoken to me: "I am sorry kids, your mom passed away this morning."  It was in that moment in I decided in my heart:  I would never trust God with anymore of my prayers and I because I couldn't trust God with the things dearest to my heart that I wouldn't trust Him with anything in my life, because if He really loved me He would never have taken my mother.  That thought buried itself deep in my heart and really dictated everything I did from that day on.  And for many years I lived like I didn't need Him. Through a series of circumstances though I eventually did decide that I needed Him in my life and recommitted my life back to Christ, but the thought and the struggle that I had  was that I was never good enough for God, I was like the proverbially red-headed step-child, allowed to be in the family, but never quite good enough to be fully accepted.  

This has been a constant struggle in my walk with the Lord.  I knew Him as my Savior and my Lord, but to know Him as loving me or my friend, I could never quite see myself there.  The enemy of our soul knows our weaknesses and he sure knew how to play on mine.  I had this irrational fear that I was never good enough for Jesus and if I just try harder or if I could just do this better than I would be good enough. The fear in my life has paralyzed me so many times, too many to count.

 I John 4:18 reads that perfect love casts out all fear.  This one verse the enemy of my soul has twisted and has used to torment me.  If God is perfect love and I have Him in my heart and life, why am I so fearful?!  I would hear the sneer in my head telling me because He doesn't love you.  You will never be good enough, and remember you are the only one you can trust.  Remember the vow I had made to myself?   This was the one vow I had made to myself that I had not repented of and here and now the Lord was revealing it to me.  On the very day I had made it, 39 years later!

 The AHA moment came this morning while I was reading AW Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy.  In the chapter on the Love of God I read this line: " Fear is the painful emotion that arises at the thought that we maybe harmed or made to suffer."  Immediately I recognized that the fear I had been carrying all of this time was because I never trusted the love of God.  Yeah yeah I knew about it in my head and had accepted Jesus as my Savior but my heart has never really trusted in it.  Immediately I was brought back to that day when I vowed that I could not trust God with anything and that He didn't love me or He would have saved my mother.  WOW! WOW! WOW!  The amazing thing is that God chose today to reveal to me this belief about Him that had been sealed into my heart like concrete!!!  

 The tears that flow down my face now are tears of repentance and gratitude.   Freedom has found me! I realize that I do not have to look anywhere else to find love, that truly the love of God is for me and never at anytime in my life have I felt like I truly belong as I do at this moment!

These are the words I heard immediately, " Now that you are truly beginning to know and understand my love for you, you will have not have to go and try to find love anywhere else.  You won't be disappointed or discouraged when you aren't loved by others, when they take you for granted, or don't appreciate your love for them, because you are actively aware of my love for you.  When your heart is disappointed, pull closer to me and know I love you.  These disappointments and hurts are meant to draw you closer to me.  I am working everything out, my child, even when you don't see it.  Trust in my love for you---nothing else."

I am sharing this for two reasons.  First, many of us have faced pain in our lives and that pain has given us a view of who God is.  AW Tozer says that most important thing about who we are is who we believe God to be.  Has your pain painted God as less than good, less than loving, less than who He really is?  If it has, those thoughts have become deeply rooted in your heart and we need to go to God and ask Him to help us recognize those wrong thoughts about Him and then repent.  The second thing that I wanted to say is that when you do recognize and repent of the wrong thoughts you may have about  God, the freedom that comes is beyond anything you can imagine.  I have been set free from this struggle and I am from this day forward going to walk in His wonderful love!  Thank you Jesus!