That Sinking Feeling

Truth is the hand that grabs you and pulls you up.

Last week I went through a battle with self-doubt.  It was intense.  I thought I’d blown it.  I thought the last years of research and writing was for nothing and I should have not immersed myself that way.  That I should have fought to take better care of my home and worked even harder with my business.  Because, at least there, there would be something better to show for it all.  I began to believe what I thought I was called to do really wasn’t, and didn’t matter.  I was mad.  Mad at myself, and more. 

I knew the anger and frustration was Enemy related.  I know that sense of coming down on myself wasn’t what Jesus would have wanted or how He thought of me and so I believed I was in the midst of what Joyce Meyer coined, “The Battlefield of the Mind.” 

I was down.  Big- time doubting.  I even mentioned it to a friend that I felt I had a lost call.

Praying and trying to worship God, I felt distant. It was like I was far away or He was.  I was mad. I was scared and I had lost hope.   

I had to get on the water.  I needed time with God someway, someplace that I felt He was and I’d notice.  I jumped into our boat by myself and started riding down the river.  I asked God to, “Please, show me You!”   “Show me You are with me!”

That’s when it started.  I began to tell Him how mad I was.  How hurt I was that nothing turned out the way I thought it would have.  I told Him that I felt like I wasted all of my time.  When I got it off my chest, I started to feel better.  I saw some beautiful sunrays burst out from behind clouds. 

I began to sing a song out loud, “He Lives,” a fish jumped up right beside me.  An eagle flew over that I initially ignored, until it called out and I looked up.  It circled me a few times as I sang out loud while moving upstream again.  I felt so much better.  There’s something I have always loved when it seems other creatures join in with me and interact, especially in times of praising Jesus.

God was touching my heart and replacing the hurt, loss and anger with peace, pleasure and joy.

That evening, I had some quiet time with the LORD.  In that time He opened my eyes. 

He let me know that the anger, sorrow and loss hope towards Him began when I doubted.  His plan and promise has never changed.  It was me who had.  I had doubted. 

Remembering Peter, as he wanted to join Jesus while walking on the water, he initially could until he looked around himself and he became afraid.  Jesus’ response to Peter as he sank, was a hand that pulled him up as He asked, “Why did you doubt?”

 

Matthew 14:29-31

And He said, "Come!" And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31 Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

It hit home.  I had called out in truth and Jesus gave me His hand and pulled me back up and showed me my doubt through His perfect truth.

The LORD also opened my eyes to His desire to have me be completely open and honest with Him in the way I am feeling.  That getting it out there in front of Him, even though He already knows it, helps me to acknowledge the truth of my heart.

 When I see it fully, He has full access to free me fully and heal me fully. We are in a whole and functional relationship when I come to Him in fullness of truth.

He did it with the Woman at the Well when she admitted to the truth of her life’s situation to Him.  She received the fullness of knowing Jesus as Messiah and Living Water.  The Woman with the issue of blood confessed her whole truth.  She received peace and healing and encouragement for her faith.

Psalm 43:3  Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling!

John 8:36  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed

Stop Thief!

This morning I read an article written by a beautiful, young woman. Her photo was next to her article. She was questioning the money she just spent for a retreat of meditation, crystals, and a pendulum.  She left empty and because she felt nothing she was told she was already full of “light.”  She wrote her doubt-filled article and wondered about the methods of finding God.  She was left disappointed.  My heart broke for her and many women like her.

We have a nation of young women mostly, some men, that are searching in this way for their connection with God.  They didn’t find it in church or they didn’t go to church.  

 

As a pew sitter, I know that much of the teaching given in my half century was done from a platform that cried, “Fire!”  Most  of those who chose to connect to God was through a fire escape avoiding Hell.  Often what was missing was the love.  The power. The peace. The joy. The fulfillment of a relationship with the One and Only and how to have it in hearing Him and knowing Him.

 I managed to find these things through a charismatic experience when I was twelve years old.  I got to know His power in healing, in the gift of peace and joy through His Holy Spirit and that He continues to talk with us and through us.   Most churches didn’t teach about the power of God through His Spirit.  They didn’t place hands on people for healing, but instead would pray from a distance.

 

Some did the Job’s–friends-thing and sat and discussed what Job could have possibly done wrong to bring all of this illness and woe on himself.  Wrong!   These people were judgmental.   When Jesus walked the earth His biggest criticisms were on religious people that were judging others and making rules more important than grace and love and the gifts of His Spirit.

 

We have people reading horoscopes, the counterfeit to prophecy. What they are looking for is a prophetic word from God.  By His Spirit, He gives the gift of prophecy.  We crave this and most of our churches are not supplying it or encouraging people on how to hear God for themselves.

 

No wonder why we have a generation of women headed to retreats like the one the writer wrote of this morning and men, too, looking for Who God really is.  But, what is happening is that it is being masked.  Some of it is brought through methods called reiki,  a named energy of healing from their own energy and God of Life and Universe. I believe this is a name meant for the power and healing of His Holy Spirit.  This generation has not been taught of the fullness of God in this healing from His Holy Spirit for them.  They look for it, they crave it, they are created to long for it; for the power of His Spirit in healing physically, mentally and emotionally.   

 There is counterfeit.  Where there is real there is false, truth and lies, good and evil.  These things are in the physical world and in the spiritual Universal world.  Satan is said to masquerade as an angel of light. 2 Corinthians 11:14.

