While sat in a proper gorgeous bar, as I look around taking it all in, I see that all the beauty of the greenery, colour and lights… is all fake!
The great thing about fake is that there is no maintenance! Fake flowers need no care- no watering, no time, no effort, no mess or dirt.. But there is also no growth, no change, no life..
For a bar, this is okay. For ourselves, this is not okay.
Let us never desire the fake over the messy, hard-work of real life and truth.
In a world full of fake everything- from news to faces, to friendships.. please let us not desire the plastic road of empty.
Let us be investors- of ourselves, each other, and the future ones to come.
Each New Year I ask God for a word to have for the coming 12 months and it is so interesting that as I look back, the words that I’ve had have been the exact opposite in what has either been ‘manifested’ or even come anywhere close to the word. I’m not sure if this is pure attack, or if the word has produced but in a different format to what I expected, or if it is even deeper still and was just given in seed form in the at year that will produce over different time periods..
This year (and we’re only 4 days in at the time of writing this!), my ‘word’ has almost tormented me and kept me awake at night and it has been SO crazily difficult to fix my mind and position to align with God.
As I’m trying to organise my thoughts, I find it interesting to think that as soon as we move into an assertive stance or position to grow or expand, the resistance increases massively! When our intention is set then it seems that everything within us goes into revolt and wants to then start taking away the little ground that we had!
To engage in growth we must be so aware that we have a real enemy that is against us- the devil and all his demons- as well as our own flesh and comfort zone (or even pain zone- whatever is most usual and accepted as our normal). When we go from passive to assertive, we will always find that the path of least resistance is trying to lead us right back to where we are trying to move on from!
Let us not become discouraged or fatigued as we move forward and let us fix our eyes on the goal. If things don’t look like what we expected then that’s fine- as long as we are investing our all into what we believe we need to be doing, everything else is out of our control.
If we personally value truth and honesty, we don’t want to have lies as part of our relationships, situations or any part of our lives. But when we ask God to reveal and expose the lies in our lives- of ourselves and of those around us- it is amazing how painful and heart wrenching it can be.
I have recently come out of a situation where I didn’t know what was truth and what wasn’t and after so much pleading and seeking God about it all, when I was actually shown (and continue to be shown), it is so deeply painful that I have to make sure that I stay so close to God who is the only One able to counsel my heart that deeply.
This has shown me how staying ‘in the dark’ and ignorance can actually be more comfortable than knowing the truth, which says a lot considering how much pain the insecurity of not knowing truth can cause to the mind, spirit, soul and relationships.
During this process it has been so painful and emotions such as anger, resentment, pure guttedness, brokenness etc have got to be worked through so that they don’t stick around in my heart. The process to build is so much longer and energy consuming than the act of destroying. It takes only moments to trash a room but so much longer and more effort to get it back right again. And this is even more so with a human heart and spirit.
But one thing that I am grateful for is that God is with us and faithful and true and He would prefer me to go through this pain into freedom and value, rather than stay in a place that is confusing, upsetting, mentally all over the place and just slowly heart tearing. I love that He is unafraid of emotion and pain, and is with us through it all to bring us into freedom and truth more and more. He does not want us to settle for mental mind games and pain, or compromise value. He absolutely values each and every one of us and wants us to be fully unbound.
So I would really love to encourage you that if you desire truth, please do not go back to the comfort of deception when it gets painful and hard going. Keep moving towards full truth where you will find full value. To be healed is a painful process but one that we have a personal responsibility to take. If we don’t and we ignore symptoms of deception, then we will not only stay in low (or high) level pain, but we won’t be able to pave the way for those coming our way and who need help and guidance.
There is a song line that says “if you tolerate this, then your children will be next”. And this is so true. Let us take full responsibility to cut off everything that ties us so that we won’t end up being bound and impact for the worse whoever the ‘children’ are that we are raising.
It is interesting how the enemy will come and take childhoods with abuse and neglect that causes such a loss of innocence and childhood, creating the child to have to grow up before their time.
This then creates grown-up children but does not provide maturity. Maturity will come through healthy process of time and development- not from being thrown into an adult or abusive situation that they should be protected from.
The devil wants to steal, kill and destroy. He is not “a cheeky one- trying to get us into trouble”; he wants to literally kill us and twist us so bad that we are destroyed and destructive. This means that the intention is not only to twist the development and steal the innocence of childhoods, but also then impact the ability to be mature grown-ups- therefore stealing the adulthood of maturity by grown-up children now using adulthood to have their childhood (a whole lot of twists and perversions), only now this can impact negatively on those around them as ‘others’ then become the adults for the grown up children, causing dysfunction in friendships and relationships.
The devil desires to twist and pervert every bit of order that God has created- there is nothing that he won’t try and grow earlier than its time, or hinder and try and abort when it is due.. Let is not be naive that the enemy of our souls is very real and active. He is not all-powerful, but he has all the power that we hand over (knowingly or not knowingly) to him, and will definitely take all power and authority that we do not take up ourselves.
Stay alert. Be brave. And let us allow God to make not only our paths straight, but every perversion that has been twisted in our hearts, minds, lives, relationships..
A lot of us will say “I’ll try to do that” and it kind of gives us a sense of possible expected failure or get out clause to the commitment of completion or arrangement.
