Before I tell you the truth I want to help you understand where this post is coming from. Today I am home sick because on our way back from our family trip to Omaha, NE my body decided it didn’t want to keep any food down. I am home while my family is attending church because my husband insisted that I rest. However as I sit here in bed I am reflecting on the past few months and what truths have come from them. But sadly the lies of what I have heard the past three months are where I need to start. Lies for some reason can so quickly translate into truths in our minds. After you repeat them, dwell on them and allow them deep into your inner most thoughts. Last fall/beginning of winter I was talking with God and had come to a place of desiring to know Him more. More than I had ever before. Knowing that God is more vast than I will ever be able to comprehend this side of heaven I desire to have more of Him, to understand more of who He is and what He is all about. Realizing first thing I must do to start this season of knowing Him more is I had to make sure I put off hidden sins or as I would say sins I had made into everyday activity. I wanted God to reveal to me any sin that I had made ok for me to do. Sin that I didn’t realize was sin because my flesh had hidden it in too deep for me to recognize it unless I ask the Holy Spirit to work and reveal it to me. And let me tell you God is in the business of answering prayers. When you pray in alighnment with Him He will answer.
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
1 John 5:14 NIV
God answered me and convicted me of being a lier! I couldn’t believe it. I mean that is a 10 commandments law.
““ ‘Do not steal. “ ‘Do not lie. “ ‘Do not deceive one another.”
Leviticus 19:11 NIV
Ouch!!!! My next question to God was...how am I a lier? He gently replied “Randi, when your husband asks you how you are and you reply “I’m good”, when you are not....that is a lie.” Wow, ok this is truth. I had already agreed to do what was needed before I asked God my question. Meaning I was going to repent and move toward seeking truth. So I had to STOP lying. You may be shoked when I tell you what happens next. Well when I decided to stop lying to my husband this brought to the surface a lot of STUFF that I had been hiding for years and years and years. I have a huge fear of rejection, a fear that if I truly was honest with my husband about what went on in my mind he would no longer love me. Now I had to tell him what was wrong. So our relationship was based on these lies. Me covering up all the innermost hurts and fears. I grew up being told to suck it up and be strong. So if I cried or showed any signs or emotions I felt were weak then I am a failure. Through this season of seeking truth I have found that crying, revealing the innermost fears and trials is one of the strongest things I’ve ever done. And it has only provided to make me stronger still. This misconception that showing who we are in regards to our fears, weaknesses, sins, heartaches, trials and temptations makes us horrible humans or failures is simply not truth!
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV
When we are able to share, give to the body of Christ ourselves in our truest form that is when God is delighted. Allow the body of Christ to do what it was designed to do. I went through a month of deep depression. Depression runs in my biological make up. I have immediate family members who are on medication for depression, anxiety, for being bipolar and schizophrenic . Since high school I have delt with rage that would come and go like a flip of a switch. Mood swings and fits of rage are not fun especially when you are too proud to ask for help. It has only taken me a decade to realize I must ask for help to overcome these physical/mental struggles. I had to decide for myself to set an appointment to see a doctor. And I had to decide for myself to seek help from a therapist. My story (testimony) started a lot longer before I started to realize the depression inside of me. My little girl self always knew my parents struggled to keep their marriage together. When my dad unexpectedly left my mom one summer day when I was not quite a teen yet my world was rocked. Looking back now that started a journey of finding my true identity. All of our identities are found in Christ alone.
“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
John 14:20 NIV
The truth is God! Truth is found in Him, through His son Jesus and lived daily with the Holy Spirit. Now on this journey of finding the actual truth of who God is has been so refreshing to me. The
worries and angst of how I should be has fluttered away. I can rest. Rest in the facts, God is good. He does not require us to be anything but believers. When we come to a true knowledge of Him and desire to live in truth we are set free from it all. Now don’t get me wrong I struggle. But I know have the knowledge that the struggle is where growth happens. And as I allow God to work and move and mold me I am simply allowing Him to take control and taking the heavy burdens that this world offers and giving Him the leading role. I am to sit still. Listen to His gentle voice and seek Him as I take every single breath as a gift to glorify Him in whatever He gives me to use. I pray blessings over you as you have read what’s happening with me. I pray you seek the Lord today like you never have before and rest in the knowledge that He is all you need.
“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ”
Philippians 3:8 NIV
