new year’s resistance

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.

our responsibility in our own healing

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.

how others treat you is not who you are

All of us have relationships and some are not as healthy as others. Some are an obvious unhealthy form and others are a subtle form that is harder to see. But whether they are obvious or not, if they are unhealthy, they will eat away at our value and worth and make us feel worthless, nasty, unlovable, like a freak, ashamed of, undeserving…

Our feelings are important but they are not the truth. But if the environment keeps us enclosed in lies then we will struggle to know how to fight for truth, or even know it exists differently from what we believe.

This could be from any relationship- from a family member to a colleague, friend or partner. But how we are treated by others is who they are. It is not who we are. This is intel about who they are and what they know about relationships and behaviour. And then it gets transferred onto others in their proximity. Unfortunately, with these relationships, or after them, it is others who will then have to deal with these feelings and decide what we am going to believe- the lies of the spirits that had a seat around the table of that relationship, or something more.

How others treat me is not who I am.

How I feel about myself is not who I am.

But how do I know I’m not what they say when all I have is “evidence” of it?

As a believer in Jesus Christ, I am not without inner pain and turmoil. It’s just that God is with me in it. Even when it doesn’t feel like He is.

How we get to know our true value and worth is spending time with the One who loves us and created us. He is the One who knows our design- for purpose and for pleasure.  

No-one can give us our identity like God. He speaks through His word, His creation and not only speaks but demonstrated His love for us by taking all our sin and pain to the cross and dying in our place. He understands all of our pain and wickedness and loves us and wants to heal us into wholeness. His love for us gives Him the authority to speak to us about who He says we are.

He calls us daughter or son. His daughter or son. This is the highest position of identity we could have. And as our Father, He knows who we are. He is not a sugar daddy who will throw money at us but has no interest in our well-being. He is interested in every detail of our heart and life and able to take care of us and make us strong and soft in a world that is weak and hard. He disciplines those He loves and has invested all of Himself for us.

Find out what He says about you and hold to that. This will need to be fought for as we live in a world where even culture will tell us we’re not good enough as who we are..

Let’s find our healing and push against the onslaught of false and poisonous identities that are trying to impose themselves on us.

If we can be who we truly are, then we will be able to bring healing to not only others but also have the authority to speak life to others.