I have never had a blog come together quite the way this one has. It is an interactive blog – you have a part to play. It has been a series of conversations, readings, music, life events that happened, for the most part, in one day. I felt I was a spectator in a movie studio, and as I turned in one spot, every turn took me to another part of the picture. I am fully aware that I DID NOT put this blog together, this is a divinely inspired blog. I have cried through parts of it, I have prayed through parts of it and I have been made to realize – this blog is for everyone, ME included!
I heard the song mentioned in the picture at the top of this page and was blown away, I have put the link to the song at the end of this blog. I was literally stunned because I had just delivered a message from God to someone about this very subject not even 20 minutes before. God had given me a “word” for someone while I was washing dishes. I had no idea God was doing a repeat message to this person. It was almost word for word, I was dumbfounded.
Those are interesting times when you get repeated messages from God and we should start to pray asking God what do those messages mean? Yet, we can still miss the whole point completely.
How is it possible that can we miss these pointed things God says? Well I think thoughts of our own self-talk do not help us in the process, usually the things we heard as a child or at school comes to mind: Oh you are so…..stupid, dense, weak, thick or stubborn. Oh, my friends, it is not any of those, those labels are not from God.
Did you know that your past points to your future?
The exact areas you struggled in, the exact areas that hurt you, the areas you would never want to talk about or that you spent hundreds of dollars on getting counselling for, those things, those too private things – those are your future. Sorry if you did not know this.
The reason some of us stand in the shallow waters of our faith, even though we have said and thought – “I am all in for God,” is because of pain and fear and might I add “paralysis.”
Those events that shaped you, some of them traumatized you, some of them were so painful you cannot or will not talk about them. It does not even have to be something “huge”, it can be a label someone spoke over you – “stupid, dumb, no good for nothing…” especially if it was someone in authority over you.
In your head when you read this you have made a comment or something inside of your mind that will either affirm this to be true or you promised yourself that no one will ever hear about those “things”! That last one is a vow, a legal binding agreement you make with yourself. A vow and binding (as in chains) is so strong that it cannot be broken unless you yourself break it off.
Many of us are standing in the shallow waters, walking back and forth on the beach, sometimes wading in to our knees. We yell out to the swimmers, “keep going, you can do it!” we are the cheerleaders, the encouragers. We feel like we are fully engaged because we are in the group, we are actively involved, we are talking to others… BUT…
We have not really noticed that we are not swimming. You would no more go swimming than enter an alligator pit! But you have not noticed this before, you are comfy on the beach, you are happy on the beach. If those waves get a little large …. You can retreat to the sand.
I would venture that you have not noticed that you were still standing in the shallow waters and with you are tons of others. You “feel” like you are fully engaged so when others talk about “being fully in with Jesus” you can competently put up your hand.
How can you know what swimming in the deep waters are, unless you have been in them?
We have stages in life: newborn, infants, toddlers, children, tweens, teens, young adults, adults, mature adults and then seniors.
We have stages in our Christian life too: newborn, infants, toddlers, children, tweens, teens, young adults, adults, mature adults and then seniors.
We have stages in our emotional life as well - same list.
Did you know that you can be a 65 year old senior with an emotional age of 12?
It is called emotional maturity.
You could be a 10 year old with an emotional age of 35.
Life teaches us all at different levels at different times with different things.
People who have been through a lot of trauma can often stay “stuck” emotionally on something that they have not processed or got counselling for.
For example: an adult person say 40-ish, can hold a job, have a family, but when this “adult” gets hurt or angry, their emotional response is right off of an elementary school playground, it seems so ‘childish’. It seems bizarre and you think to yourself: ‘What is wrong with them?’
Great question. They probably did have something emotionally wound them at an early age that they were never able to get past. I know my mom had a very difficult time ever understanding why her dad passed away when she was just a girl. It seemed to be with her all her life, she seemed stuck there. People who have suffered physical or emotional abuse or trauma can stay “stuck” at that age. So many things can “stunt” us emotionally. We continue to grow into adulthood, but our spirits or emotions may not have kept up. We often have no idea that this is us.
