Fear – Guiding GRACE

In HIM…You ARE

Have you ever been asked to do something you weren’t sure you were capable of? Or been in a situation where you felt completely over your head?

Have you ever felt unqualified? Unworthy? Unlovable? Unbeautiful?

I know I have. In fact, when I was asked to speak to the youth at our summer camp – I was excited! At first, that is. Then that small little voice of fear crept in.

You see, Satan doesn’t take a sick day. He doesn’t sit back and think, nah I’m just going to let that one slide. No, he’s always there, waiting for the opportune moment to sink his claws in and destroy anything good God has for us!

Lisa Bevere once said, ‘Satan doesn’t attack us based on our past, he attacks us based on our future!’

He attacks us based on what he KNOWS we are capable of because he knows what Christ, who lives in us, is capable of!

So when that little voice started saying to me: you aren’t ready for this. You’ve never stood in front of people talking (as I started having horrible flashbacks to college speech classes) – You aren’t qualified to do this. I quickly felt deflated and defeated.

Sure I’ve done the small group thing before – where you have the instant feedback and gratification from your participants – but to actually get up and speak to an audience – to preach – mark that one on my ‘Never Have I Ever’ list.

But what does the Word say about who Satan is? Does he come to remind us of the obvious truths we may believe in? No. The Word says in John 8:44 that Satan is a thief and the father of all lies – that there is no truth in him. And in John 10:10 NLT – “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”

Satan takes the truth and twists it until it becomes a lie you believe. As a prime example, just last night – through a series of crazy events – we saw bugs on the beds we were preparing to sleep in. The truth of the matter – it was an actual bug on the bed. The lie – they weren’t bedbugs. Satan took that truth, and through fear, twisted it into a lie until we were so overcome by it that no one wanted to sleep on the beds.

Satan comes to STEAL the TRUTH from you, to KILL your FAITH and FUTURE, and DESTROY EVERY GOOD THING GOD HAS FOR YOU.

So the Lord really began to minister to me about who I am and who lives IN me.

Because of Him – My past and sins were crucified with Him

Because of Him – I was raised up and I am alive

Because of Him – it isn’t me who lives, but Christ who lives

He LIVES in ME! He LIVES in YOU!

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians‬ ‭2:20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Because of Him, because He lives in me…when I believe the lies of the devil and I say I’M not qualified, I’M not capable, I’M not beautiful, I’M not ENOUGH…we are saying that Christ IN US isn’t qualified, isn’t capable, isn’t exactly who He created you to be – we are saying Christ ISN’T ENOUGH!

I don’t know about y’all. But that revelation hit me like a ton of bricks. Christ IS enough. His death and resurrection ARE my LIFE! When the greater one resides in you…who can be against you? What dare be against you?

But even more so as I was praying over this Wednesday on my drive to church…the Lord began to minister to me about not just Christ in me, but Christ in others.

One of the nasty lies of Satan I’ve believed all of my life is that I wasn’t pretty, wasn’t beautiful. How much more so if I didn’t believe it and didn’t love myself, then how could anyone else find me pretty, or beautiful, or love me?!

That’s when the Lord began to minister to me that if He’s in me and He is everything, then isn’t He the same in other believers too? I have to believe that Him in me, Him in you, and Him in my future spouse are enough too!

With Christ in you, because of the sacrifice He made…you are equipped and capable and beautiful and EVERYTHING HE DESIGNED YOU TO BE!!

When Everything Goes Gray

There’s always been something about thunderstorms that I love, but also hate. As the clouds roll in, bringing much needed rain to the land, they also bring a gloomy, gray blanket that seems to immerse everything within its reach.

As I laid in bed one evening this past week, listening to the thunder rumble in the distance, I started thinking about when things went gray in my life.

Let’s discuss a subject that has had so many talking lately – and frankly effects far more youth than I could have ever imagined. If you haven’t dealt with it yourself, you know someone who has.

