The Deep Work of 2015: Part 3

I trust the Lord. I trust Him a thousand times more than I trust myself or any other human being. I trust Him with my life, with my heart, with my soul. He is utterly trustworthy. I don’t know if you know how comforting it is to have something to place your trust in that NEVER fails you; never falters, never messes up, never does wrong...NEVER. The Lord does not crumble beneath my full trust, and there is nothing else in all the world that can achieve that. 

If He tells me to do something, I do it. It doesn’t matter if I know what I’m doing, I know Him...and He DOES know. I would be perfectly content to live my entire life directed daily by the Lord. It’s safe to follow His direct guidance.

But I don’t get to live there...and that’s not a bad thing. 

After the seasons of self-confrontation and complete surrender comes seasons of newfound freedom and flourishing. I said (in part 1 of this string) that I am face-to-face with freedom that I have never known, I wanted to expand on that a little bit.

I have found that there are stages to growing in faith. After I surrender my life to him in various matters, there follows a process of what scripture would probably refer to as “crucifying the flesh.” During this stage of growing, I am directed entirely by the Lord. And then comes the next stage that always takes me awhile to realize I have entered: the Lord is silent and I have to trust that the work He did in me is real, and I have to exercise my newfound faith to move forward in my life.

This verse best describes what I mean: 

Psalm 83:11 “He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights.”

The feet of a deer are secure, allowing them to scale the sides of mountains and cliffs, effortlessly and fearlessly moving between valleys and heights. 

When I hit this stage, it’s like God whispers to me, “It’s your turn. I did a good work in you, you are not the same as you were when we started this journey. I have made your feet like the deer’s...Walk. Leap. Run. It’s your turn to make the decisions. Trust My work. I am with you.”

And at this moment, I am looking down at my new feet. I am marveling at my peace. I am delighting in my security in the Father...and I am trusting Him enough to stand and walk in the newfound freedom He has given me.

Yesterday I made a decision about my medication: I felt no fear or need for control. I felt only peace and complete trust in the Father who loves me into such beautiful freedom. And I think I can honestly say that in 15 years, I have never made a decision regarding my health from this position. 

His work is deep. His work is lasting. His work is worthy of praise. Praise Him with me, will you?

The Deep Work of 2015: Part 2

I’ve told you before that I am fearful by nature. And because I am also an intensely emotional creature, that can be an overwhelming and overpowering thing. Over the years, I have (apart from Jesus) found self-preserving ways to work with this part of me; as my fear level goes up, my need for control follows. (This does not lead to freedom from my fear, it simply binds me to it.) 

As a result, when I (united with Jesus) surrender something to the Lord, it has to be accompanied by a laying down of all my weapons, a forfeiting of all my rights to make decisions, and permission to break down my self-made protective walls. When I surrender to the Lord, I give Him control and I am utterly exposed--confronted with every fear and every weakness; I steady my eyes on Him (and yes, freak out at Him) until it loses its power over me in the presence of the One whose perfect love casts out fear. The casting part, that part is really hard; I have to see the fear and feel the fear and let the fear hit me with all its force so that the Lord can prove to me that He is greater than it is. I have spent hours in prayer that have consisted almost entirely of weeping.

This process from bondage to freedom can take years. But the beauty is, that if we stick out the surrender for as long as it takes, the freedom that follows is permanent because God is thorough and He uproots/heals/conquers the source. Transforming and renewing in entirety, He makes us new.

That being said, fear surrounding my health has lost its power over me. Hope for wellness does not depend on doctors or medicine or answers or fixes or MYSELF...my hope is the Lord. And yes, the Lord uses doctors and medicine and fixes and even myself sometimes, but the success or failure of any of these things doesn’t get to dictate my life or my health or my ability to heal; God does.

And do you want to know something beautiful? When fear creeps its ugly head into my thoughts these days, I don’t even WANT control...I only want Jesus.

The Deep Work of 2015: Part 1

It was a deep work, friends.

The work He has done in me over the last year, it is so deep that the weightiness of it just hit me the other evening like a ton of bricks.

I feel like a new believer. Seriously, the only other time I have felt like I do at this moment is a year or 2 after I gave my life to Jesus, having experienced the heart and life renovation that followed, I found myself standing face-to-face with freedom I had never known. The depth of that identity shifting work matches what I feel right now. 

It’s a deep work; the purifying and establishing of identity in the face of deep and lengthy patterns of belief and circumstance. Identity travels through the heart and soul and mind of a person; it defines them, it is foundational, it is the determining factor of mindset and belief, it flows through every cell of the body and permeates every single thought and step. 

Do you know who you are?

Because I am still discovering who I am in Christ; the Lord is faithfully purifying my understanding of my identity. And it’s a deep work.

2015 was a hard year. I describe it as excruciatingly painful and overwhelmingly glorious. While that may seem like an odd combination, I think it is to be expected when traveling into the depth of the pit hand-in-hand with Jesus. Psalms speaks of deep crying out to deep, and I have found in my life that in the deepest places when I have cried out to the Lord, He has shown me greater things than I have ever seen or known in the heights. 

So I went there with Him. We traveled into some of the deepest pain I have experienced; unraveling web after web of lies. We disassembled thick walls I had built up around some of the most vulnerable places inside of me to protect myself; heavy stone after heavy stone until my back ached and my hands bled. We shook off the shackles of fear; chain after chain grating across my heart and mind until they were so raw I wondered if I would make it out in one piece. And we did it all as my physical body crumbled around me, fighting my every move.

But then, I felt the pleasure of watching the webs burn and the stones pulverize and the chains disintegrate. And I find myself once again standing face-to-face with freedom I have never known.

It was a deep work, friends.

But it was worth it, because as I write this, I know who I am:

I am no longer “sick,”

I am “loved.”