There are some of us who have gone to counselling for those wounds and once we have “finished” and healed, we close that door and think, “it’s done” - never to open that door again. I mean why would you?
These things my friends keep us trapped in the shallow waters. A preacher or teacher can say – ‘Come, get in, the water’s fine!’ But you have no idea of how to do that than if they had said to go paint the Mona Lisa.
Please do a self-check: are you swimming in deep water or are you standing on the shore? If you do not know and you are not sure, ask God or ask a safe person that you trust. If someone gave you this to read and said, “you should read it”…. Please check in with someone you trust.
Are you safe or free – there is a difference.
You can be “safely” on the beach or in the shallows but have simply taken on new chains, swapped out the old for the new ones. You are tied to the beach.
Here is the scary but the encouraging part: you will need to revisit those places that hurt you. I can feel the anger and fear rising up in you from here just thinking about that… BUT Please hear me out….
You are standing on the shore but now there is a difference, Jesus is standing there with you. He is holding your hand, He is walking with you back and forth in the water. He was with you in the past, and He is with you in the present and He will be with you in the future. He wants to free you 100%, break off every chain, every fetter that is holding you back.
He is asking you to trust Him. He is NOT asking you to trust those other people. He is asking you to trust Him.
Yes, He wants you to open some of those doors, the ones that hurt you, the ones that you survived, or are living in and He will bring you through. BUT when you open that door now, Jesus is standing in front of you, behind you, beside you, whatever is behind that door has to go through Jesus to get to you.
Picture it in your mind: door, Jesus, you.
You see Jesus reach out His hand to turn the knob, the door starts to open slowly, you feel the tension in your stomach and body as you peer over Jesus’ shoulder or around His arm to peek behind the door. You realize you are not breathing and then, you see them.
The line of people sitting on the floor behind the door, thousands of them, weeping, some past weeping, some gaunt with vacant looking eyes. These are the victims, the other victims of that “thing” that hurt you when you were younger, the thing that you never wanted to talk about or deal with. These are those who have not made it “out”, these are those with no hope.
Jesus stands to one side and invites you by the wave of His hand to go to those wounded, hurting souls. Should you? Could you? Can you? Taking a step through that door, bending down to offer your hand to one of those in the line and say, “I understand, I get it, I have been here, please come, I want you to meet the One who saved me, the One who can help you….” That my friends, that is chain breaking at it’s finest, it is the deep water!
It is true vulnerability, it is true truth in action, it is breaking down the lies satan wants us to hide behind, it is breaking the chains off the prisoners that satan had bound them in, with the very same old chains you used to be trapped in. IT IS LOVE IN ACTION! Godly love, the kind that will not, and cannot fail.
It is God in all His finest and He wants to use you, you the hurting one, you the wounded one, you the person of His Kingdom. He wants YOU to help them.
One look in the eyes of another’s broken hurting spirit, extending your hand in love, well you won’t even notice that you are no longer standing on the shore, that you have moved into the deep water. You see the deep water was never just for you, you are to invite others.
It is all great that we are healed and feeling safe and saved on the sand, but truly, you have not even broken the surface of the water, you have not tasted to see that God is good. He has treasures untold waiting for you.
God’s Kingdom is now, is for all of us. God is calling us, you and me into the deeper waters. He is saying “trust me, come…” The deeper you go with God, the more beautiful, the more meaningful, the more healing, the more intimate with God you will become. God is calling you to commune with Him and where will you find Him? With the lonely, the hopeless, the broken, the frail, the ones who are the weakest, the ones we used to be.
Revival will not necessarily be Holy Spirit coming and blowing fresh life onto new people. He wants to blow new life on us - you and me! Revival will be when we, the remnant, start walking into the deep water and offer our hands and our hearts to another and then another and another and another, sharing what we were given – new life, new hope, new purpose. The result will be earth shaking and life altering atmospheric change throughout the world as people become free to be who they were supposed to be.
“Come on in, the water is amazing!”
This is a universal message for all of us, prayerfully ask God where you are standing in it.
Interactive part: Click on the link to this song: What If I Gave Everything by Casting Crowns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP27ySgbYLU
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