Suicide

This is a topic I’ve never broached before. Not on paper. Not online. Not even in person. In all honesty, only one person in my life really knows all that went on and all that I went through (and even she might not know/remember some of the details I’m about to share). But I’ve had it on my heart for months now to share my story.

I can’t tell you what triggered it. I wasn’t bullied. There was no event that brought on the feelings. One day, my 10yr old self (yes at just 10 years of age), woke up like every other day – the difference came that night when I tried to go to sleep.

That night, when I turned the lights out and curled up in bed, it started. It was a quiet, little voice at first but when I gave it place, it quickly became the loudest thing I heard each night.

“No one would miss you”

“No one really loves you”

I had two parents who loved me unconditionally. A pesky little brother. Grandparents who thought the world of me. And a church and pastor that considered me their own. Yet all I could think about each evening was how I should do it and what I’d write in a note to leave behind.

I don’t quite remember how much time passed before I began to talk about it. But I do remember countless nights of insomnia. And I remember crying one night and my mother coming in and telling her I was afraid to go to sleep because I thought I’d die. It became so drastic a fear that I began to believe my own body would forget how to breathe in and out.

Here I was, a prepubescent child, dealing with a very (not to get overly spiritual) demonic spirit of fear and death. I was tortured with thoughts of killing myself (down to the details of what I’d use, how, when, etc) and yet in the moments I tried to find peace and rest, I was plagued with the fear of dying – of not waking up or forgetting how to breathe.

I’d like to say there is a magic answer to make feelings like these go away. Perhaps for some there is. But for me, there wasn’t. It was countless nights (months) of tossing, turning, crying, pacing my floor, and even actually writing a note out one night and sneaking in to my parents room as they were sleeping because I knew they kept a gun in there. My mother played a “Peaceful Praise” tape on repeat in my room each evening and she prayed with me often. I even prayed myself. I knew this wasn’t what God wanted for me – I found myself literally crying out to Him.

Months passed before the suicidal thoughts and fear of death began to subside.

I never fully acted on it. I never had any professional counseling. No medication. Frankly, in the early 90’s, it wasn’t talked about much and people didn’t go to counsellors like they do now. And unlike today, there were no wonderful female ministers teaching about your immeasurable value in Christ; No books about how God created you beautiful just as your are. No – It was simply the grace of God that saved me and the sheer determination of a 10yr old who wanted to live and not die.

I don’t know why I went through this all at such a young age aside from I truly believe: Satan wants to destroy anything and everything that could ever bring glory for the kingdom of God.

I’d be lying if I said the thoughts never tried to creep in after that. But I’m older and wiser now. I know where the voices of despair, depression, and death come from and I know exactly where they belong. I know that His word says He had a plan for my life before I was even formed in my mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5), that His plans are for my good not for my demise (Jeremiah 29:11), and that the spirit of fear doesn’t come from God because He gives us power, love, and a peaceful mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

I don’t know why I’ve had it on my heart to share. Especially to share something so personal that I’ve never even talked to my best friend about it. Maybe there is someone that needed to read it. And if it reaches just one person, then it is all worth it.

No matter how bleak things may appear. When everything in your life seems to go gray. When there seems to be no answer to the problems you’re facing. When you feel more alone than you ever thought possible. When the voices speak so loud you can’t hear your own. Know that:
You are not alone

You are valuable

You are beautiful

You are wanted

You are loved

You have a purpose

You have a plan

You are needed

You are alive

And know, it’s ok to talk about it. There is no shame – no stigmas – no condemnation. The torturous thoughts and feelings of suicide are no respecter of age, race, gender, religion, socioeconomic status, etc – it doesn’t matter if you are 10 years old or 100 years old. Talk to your family. Your friends. Your pastor. A leader in your church. A counselor. Someone you trust. Anyone. And if you feel you have no one you can talk to about it – call the suicide hotline 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255 or suicide.org). There is NOTHING so horrible that it is worth taking your own life for and you don’t have to face it alone.

Fearless

When did fear take over our lives?