However, if we are to change “try” for “learn” then this gives a totally different opportunity- to give ourselves permission to grow into something new and not set out expecting that it will not actually happen.
Esther, and the Hebrew boys in the book of Daniel were very clear in their conviction and position that God is the One that they worship over any other and that He is the One to fear beyond any man. This conviction brought them to a place where it meant that their action, or inaction meant that they could perish or were put to death by fire.
This shows us incredible examples of what a life laid down unto death looks like. And this is inspiring and what we would desire (as followers of Christ).
But how about the small decisions in life. How about instead of desiring the bigger gestures, that we begin where we are..
I have been thinking that maybe our resolve may not look like “even if I perish..”, but it could look like “even if… I look like a fool.. I will contend for the promise that God has given me”, or “even if… this person does not get healed right here and now, I will pray for them with faith that God is Jehovah Rapha- the One who heals”, it may look like “even if… I am rejected, I will share with those I love that Jesus is their Creator God who loves them”.
We are sometimes fooled into thinking that it is the big gestures that are fancy and meaningful, but actually it is the small and consistent choices that build a whole person and speak louder.
Perhaps we can die for Jesus, but can we die daily for Him? Can we take the small risks of faith that make up steps towards a greater understanding of who He is?
This is the challenge of a life of faith in Jesus Christ; do we believe in Him fully, and will we take risks “even if…”?
Let us not be people who think, “what if… He doesn’t show, I have it wrong, they may hate me, I may look like a total nutcase…” and be people who speak that “even if……”.
Let us take the small risks/opportunities/decisions that builds a big faith.
Esther didn’t perish at the sword of the king but ended up seeing a total 180 degree turn of events. The Hebrew boys were put in the fire but came out of it! Unharmed and with their king seeing that there was another One with them! This also caused a 180 degree turn around!
Whether we perish or not, or look like fools or not, let us live for the Audience of One.
I am sensitive about people being projects, but I have found that there is a little bit of tension with this when there’s prophetic vision and prayer that God gives about another.
When we have this, people are still not projects to be disappointed in when they are not ‘performing better’ or showing growth, but they are ones who we need to pray for and take hold of the prophetic to declare in prayer who this person is and what God has for them.
The shift is then taken from the person and their behaviour (project-style), to agreeing with God and declaring what He has said- no matter what we see or feel or experience in the natural.
The first snow has been and blessed us with a beautiful display of fresh, clean covering over the dying autumn leaves. But while I was walking, I noticed cobwebs on the traffic lights that were hung and gathered which I’d not been able to see before. This caused me to remember that when God’s Word tells us that He will make us white as snow, this could cause things that has previously gone unnoticed and unseen, to be exposed.
We need to ensure that we are not discouraged when what has previously been unknown/unseen to us, starts to show up. This is stuff that we need to deal with so that we can start getting rid of stuff that no longer or has never served us. There will always be things that we need to learn and unlearn so it could seem discouraging, but this is all part of growing. So don’t give up learning (and unlearning) and allow exposure in your life and heart to know the truth of the what’s really there..
John 3v19-21: 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
After pain and turmoil in life, we need to ensure that we heal healthily. Most of us will have found that healing is sometimes as painful (if not more) as the actual ‘beating’.
As a follower of Christ I believe in healing and that God is able to heal with immediate effect and we have loads of examples of this in the Bible and from people’s testimonies. I do believe that God can heal inner pain just like that, but I believe more that He takes us through our healing so that we can deal with issues that need to be dealt with to receive and know healing in the most powerful way.
This therefore needs our involvement and our commitment to the process; a process that is painful and difficult. It seems unfair that we have to go through the dark loneliness but I don’t believe that God would ever allow anything that He is not able to bring us into full freedom and full healing.
But we are given an opportunity of whether we want to partner with Him or not. Both will have a painful cost- but one will come with reward and benefit and the other won’t.
In the western culture we seem to be potted in all these single pots which stunts and limits growth and connection.
And if we as people are like this, then what we are building will also have this culture, which includes the church. We can see this in most towns and cities- each church is potted and has its own pot with its own roots and disconnection.
But this isn’t how we have been designed- as people, as church, as community. We were designed to grow and be connected and be strong and have roots that are not shallow and limited but intertwined and deep.
If we see the difference between planted and potted plants, there is such a difference in strength, stature, connection and benefit. And yet as humans (in the west) we seem to desire to stay potted and disconnected and therefore fall short of so many benefits of life and growth.
We want the easy maintenance than the harder work. But in actual fact, when we grow wild and free we are less bothered with perfection and more able to enjoy beauty of life’s fullness.
We can also see that when we are planted then we can grow naturally rather than in containment and confinement. We will reproduce without even the intention as that is the design, whereas in pots, seeds drop and are blown away or taken and potted elsewhere in other pots..
This is so parallel to how we live and we think that we are advancing, whereas we have so much mental health pain, isolation, stunted growth in lives, relationship brokenness, etc..
Let’s take ourselves from the picture perfect pottedness and get ourselves planted in the wide open spaces. Let us live larger and beyond ourselves and interconnect our roots with others so that we can become stronger together.
ponderments 