Throughout the Old Testament God destroys nations, bringing judgment, panic and His wrath. Some people read about these events and view God as a scary, careless dictator. But in fact He is the exact opposite. He cared so much for these nations that He didn’t want them to live in sin and suffering any longer. He gave them a chance to repent from their evil, self-destructive ways but when they didn’t He brought ruin. Ezekiel 18:30-32 “Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all offenses you have committed and get a new heart and a new spirit. For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” Destruction was His way of proving His existence; He had reasoning for it. I just finished reading through Ezekiel and I underlined every time God declared “then they will know that I am God”. This statement is full of hope and promise. It shows the true intention of God. In the book of Ezekiel, it repeats this statement 54 times!!! If God repeats himself this many times it must be important right? He wasn’t bringing destruction just for fun. He was doing it to bring kingdom, to make Himself known. Just as God had purpose in this kind of destruction, He has purpose for all of our hardships and heartaches too! God knows His kids and how to reach us, even in the darkest of places.
I’ve been learning a lot about false identities and realizing lies that I’ve been holding onto. Things I have let define me, past hurts and scars that I have given authority in my life. God is revealing these things to me so that I can shed off the false identities and start walking in the true identity of being God’s child.
One of those false identities I’ve carried for a long time is a broken family. My parents got divorced when I was 7 years old. I held onto a lot of bitterness towards my dad. I didn’t want a relationship with him, I decided to believe lies and hold them against him. My relationship with my mom hasn’t been the smoothest ride either. My family has had a lot of brokenness, fighting, lies, emotional abuse, and hurt that I have clung to. It’s been a part of my testimony for so long that its almost scary to let go of, scary to let God reconcile those relationships and bring healing. But God told me that He wants to redeem and redefine family for me.
God is destroying lies and hurts in me so that He can reveal Himself to me. He is doing a deep cleaning of my heart, its painful but I know His intentions in it. You have to deconstruct before you can rebuild. He loves me so much that He will walk through this painful time with me. He has reasoning for this destruction.
This is just one example of something I believed about myself that God doesn’t want me to sit in. I don’t have to settle for having a broken family. I don’t have to fear how I will raise my family, feeling that history will repeat itself. Just because it was my past doesn’t mean it has to be my future; it does not define me.
If I change my heart posture for God to do His work then I can walk in victory. So Im challenging you, no matter how confident in your identity you are, what are you still holding onto about yourself that isn’t truth? What are you still grasping to, for attention, sympathy or maybe just out of habit? Lay it at the Lords feet. Let Him take the burden.
He wants to restore you, have compassion on you and be zealous for His name. (Ezekiel 39:25)