Turn the tv on. Open up a newspaper (do they still make those?). Listen to the radio. Scroll through social media. Talk to a friend.

No matter your means of information, it’s hard nowadays to not be inundated with headlines that spark fear in even the most fearless of people out there.

Don’t go outside! Zika virus is everywhere and if you get bit by a mosquito, you’ll end up sick.

Don’t go anywhere! ISIS is everywhere. You can’t travel now without the fear of a terrorist attack.

Don’t say anything! If you do, you’ll offend someone or end up in a social media word war because no one is allowed to have a differing opinion anymore.

Don’t write that. Don’t say that. Don’t do that. Don’t post that. Don’t confront that. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t.

This could all read as – fear, fear, fear, fear.

The more soul searching I do of myself, the more I recognize how much of my past experiences were dictated by fear. How many things I didn’t do or missed out on because I was fearful.

Almost 9 years ago, I had this brief moment in my life of fearlessness. I was on the cusp of my 25th birthday – next to nearly no responsibilities, I had just graduated from the university, I actually had money in my bank account, and I was confident the world was truly my oyster.

So I grabbed a friend and set out on a two-week vacation through five countries in Europe. I didn’t care about the cost – I had enough money and no worries about the future. I didn’t care about safety – two young, single girls traveling alone through unchartered territories (what the heck were our parents thinking?!) and predominantly Muslim places in the middle of Ramadan. I didn’t worry about what I could come back to on my desk at work. I truly didn’t have a care in the world I couldn’t conquer on my own. And on that trip, I had the time of my life! I saw some of the wonders of the world. I met some amazing people. I brought back memories I’ll cherish forever. I even climbed a volcano! I climbed a freaking volcano!!

For those two weeks, FEARLESS was my middle name.

But as the years went on, adult responsibilities increased, and my child-like-faith decreased, the fear-less part of me was taken over by the fear-more part.

Fear can absolutely cripple a person if you allow it to take root in your life. And all it takes is to open yourself up to the voices of the world: the voices telling you to fear, to doubt, to hate – that you aren’t safe enough, good enough. But that is never God’s best for us.

II Timothy 1:7 (NKJV) For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

He’s given us power to overcome fear, love to conquer it all, and a peaceful mind so the cares can’t get us down.

I’m not sure the Word could be any clearer than that. Once you identify that fear is not from God, it is not good, and it most definitely doesn’t belong in your life, you can begin to uproot it!

Now this isn’t your pass to go and act like an idiot. Most of us do enough of that as teenagers to fulfill a lifetime quota. But it is your pass to look at things with God on your side – if He is on your side, who can be against you? (Romans 8:1)

Quit being fearful about tomorrow. Quit fearing the elections (yup I said it). Quit worrying about your future – or even your past. Quit worrying about school, what to wear, your boyfriend/girlfriend, the popular clique or the unpopular clique. Quit worrying about college. Quit worrying about that trip you want to take. Quit worrying about your job.

Take a Holy Ghost chill pill, rest in your Father’s arms, remembering “hey, He’s got this!” and start living life fearlessly again.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get back to where I was at 25yrs old and be FEARLESS!

In a world that fears more, we should fear less because greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world!! (I John 4:4 NLT)

Putting Feet to Your Faith

I can remember growing up, one of my favorite songs was, Screen Door by Rich Mullins. It seemed that it was always playing on our drives from the rent house to the new house my parents were building at the time (ah, the ’80s – a moment of silence please for this great decade). As a kid, I used to laugh at the lyrics because they were so preposterous. Why would someone ever put a screen door on a submarine?! But as I got older, I realized how poignant the words really were.

Faith without works is like a song you can’t sing. It’s about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

I wish I remembered who first said to me “it’s time to put feet to your faith”. It has been a statement to live by in this Christian’s life – although I haven’t always done so, I resolve to live this way from here out.

Thinking back to writing about Cannonball Faith, having faith is one thing. But are you actually using what God gave you?

