I cannot tell you how many blogs I started writing tonight, and I just couldn't finish. Almost as if there was a restlessness on me, knowing that there was something heaven had for tonight and I hadn't yet hit it.
For anyone who has been reading my writing for awhile, you would know that one of the themes that God has put on my heart is all about how we were made to be both hungry for and satisfied by Jesus, but so often we get caught up feasting on so many other things.
And that sometimes the things we feast on, we choose them because they are numbing or distracting but that sometimes they poison our identities.
They attack the very thing Jesus has given us to stand in.
And sometimes when I sit back and look on how I talk, my inner dialogue, what I am entertained by, what I find funny, where I go when I hurt – it reveals how I feast.
It reveals what I am eating, what I am drinking.
Credit: Erin Kunkel Photography
I just even for myself tonight wanted to zero in on how sometimes I feel like I have gotten caught up in feasting on heartache.
How I have feasted on my own pain. I have feasted on other people's pain. I have feasted on the pain I see around me.
It is like I have kept my heartache alive, breathing life into it as if I never really want it to go away, setting it up like this monument that I can re-visit because somewhere inside of me it gives me this odd sense of comfort or safety.
Maybe even at times keeping it alive so that I can always have an excuse to run to, "Do you know what I have been through? I am the way I am because of that."
But take that stuff away, and you've taken away my excuse.
And in those moments where heartache does strike again, because inevitably it will, instead of stirring up how relentlessly good He is, I am stirring up a lifetime of hurts.
And honestly, I am only re-living that brokenness. I am ultimately picking up my authority and handing it to my experience which only leaves me powerless.
And when someone else comes to me when their heart is hurting, sometimes all I can muster is a "me too" which is honestly only a fleeting comfort. And because I get stuck in the "me too" – it just draws me back into my own heartache.
Why am I offering a fleeting comfort when I can offer a "pick up your mat and get up and walk" solution?
I was in church yesterday, and the message really spoke to me given by Pastor Matt (which I totally encourage you to listen to) and I found the Lord calling me out of all of this that I just described.
I have felt Him leading me into it for a long time – whispering to me that my past is gone, that I am a new creation. Calling me to stop breathing life into a dead past. Asking me if I would trust Him to satisfy my heart.
"Will you trust Me to satisfy your heart?"
And I have just felt this hunger rising up in my own heart to be a woman of risk, love and power.
And to take back my authority that is rightfully mine as a daughter of God.
And to just smash it all, watch it crash to the ground, and to fall back in His hands, knowing He has me.
That I don't need that stuff to keep me safe. I don't even need that stuff as an excuse.
And can I just say that using your past to justify your sin is not okay. And I know it is not okay, because I've done it.
So tonight, this God of ours is so perfect. And He says, "Let's start over." He puts a yoke on us that is easy, a burden that is light.
And instead of stirring up the wells of our own brokenness, let's stir up the wells of His very goodness.
Oh He is relentlessly good. And insanely worthy. And perfectly holy.
And when we feel that thing where we just want to crawl into our own holes, feast on our own pain, hide even in our stories, can we commit to doing three things first?
Worship. Get in His face. He is worthy.
Remind ourselves of His goodness. What He has done for you?
And declare over yourself who you really are. Don't be shy, pick up your authority and declare it. Overcoming is in your nature.
This is what I will be doing. Absolutely. As I stood there yesterday morning did, I just literally felt something lift off of me and I am declaring the same for you tonight in Jesus' name.
Your past is not more powerful than your King.
So come with me, grab my hand, and let's run free in the pastures of His pleasure.
He doesn't disappoint.
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If you want to listen to the sermon I mentioned go to www.lakemount.ca/media 🙂
