The Hills Roll On

When I get really restless and everything in the house seems so disorderly and annoying it’s usually just as much if not more true within me. That restless lack of peace in my soul (my mind, emotions and will) [and the characteristic great lengths my 'old sinful nature' goes to to provide self-driven temporary false peace...aka, eating for non-nutritional reasons, spending an inordinate amount of time on the internet, spending sprees, etc..you know what I'm talkin' about!]

..well, those 2 things (the lack of soul-peace and the self-driven measures to create false peace) just serve to indicate that there’s something deeper within that needs God’s loving touch. The big question (the HARD question) to ask myself when I recognize I’m either A) sensing the lack of peace in my soul or B) have already proceeded to self-driven temporary false peace measures (as listed above!), is “God, what’s REALLY going on? aka: What led to the lack of peace in the first place? Now when I start to ask THAT question, the enemy is HIGHLY threatened..because now I’m not playing into his scheme (self-driven temporary false peace measures that become addictive idols in my heart). Now, I’m turning in faith to God, trusting Him to point out the TRUTH. That’s when I really have to apply my will. It’s the last thing in the world I feel like doing, but we don’t “live by feelings”! No! For, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.I” Galatians 2:20 NIV. I like how The Message version puts it, “I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.” (Galatians 2:19-22 MSG). When I choose to ask Him in humble prayer, “what is it that’s bringing this lack of peace in me, God?, He shows me! And every EVERY single time, it comes down to one thing: FEAR. Hebrews 2:14-15 points this out, “Since the children have flesh and blood, He [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” (my emphasis). Fear of physical death? Yes, and more. See, death is not annihilation, but rather, separation. In physical death, you are separated from your body. In spiritual death, you is separated from God. On earth every human being is born separated from God as a result of sin. Every breath is another chance to be “born again”; to come spiritually alive (reunited!) with your Maker. But our stubborn pride and a very real spiritual enemy keeps us from receiving His gracious gift of forgiveness through the Cross. Thus, they remain locked in fear of death. It isn’t annihilation they fear deep down; it’s separation from God. A born again Christian has total peace (life, union, and reconciliation) in their spirit with the Living God. Not because of their “good deeds”, but because of His Amazing Grace demonstrated in Jesus Christ! But why does the Christian still succumb to fear (sometimes overpowering, choking, panic-attack level fear)? Do we fear separation from God? Sometimes, especially when we aren’t secure in the FACT of Jesus’ atoning death, glorious resurrection and imminent return. But, that is not fear on the spirit level, that is in the realm of the soul. We aren’t just random collections of chemicals, but rather human beings created in the image of God, we have been bestowed with the gift of body, soul and spirit. Our soul (mind, will and emotions) is where we get all “out of peace” but our soul can get all wacked out when we choose to walk in the lies of the enemy (eg: “That sin was so huge that God will never forgive you! You’re not really a Christian! You’re a joke!). Deep deep down we fear emotional death (pain, torment, abandonment, etc), mental death (losing the desperate right to think the way we wanna think; refusing to submit to God’s truth), etc. Once this fear is exposed, the deepest question of all remains, “Why Lord? Why am I fearing such and such?” If you ask Him in humility, He’ll show you. That the fear is resident in a lie (a curse on our core identity). Classic example from my own life: I’m standing at the bus stop and a man smiles at me. But I don’t feel like it was a friendly smile, no, rather it feels like a “I’m undressing you with my eyes” kinda lustful smile.” I turn away and feel yukky, infuriated, sick, and ashamed all at once. But whaddya gonna do? So I try to just shake it off, go home and forget all about it. But 2 hours later, I’ve consumed 3 peices of chocolate cake with icecream, a bag of chips and am debating ordering pizza. When I start to get so full I feel ill, I stop and sigh, ashamed at my gluttony; and the spiral of self-hating thoughts is already in full gear. But then, by the grace of God, I pause long enough to whisper a prayer, “God, why did I do this to myself?” And I remember the guy at the bus stop. I don’t want to think about it so I pretend that memory didn’t come immediately to the surface. I pray again and it comes again. So I think about it and tell God, “You know, when that happened, it really bothered me.”….pause….”I, I felt, so used. Like an object. I felt violated and angry and so vulnerable. I felt so alone…” Then I start to cry a bit, because all those feelings are really intense and there’s no point in denying that I feel really big feelings and keeping them inside just makes them worse. After a cry I choose to forgive the man for looking at me like that. Then I ask God, “Why do I always seem to feel that way around men? I don’t want to always be so suspicious, so on guard? What is it Lord?” And He shows me that I’ve got a deeper fear I haven’t let Him touch yet. A fear of being a non-person (just a sex object, a body to be used, not a person with feelings, value and worth)…a fear of being emotionally, mentally and physically wounded–> fear of death on every level. “Where does that come from Lord?” And He shows me the wound in my soul that was filled with the lies of the enemy a long time ago…that there was a time in the past when someone who was supposed to be a channel of God’s truth to me, instead, unwittingly became a channel of the devil’s lies. Instead of my core identity being rooted in truth, my core identity became infested with lies. The lie? “You aren’t a real person, you’re just a less-than, just a “woman”, you aren’t worthy of respect, no one cares about how you really feel, who you really are! And you can’t trust men because they’re all going to just use you and leave you, so you might as well give up hope now and rely on yourself because you’re all alone and nobody really gives a shit about you.” I remember a painful incident when the lie first came in my soul…and I feel the full impact of it for the first time in a long time. I cry harder this time and tell God how it made me feel when such and such did so and so…I ask God to forgive me for believing the lies about myself, and release the offender into the fullness of forgiveness based on the Cross. Now I’m ready to receive the TRUTH! The lie is OUT, and I need to hear from my Heavenly Father the TRUTH of who I am? I ask Him, “Lord, when that happened way back then, what was the Truth? What did YOU want to tell me then? Please, tell me now.” And He does!

I wait and listen quietly and He speaks to me (maybe in words, maybe in a picture in my mind… but He speaks, and I am blown away by His Love!). In that moment, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Glorious Trinity speak to me saying, “Tara, I made you. Your parents were the channel, but I am the Source. I am the Source of your true identity. You are my beloved daughter and I paid the highest price to bring you back into relationship with Me. You are Mine and you are made in My Image. Dignified, beautiful, full of wonder and surprises; you are the only you and I have and always will love you.” Mmmmmmm…living out the reality of 1 John 4:18, ‘Perfect Love drives out all fear’. When I hear the Loving Truth in my core, I am secure. Secure in who I am and Whose I am. So the next time someone looks at me with lust in their eyes, I turn to my Sweet Lord and smile, because He rooted out the lie and I am free from fear. My identity doesn’t rest anymore on what other people or the devil himself may or may not think of me….I am my Beloved’s and He is mine. Yay!!!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Glimpses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.