His Presence Displayed

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion-- to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. 

-Isaiah 61:1-4

You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

-Psalm 32:7

I finished my last chapter of 'Breaking Free' by Beth Moore. The journey the Lord has taken me on the past couple months has been nothing short of amazing. There have been lots of tears and heartache but many more shouts of praise from joy and peace. This journey has definitely not been what I would call fun but the Lord used it to break my heart in so many ways for what breaks His heart. My sin, past struggles that were still being held onto, and lack of forgiveness for myself and others from years of walls being built up have all brought me to my knees in surrender to Him. God is more real than I have ever experienced in my life. There are still a couple walls in my life that the Lord is continually taking down brick by brick but the Lord has already done so much work in my heart, freeing me from strongholds that I did not even know existed before this study. 

The further we dive into God's Word and surrender all to Him, we see His glory and splendor pour out of our lives in ways we never thought imaginable. One of the biggest ways I have seen God work through me is in my compassion towards others. I have always been considered a compassionate person by my friends' standards but I have seen God's level of compassion shine through me in so many ways that I would not have seen without continually seek the Lord in every area of my life. I have experienced urgency to pray boldy and powerfully like I haven't before and the Lord has used this to open my eyes to how fierce our battle with the enemy truly is. Some of the biggest lessons that I have learned have been how deeply I have been affected by my past. I have learned about my lack of trust in people around me because of putting my trust in the wrong people in the past. I have learned my lack of vulnerability because growing up I felt the need to put up fronts of perfection to not be a burden to my parents. The hardest lesson the Lord has taught me over this journey is that never in my life have I been able to say that I honestly hated someone but yet comparing how we are called to love others by Christ's love, I held nothing but hate for my own sister. The thought of this truth still stings so much. The Lord has slowly chipped away at this throughout this journey and I have seen small changes but the Lord and I have so much work to do after being knocked down from this relationship for 20 years. There are days that I wake up ready to battle anything and everything that comes my way and then there are days of exhaustion. Of course there are days of exhaustion because no one can fight the good fight on our own strength and the exhaustion reminds us over and over again how much we need God's strength every moment of our lives.

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

-Isaiah 40:28-31

Fighting the good fight for God's kingdom and His glory is our only purpose. Everything we have been blessed with is to be used for furthering God's kingdom. Everything we have is to be used for fighting in battle. Just thinking about that sounds exhausting...especially when I compare it to my lack of running ability. We have a tendency to compare our strength in battle to the strength of our flesh and we let our weakness and weariness get the best of us. This is when we need to do nothing but put our hope back in the Lord and back into HIS strength. The Hebrew word for 'hope' is qawah. This Hebrew word means "to bind together (by twisting)...to be gathered together, be joined." We literally need to draw close to the presence of God and cling onto our Maker to be joined with Him. We need to wrap ourselves so tightly around God that we go nowhere else but where God is going. 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place." The only place that God is going is to victory and we have the privilege of going after a goal that is not just to win but to win Christ. Philippans 3:8-9 Paul writes, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith." We are put into a battle everyday that we will not win without clinging to the Lord God Almighty. There is even greater reward for those who do cling to the Lord and that reward is gaining Christ and righteousness that comes from no place other than faith in Christ. Paul's words tells us that we can actually be found in Him. Can you imagine being so bound to the Lord that people can only find our true selves through also hoping in Christ? This is obviously not an easy battle because we are still human, I'm definitely still human! We do grow weary and we do stumble and fall. When we get to these points we need to continually seek Christ as our hiding place and hang on to the Lord with everything we have. We will never be more beautiful to God than when He can look down and see us hanging onto Him for dear life.