 

This energy seeking, light searching, crystal worshiping generation wants what they have not been taught or given.  Their souls are longing to be filled.  They are led to what they desire and they get tantalized, but eventually they end up disappointed.  Empty.

 

I stand guilty in not having made the kind of power in His Spirit more known out of fear of, “What would they say?!” from conservative church goers or doubters.  Those that moved in the fullness of His Spirit that I knew of were a handful of women.  They would meet in private settings like their houses and pray in the Spirit, share prophecy and lay hands on one another and walk and live in this power, but we were often too timid to bring it to the masses.  

 

A lot of churches that know God have not taught the fullness of God, His mercy and His power of His presence of His Spirit.  Resulting, we have these precious and beautiful starved souls searching and getting caught in a mysticism that is not giving them what they really need; freedom, life and value! 

Freedom in the saving grace of what was given to them through Christ Jesus and in that His Spirit and power they so desperately seek. 

Valued and loved so much that Christ made that sacrifice for them so that they could live a life in all that He has!  We aren’t supplying through His Spirit everything that Christ died for, for them. 

 

Despite these energy healing sessions and meditation moments, they are not finding freedom nor are they comprehending their full value and how much they are loved.  Guilt is still prevalent, fulfillment is not met and discontentment and discourse prevail.  They are not freed, but appear to become more tangled, frustrated and searching.   When we understand how much we are loved, we can’t help but love others in return.

 

These dear people seek mercy.  Mercy from illness, heart-aches, weariness, confusion and guilt.  When the guilt is removed then there is peace.  No religion, meditation or reiki is capable of removing guilt, except by Jesus and His forgiveness.  

 

With the “Fire” teaching, we are taught to stop the sin, but we rarely understood the love of the “once and for all” sacrifice forgiving every sin done and yet to be done; the total removal of guilt and condemnation.

 

Romans 8:1-2 ESV  1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

 

This is the place of the deepest, filling, fresh, breath no meditation can provide unless it is the meditation of that love.  And honestly, the more I love someone, the less I want to do wrong by them.  When we receive His love, we can’t help but want to show our love back.  

 

This is my plea to all in the churches in ministry proclaiming Jesus Christ.  Teach His love, His mercy, His promises kept, His power, His Spirit in healing and empowering.  Stop sending our beloved daughters and sons into dark rooms with wounds or emptiness to the hands of healing they so desperately seek but are not in His Name. Let them come to His power, Spirit, presence, healing, love and wholeness the way He started the church, by the powerful wind of His Spirit.  Let our children find it taught, given and provided for them.   No more inflicting wounds of condemnation, because it has been removed.  Instead, offer hands of healing, words of love, the vibrations of His Holy Spirit moving through them and balms of oils that anoint, bless and give life and hope in a near and real relationship with God that once and for all fulfills them. 

 

As the huge growth of Christianity continues in Eastern cultures, the irony is that people here are going to the Eastern practices that the East is leaving.  My interpretation of this is that the message of Christ has been distorted here.  It had not taught the power through His Spirit that they so desperately seek or the peace of His love, breathing Him in.  

 

I think of when we train our pets.  I can get them to obey by scolding them, but they will not want to be near me or walk with me.  But, when I train them in love, rewarding them but also letting them know where the boundaries are, we are in a relationship and the trust and nearness in that is good for them and for me.  

 

As Job’s friends considered themselves friends of Job, they tried to help, but had misunderstood.  They were causing more hurt than help.  They themselves were not understanding the LORD and hadn’t had a close and trusting relationship with the LORD. Their message was as good as it could be for what they had.  

 

Yet, Job knew and revered God enough not to curse Him.  God drew near to Job and let Job know Who He was as Job drew near to Him even in his complaints.  That’s relationship.

 

Following this time, Job understood God for himself.  Instead of being angry with his friends for their wrong take on who God was in relationship to his suffering by ending their friendship, he remained friends and prayed for them.  He prayed for the ones that added a little more misery and misguidance.  He forgave them.  What followed is beautiful.  It says that God blessed Job.  As Job came into a fuller relationship with God and prayed for those that caused him hurt by showing love and the power of God, it says that God gave Job double blessing of what he had before and the most beautiful daughters.

Job 42:15  Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers

 

In praying for our churches and leaders we have had over our life time that may have added more misery than mercy, we don’t take a place of judgment, but rather, some of them really didn’t know any better.  It was taught from what they knew.  If they weren’t in the full relationship and power of His Spirit, they couldn’t teach it or offer it.  

 

As we pray for them I know that the LORD will bring blessing.  We release the wounds, we move freely with Him and knowing Him and our daughters will be beautiful.  Don’t let your past hurts from church keep your daughters and sons from knowing His love, His freedom, His peace, His presence, His power and their value in Him.  Let’s grant our daughters and sons their inheritance.

 

If you are looking for churches that offer more in way of healing through the Holy Spirit, I recommend in the Twin Cities area groups that are called SOZO.  It is a Hebrew word for healing and deliverance.  These are a few that I am familiar with.

Hosanna! in Lakeville, MN

The Blessing House in Victoria, MN

Also, there are small groups all over the Twin Cities for women on hearing God and living in His power through Arise! Women’s Ministry.  You can get more information on this organization and other things that they do here.