Jesus is alive! He is Lord, and He has been looking out for me since the very beginning!
When my mother abandoned me, told me that she was tired of putting up with me.
I was thinking about that event again. It was some time in February, 1995 (I think it was the first of month). My mother was crazy (I have written this down many times).
I told her that I was depressed. First, she took me to a McDonald's, where she bought me an apple pie. Then, all of a sudden, she started to turn on me. She got really angry, she started blaming me for stuff.
Then she parked at the Torrance Memorial parking lot, and then we started walking along the sidewalk of Zamperini Aiport.
Out of nowhere, she just started yelling at me "I am not your higher power." Then out of nowhere, she just said to me "That's it. I am sending you to live with your father."
Keep in mind, that all this time she had been denigrating my father to me. Eight months prior, she had taken my sister and me, disrupted our life, our home.
Now, all of a sudden, she was disrupting my life again, rejecting me, abandoning me.
The lesson that I walked away with from that night was "I must have done something wrong." A self-reflective defense mechanism ensued, one in which I was constantly looking at myself, my thoughts. I wanted to make sure that I never made a mistake again, that I never failed again.
This hypervigilance has not left me. It's quite a habit. I often worry that I may think the wrong thoughts, do the wrong things, and I would end up inviting God's wrath into my life. Really, it is quite a bad habit!
For the longest time, I have looked at what I was thinking, and responded to what I was thinking as if it were reality itself. None of that is true, of course, but the sensations, the sense of demand and fear is so overwhelming, you feel that you have to do something about it.
And why did I feel that I had to do something about it? Because I was convinced that God would come or go in my life depending on what I was thinking or feeling. I really believed that madness. It was just unbelievable.
Today, the revelation just got deeper, broader, brighter, greater.
I can think whatever I want, good or bad, because God is blessing me know. He has sworn that He will take care of me, watch out for me.
The New Covenant could not be clearer:
"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
"12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8;10-12)
Daddy God does not go away just because I think badly. Daddy God does not stop blessing and favoring me just because I have ill will or unhappy feeling toward someone or something.
Something else came into my mind as well: God is already taking care of tomorrow. That is something that my mind will not understand based on "evidence." It's something that we take as an article of faith because of what Jesus has done at the Cross!
In Christ, we are living an eternal present, one that never goes away, and one in which we are never disrupted or separated from Him. Isn't that just amazing?
Every fearful premonition that I used to entertain, I now realize was one more thought that had to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). We are not supposed to nurse our fears. We are supposed to let the weapons of God's warfare shut them down. Boom!
And all this time, I was convinced that I had to do something about those bad thoughts ON MY OWN so that Daddy God would not go away. Wow! The revelations, the restoration, the rejoicing that has become manifest in my life is really something. I am so grateful to my loving Father! AMEN!
Now, I can look at the thoughts of the future, with their fears about the future, and say "It does not matter how mad or bad or fearful I may feel. None of that matters. God is blessing me because He is good, and His Son paid a perfect price, worked a perfect work at that Cross!"
What's really amazing especially is that I have been using my mind to take care of myself, to try and protect myself, to attempt to think through everything all the time. I do not have to take care of myself. I do not have to worry when I get afraid that I have to think fast, either. Indeed, for the longerst time, I kept thinking that I had to think through everything, protect myself from everything, because I feared that if I did something wrong, thought something wrong, felt something wrong. These wrong beliefs were ALL WRONG!
Wow! The relief in my head is really something! I feel so much being released in me as I write this post. This is really amazing. THANK YOU, JESUS!
I do not have to watch out for myself anymore. Jesus, you are not someone that I have to "think about" or "acknowledge" in order for you to work through me.
You had already said that so long ago through the Apostle Paul:
"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)
God is not some thought or mind trick. He lives in and through us, and in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)
For a long time, I felt that every time I was offended or hurt by someone, too, or I faced a challenge or fearful situation, that I needed to do something about that fear so that Daddy God and His guidance would not go away. I now realize that I do not have to work so hard. Faith is not fantasy or a leap into absurdity. It is all about resting in the truth that God the Father has worked a perfect work through His Son Jesus!
And that hitherto He is still working. AMEN!
The defense mechanisms that started to creep up in me, which followed the abusive abandonment which I had suffered from my mother, and the lack of support and protection from my father, You have already taken care of everything. You are already on the job caring for me. No matter where I go, You are there (Psalm 139:7-10)
I am really trying to get a grasp on the right believing that is taking place now, the transforming and renewing of my mind. This is really exciting! This is a habit which is falling away, now. I see You, Jesus, more than ever before. I realize that I can rest my mind, because I have fallen into a full, careless trust in You. Nothing more to worry about.
Thank you, Jesus, for inviting me further into your rest. AMEN!
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