I’ve had my ups and downs at my job over the past 10 years, and there’s been more than one occasion where I would come home set on the idea that I was going to quit the next day. But I never did. Which is a discussion for later on being in the right place, at the right time, in God’s will. But every time I’d come home and begin to gripe about the current situation, I’d be asked “What are you doing about it?” Which of course my response was always “I’m praying about it. I’m praying the right job in.” <— pretty sure that’s the adult equivalent of your child coming out of Sunday school and asking them what they learned, only to receive the ‘one-size-fits-all’ quizzical response of “Jesus?”.

But you know, praying about it, and believing by faith are both great things to do…but God didn’t give us faith and the Holy Spirit to just sit around on our keisters being armchair believers – believing by faith, but not LIVING by faith – not putting works (action) to our faith.

The Bible is full of examples of men and women who not only believed by faith, but put that faith to action until they saw results. Two specific examples come to mind of literally putting feet to your faith: Peter walking on water and the battle of Jericho.

Peter had faith. He had great, walking-on-water faith. But remember too, he had the same measure of faith we’ve all been given. He could have stayed sitting in that boat, watching Jesus on the water. He could have answered like most Christians do when it comes to believing for something by faith – if it’s God will, then He’ll bring it to me. But he didn’t. He put feet to his faith and stepped out of that boat on to the unknown, on to the water. (Matthew 14)

It’s the same for the Israelites and the battle of Jericho. They could have easily camped outside of the city walls and used their faith, praying every day, for those walls to be removed. But no, they used their faith and obeyed God and what he asked of them and put their feet to work. They marched, and blew the ram’s horns, and gave a shout just as God had directed them to do so, and as the song goes, the walls came tumbling down. (Joshua 6)

Matthew 17:20 speaks of mountain moving faith – speak to the mountain to move and it will move. I really wish there was an asterisk after this verse though. So many get stuck on believing and confessing that they forget to put action to it. If I could put an asterisk next to this verse it would say “Speak to the mountain to move and it will move, however, if God puts a shovel in front of you, put it to work until that whole mountain is moved.” and then refer everyone to James 2:17 that “faith without works, is dead”.

This is where I think a lot of Christians get hung up with the believing and confessing part without the action part of faith.

When one of my aunts received a diagnosis of cancer years ago, it was a big blow. I love her dearly and for very selfish reasons did not want to see her die – she’s my spiritual rock, my go-to, my intercessor. So I began praying about it and received my own new revelation of God’s word and the wisdom He gives us. Believing for healing is great…but you better know you’ve heard from God and have had a come to Jesus meeting before you make the decision to believe by faith ONLY. God gave us doctors, He gave those doctors great wisdom and medicine – it takes just as much faith to believe for that medication to do what it is supposed to do and for those doctors’ hands to be guided by wisdom as it does to sit back and just believe for a supernatural healing. And just because your healing came through the actions you took guided by the Holy Spirit, doesn’t make it any less of a miracle and it doesn’t make you any less of a good Christian believer for doing so!

With this rhema, I drove myself up to her and sat down to ask her “Are you choosing to believe only for a miraculous healing because that’s what God has told you to do, or are you making that decision out of fear of the unknown with treatments and surgery?” When I went to see her a few weeks ago, she talked about that weekend when I came to see her several years back and as she said “preach to her and bring her back”. Which is definitely what I did. I had a boldness that weekend when I went to her and got in her face about it – I had my faith to believe for the miraculous, but I also had the guiding of the Holy Spirit in what action to take with that faith.

By the way, my aunt, she’s still here….and she’s cancer free, praise God! She put feet to her faith.

So whatever you are believing for in your life and using your faith for, are you putting feet to that faith? Are you putting action to your beliefs and confession? Or are you just going to be the armchair believer?

