I’m sharing a post that I wrote for The Family Roadmap on the power of words and the lingering effect they have on our lives. The following is an excerpt and you can read the rest at The Family Roadmap.
We can de-construct growth in someone’s heart with a careless word or misplaced assumption. The childhood sing-song of: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ is a lie and a weak defense for those who have suffered at the hands of mis-used words.
Words carry weight which crushes, deflates, and prevents us from hearing the truth of God’s love. It is then that I know that God will need to replace the negative echoes with the positive reflections of his word and what he says about me. The trick? I have to be willing to listen. I have to be willing to lay aside my hurt and be open to Truth. Continue Reading……
Because he is the wonder-doing God, he can turn the desert into streams, barrenness into beauty, and he can make a way of hope through our pain.
We only need to be still.
Deserts make me nervous because I can feel so lost and lonely. I search this way and that way, running here and there, but never finding what I’m looking for. I grow weaker and desperate. Panic wells up in my heart. I fear death.
Do you remember when you were a kid and what you should do if you got lost?
Stay where you are.
Be still.
Let them find you.
And so it is with God. Sometimes he leads us into a desert and we wonder where he went, so we start searching for him and questioning his leading. But a desert place is a perfect place to be still.
Be still and know that he is God.
In the desert, our gimmicks and tricks for making sure all our plates stay spinning, don’t work. One by one they crumble to the ground. It’s in the desert place that we become aware of our need for God as each of our coping mechanisms dry up.
The desert place is a place to practice being still. I’ve found that in the desert place, I exert a lot more effort to do the things I normally do: prayer, church, volunteerism, parent, homeschool. Do I get frustrated when I’m in the desert? Absolutely!
But I’ve been to the desert enough times that I’m learning a new dependence on God and most importantly, how to still my soul.
When I still my soul, my eyes begin to see God working and moving. He draws me to himself when I let go of the distractions of life. He grows fruit in me. He makes my pain a door of hope.
“Therefore I am going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. ‘In that day,’ declares the Lord, ‘you will call me, “my husband,” you will no longer call me, “my master.” Hosea 2:14-16
I have never regretted a desert experience. I’ve seen the phenomenon of how God turns my desert into an oasis and makes something so beautiful out of something so barren. The desert becomes a place of worship, a place to eagerly meet with God, and a place to be still and know him.
Be still and know that he is God today and follow him through the desert places. He will bring beauty to your barrenness.
“A soul cannot seek close fellowship with God, or attain the abiding consciousness of waiting on him all the day without a very honest and entire surrender to all his will.”
It’s the “very honest” that grips me. It’s one thing to be honest, but very honest? It requires me to examine dark corners that I would rather leave hidden. If I’m very honest then I would have to admit that I don’t surrender well. And I want to surrender well. So I hide from the truth that surrender doesn’t work without honesty.
Surrender without an honest examination of our hearts leaves us deceived into thinking we’ve surrendered, and the deception leads to frustration because we don’t experience freedom.
This waiting on God brings me to deep waters and the discovery that I need God much more than I ever realized. It’s in the waiting that I discover layers of my heart that haven’t been relinquished to him. I realize that I’ve given him a pseudo-surrender, but failed to give him my honest heart.
My honest heart defaults to insecurity and comparison: two enemies that vie for the death of my soul and the defeat of God working and moving in me. So today I’m going to tell you a secret.
The secret to an honest surrender lies in building an altar based on the character of God. His character is only good. It is faithfulness, it is strength, and it is our everything.
If I know that he is faithful, then I can trust that he won’t run when I am at my ugliest. If I know he is truth then I can relinquish the lies I believe. When I realize that his love is never-ending and nothing can separate us, I’m willing to be honest with my fears.
It’s knowing his character that allows me to surrender all.
And it’s surrender that transforms me. Without surrender I cannot be a living sacrifice or experience his transformative work in my heart. My Christianity turns into a list of tasks to accomplish rather than a relationship to develop.
When we fail to get to know God we rob ourselves of the light he can bring to our darkness. Do you have pockets of your heart that are deep? Do you have secrets that you fear bringing to the light?
He knows the deep, he knows the secrets, and he’s waiting for you to invite him into those raw places. He’s waiting for you to acknowledge his faithfulness and love towards you. Will you take steps today to build an altar based, not on your fears of what might happen, but on who God is? Will you open your Bible and let his words soothe your soul?
