Discerning God’s voice from my own flesh has been a continuous learning process for me, but earlier this month, the word ‘TRUST’ came up a lot in conversations, in my quiet times and in podcast series that my team listened to. I felt as though God was really putting it on my heart that He wanted to show me and teach me what it meant to trust Him on a deeper level by taking an action that would require me to tangibly rely on Christ in a whole new way. After thinking through this a little more, I felt like God was asking me to begin fasting and then specifically use the time that I would have helped my team prepare the meals and eat with them as individual alone time with God. However, God didn’t initially give me clarity on how long he wanted me to fast for, but it was as if God was saying that until He tells me when to stop fasting, He wanted me to trust Him in believing that He would provide me with the necessary nourishment and health not through physical food, but through being spiritually fed through Him and His Word. In addition to the trust factor, I also felt like God wanted me to use my time with Him as an opportunity to take a trip down memory lane and no longer allow the pain and hurt that was caused from past situations specifically from my middle and high school years to rule my life any longer. God wanted me to dig deeper into the feelings that came with past struggles and situations that has continued to impact my life since then — feelings of being unloved, unvalued, worthless, purposeless, shame, guilt, anxiety, loneliness, frustrations and sadness.
For just over 65 hours, I put my complete trust in God as He took me on an incredible journey with Him that led me to discover one truth after another in Scripture to defeat the negative lies and emotions from my past that have weighed heavily in the way I had been living my life. Take a glimpse of what I learned:
Loneliness: Psalm 102: 7-13 – Even in our times of loneliness, the Lord is near and will never leave us nor forsake us. It is more of an issue of my own heart in these times of loneliness and whether I will choose to acknowledge God’s presence in my life when everyone else around me seems to be gone.
Shame: Psalm 25:2-3; Romans 5:5; Hebrews 12:2 – When we put our hope and trust in God we can have confidence in believing that our shame is gone. God sent his son in my place to endure the cross, and take away not only my shameful experiences, but everyone’s … including yours!
Anxiety: Philippians 4:6; Luke 10:41-42 – So many times in life I can relate to Martha in the story as I can quickly become anxious and worried about making sure everything is prepared and planned out in life. This ultimately stems from my desire for control instead of recognizing my need to spend time with Christ and the greater importance of trusting in Him.
Guilt: Hebrews 10:22; Jeremiah 33:8 – God has already cleansed us from our wrongful sin in our past, but it is up to us to accept this truth and then come to a place where you can forgive yourself and not allow the guilt to follow and drag us down any longer.
Unvalued/Unworthy: Luke 16:15; Luke 12:24; 1 Peter 1:7 – Not that I need to compare myself to a bird, but even as God provides the needs for every bird in the air He will provide for us as well; We are more valuable to God than any bird could ever be, and He is constantly our provider and blesses us abundantly.
Unloved: John 15:13; John 15:9; Jeremiah 31:3 – God loves me just the way I am. It’s not about my performance because there is nothing more of less that I need to do in order to earn God’s love. How can we deny God’s love for us as He sent His own son to die on our behalf?
Afraid/Fear: John 14:27; Hebrews 13:6 – The Lord is my strength, my defense and my helper so what do we truly have to fear in life.
Anger: Proverbs 15:1; Jonah 4:2; James 1:19-20; Psalm 86:15 – The God we serve is a compassionate and forgiving God who is slow to anger, but flourishes with love. We have no right to be angry with God, but so many times in my past, I have turned away from God and allowed my flesh to control my thoughts and motives for my life.
Trust: Psalm 62:8; Jeremiah 17:7 – Without completely putting our trust in God and letting Him take control, we get in the way of God’s greater plan for my life and how He wants to use us and our stories to bring glory to His name.
God led me to a lot more Scriptures too, but He also took me to a place of letting go and laying these emotions and feelings at the foot of the cross so that I could experience even more of the freedom that He has for me. I experienced a level of intimacy in my relationship with God throughout these couple days of fasting that I have never experienced before. I am no longer burdened or chained from my past because God has rescued me and set me free!