God gave us all the same measure of faith to use in our lives. The outcome of that faith, (the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen – Hebrews 11:1) however, will be dependent on you seeking wisdom and guidance from the Holy Spirit on what action to put with your faith. If your New Years resolution was to get healthier and lose weight, you can believe, and wish, and pray for it all you want…but until you put action to it and change your lifestyle and change the way you eat and change whatever else God directs you to change, you won’t see the same results. Are you believing for a new job? Don’t just use your faith and pray about it, but seek God on the steps He wants you to take – where to begin looking, where to put resumes in, who to speak with, etc.

Faith is a precious gift from God to us. Don’t let yours become stagnant and dead, having no action behind it, or pretty soon it’ll be as useless as a screen door on a submarine!

Cannonball Faith

Ever have a time in your life where you took a big risk? A leap of faith?

I’m in the middle of one of those “leaps” right now. But have you ever felt opposition hit you head on as soon as you take that faith step?

Sometimes I wonder if the moment we take that first step, a big, flashing sign goes off in hell reminding Satan to try his best to keep us from taking one more step. It can be physical opposition or it can be mental. Sometimes our minds can be our own worst enemy when it comes to living a life by faith.

Trust me here, I’m preaching to the choir on this – I need it more than anyone right now as I have quickly realized that taking a leap of faith is both the scariest and most thrilling thing ever.But It’s easy when you take a leap and don’t see immediate results to feel like that leap was a failure. However, you only risk it becoming a failure if you let fear take hold. That’s when I ended up texting a trusted friend, asking “Have you ever taken a leap only to feel like it was more of a belly flop?”

Her response? “No leap is ever a flop if it’s done in faith.”

Have I mentioned before I have some of the best, Godly friends in the world? I can’t imagine doing life with out such people to turn to.

So I began really thinking about faith in my every day life and started thinking of “leaps” we take every day. You may not fervently seek God in prayer over every little thing you do in your day, but just leaving your home each morning is a step of faith if you really think about it. Yes, some steps and leaps are bigger than others. But to God, THEY’RE ALL THE SAME!

His word says in Luke 17:6 (NIV), “He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you!”

Faith as small as a mustard seed…that’s really small in case you were wondering. Like minuscule. And I’ve got at least that much faith. I wasn’t saved at the age of 4 and have grown up in church and ministries to not at LEAST have that much faith. So then I began thinking to myself, if I don’t question those little faith steps every day because I trust so wholeheartedly in my faith, then why am I even questioning the big leaps? I have enough faith to take on the biggest of leaps!!

And that’s when Facebook spoke to me.

Has that ever happened to you? Just when you need it most, someone posts something or shares something that is just what you need to hear (or read). Some people might be opposed to social media, but I kind of love it for reasons just like this.

“Many of you are being violently fought by the enemy because he sees what your future holds. Think of the good that will follow, and don’t let a challenge intimidate you. God is GREATER than your GREATEST opposition.”

It really hit me then; I not only have enough faith to take the biggest of leaps and not worry about failing, but I serve a God who is bigger than EVERYTHING!

So be encouraged in His word and in your faith. You might not think it’s very big or that you can stand up against whatever you might be facing, but you can!

(Fair warning. I like analogies. So just go with it.)

It takes faith to jump from a diving board. Oh boy do I know that to be true…you’re talking about a girl here, who can’t stand the thought of water deeper than her 5’3″ height – although I love snorkeling, so go figure that one. Back to the diving board. If you are on the diving board and getting ready to take that big leap, and of course the only way to do it is to do it BIG, so you decide to do a cannonball. You take a step back before taking off, jumping, and tucking your knees to your chest. That cannonball is about to be the most successful cannonball ever as long as you don’t let fear take hold of you. When you let fear take hold in the middle of that cannonball, you let go of your grip, and most likely end up in a painful belly flop (or side flop, or back flop, but a flop none-the-less).

What does all of that mean? Have CANNONBALL FAITH!!! An all-in mentality. Let go of your fear and take hold of your faith and before you know it, you won’t just be doing cannonballs anymore, you’ll be stepping out and doing your own Peter walk on the water!!