Misconceptions

I believe that God has a unique relationship with each person.  WOW!  Isn't that a thought!!  HE speaks to each one of us in a special way....either by circumstances, worship, songs, spoken words from others or maybe through a book that we start to read.  We may be drawn to the title because of the particular life situation we find ourselves in.  God is currently speaking to me through the book I'm reading....to get me to think differently about HIM and my view of the world.

So...the book is entitled Wait and See by Wendy Pope.  It's about God's purpose for our waiting and waiting well as a woman of God.  I'm not so sure I fit the "woman of God" category but the waiting part certainly fits.

Here's the thing that slapped me in the face this morning...."misconceptions about waiting".  I didn't think that there could be so many lies about waiting that the enemy would throw at me, but there are.  And the way that he uses those lies to lead you away from the Person of my faith and get my eyes to focus intensely on the "OBJECT of my wait".  I've sinned....plain and simple.  I've let the enemy pull me away from God and look daily on what I don't have, what's NOT happening.

Misconception #1  If I am waiting, I must not have heard God correctly.
"We give up too easily because we don't see what we want to see when we want to see it."  I need to fight my negative thoughts and emotions along this journey by revisiting the times when I've heard and felt the Holy Spirit's voice or nudging.  Traveling down memory lane is something that I need to do, as well as asking God for clarity and assurance.

I think the part that hit me the hardest was when she suggested that it's important to "invite God into our wait from the beginning".  I know that I haven't done that.  I've tried so many things on my own and nothing has worked.    That walking with Him, not in front of Him, behind Him or completely on my own, hopefully will teach me to TRUST His delays rather than doubt His ways.  I NEVER thought about TRUSTING His delay.

Fighting the spirit of discouragement on my knees, referencing Isaiah 64:4 -
"For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither have the eye seen, O God, beside you, what He has PREPARED for him that wait for Him."
The invitation of this verse is to direct the lens of my hopes, desires, and dreams to God, rather than the object of my wait.

I'm learning Lord.  You are a patient teacher, one that doesn't mind reteaching and using all kinds of methods of repeating the same concept until my stubborn will and brain get it.  I am sorry....for my stubbornness, my lack of trust, my lack of prayer and turning to You, but mostly I'm sorry for hurting someone that I dearly love in the process.

Prayer:  Gracious God, Thank you for this book.  I haven't heard you say anything about this circumstance but "just keep loving him".  I know that's the place of peace because those instructions came from YOU.  All the other things that I thought I heard were words from the enemy, working diligently to get me to focus on my fears and my present wait.  Help me God to TRUST Your delay, not doubt what You are doing.  Force me down on my knees to pray instead of worry.  Nudge me OFTEN to go down memory lane where the memories are sweet and bring joy and love to my soul.  I ask for your forgiveness and grace, Lord.  Give me another chance.  In His name I come to your throne of mercy.  Jesus.... Amen.  

Words

As I pen these words, I first ask the Holy Spirit to guide my fingers as they tiptoe over the keys.  I want God to speak through and in my words.  You see, words, I've been told, are containers of power, either for life or for death.  But what I didn't realize is that words can be part of the way that we think about relationships, either being one that's life-giving or one that produces fear, shame and unpredictability.  I've also learned that love, communicated through words isn't predictable. It's UNpredictable.  At least, that's the way it was. Something said one day, was good just for that day or only that moment.  I learned quickly that words and their meanings were temporary, as was the moment they were spoken.  Furthermore, the person that spoke the words was also unpredictable, because the same words spoken another day could mean, and many times DID mean something different.  My memory, instead of being a friend I relied on, became an enemy, because when I went back to it, I was told, "You heard that wrong" or "I never said that". that I was confused.  It even got to the point that I couldn't even believe myself.  

The power of words to communicate love, feelings, ideas, emotions:  to help one person to connect to another was altered/damaged, and so was the soul that lived by those words. Then I took that relationship that I had with the unpredictability of words into my adult life and used it as a the filter for which future relationships was based.  

Now I'm involved with a man that really LOVES and what he says is what he means, and what he means is what he says.  He loves with his faithfulness, his consistency, his integrity, his words and actions being the same every day, believing in the couple that we have come to be.  Then there's me who doesn't know how to believe that LOVE could stay like that over the course of days, months or years, because it never has been REAL love like this before.   

What's more is that the soul that is damaged, can't see the WORD of God as being one that is predictable or alive FOR me, because it's SO much out of the sphere of what I've always experienced "normal" to be.  

So, God is teaching me about words.  Words ARE containers of power....either for love or fear, giving life or producing fear.  He is teaching me that the world that I grew up in needs to be healed by His Spirit...to transform the relationship that I have with words.    

Prayer:  Lord, I desperately want to believe in YOUR WORD, the Word of LOVE from you and from others.  Teach me, show me, reveal to me what words are real and what words I should discard.  Transform my hearing, my thinking, my damaged soul so that I can believe in words spoken out of love, that they won't be taken from me.  Help me to believe in LOVE, in BEING LOVED, not always afraid that love will be taken away at a moment's notice without warning or provocation. Teach me Lord that YOU love me and that He loves me too.  Help my unbelief.  In Jesus' healing blood I pray.....