Help with the Shackles!

I LOVE the Nichole Nordeman song that is playing on my “myspace”. It is one of those songs that moves me to my very soul. I remember the first time I heard it and how I just wept and wept in the truth of this song. Just hearing it again today is another reminder of the truth that this rich and glorious song holds. I am so blessed beyond measure, and I know God is moving and working a MIGHTY destiny in my life. It is rich and full and powerful. As my pastor says, “Christ has sanctified or set me apart for a journey and God is involved personally in my life and loves me and has created me with a specific destiny!” That is so profound and greatly weight lifting.

I hate letting people down and last week I was the queen of it. I had to tell an amazing mission school that I would not be helping them out with their preschool program. I felt like a big huge failure. It was a gigantic struggle between thinking that God must want me to do this and I just can’t measure up to it, to what He was divinely sharing with my heart. I wondered if I had what it took and struggled and anguished in my spirit over telling them “no”. I’m still on shaky ground, but trusting that God’s great hand of providence is leading me into the mission field that He has destined for my life.

I also had to tell the daycare center that I was working at that I would have to leave. It was heartbreaking, and adding to that finding out the director has Leukemia and could really benefit from me staying on. Here again I want to help, I’m even staying two weeks longer than I initially planned, yet Satan’s lie of worthlessness is ever prevalent in my mind.

I had spent about an hour a few days ago typing up another blog entry and you know it was so self-absorbent, much like this one is, and I just had to get rid of it. I’m so selfish and prideful and feel that I have the owed right to certain things. I’m desperate for Christ to create a new heart in me through this. I stay bound not because I have to, but merely a choice, a safety. I don’t want to be safe anymore. I talk and talk and talk and talk about living some wild adventure, and that Christ is to shut up in my bones. I don’t want to be all talk and no action. I want to bloom ‘dang-it’ and rest in the watchful care of my Savior. I want to run away with Him. Every morning on my way to work, I’m up at 5am and off to work by 5:50am, I say, “Lord, do I run away with you today or go into work!” My heart screams just run with all your might.

Have I had disappointments in my life…YES! Has my life turned out anything like I thought it would…NO! Am I still hope-FULL…YES!

There is so much going on in my little brain and it is hard to get a handle on one point, so please forgive me. The thing is that I have been living in chains and bondage, weighting my spirit down with life, when that is not the state that I am in at all. If the son has set me free then I am FREE INDEED! My chains are loosed and I no longer have to be bound. I am amazed and humbled by the story of Paul and Silas in jail, you can read the whole story in Acts 16, but here is just a bit of it…

22The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.
23When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely;
24and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God and the prisoners were listening to them;
26and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.
27When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.
28But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Do not harm you, for we are all here!”
29And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, 30and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

What happened when Paul and Silas was beaten, throne in prison, and fastened in the most inner part of the prison… they sang hymns and praised the Lord almighty! I mean can imagine these two guys praising God in this state and what the other prisoners must have thought. I shudder to think what I would have done in that situation, I think about how I act when I have to wait in line at the grocery store, how rude and acidy I can be. Man, talking about telling a different story. We are to be set apart. We see what happened when Paul and Silas praised the Lord, the foundation was shaken to the ground by the mighty hand of God and then they became a witness for Christ. Every action that we display should be the divine action of Christ.

Today, I received a wonderful letter from my bestest friend Jennifer. It is seven glorious pages full of scripture and before each scripture there is list upon list of edifying proclamations like…

Seven pages full of this. I mean talk about a true friend that helps you out of the chains that have been binding you. What a gift? What a treasure from the Lord on high? It is through things like this that God daily reminds me that He is for me and not against me. He loves me, He loves me, He loves me…I had forgotten that truth. I had forgotten the sacrifice He paid just to be with me. I want to loose the chains and truly live free.

I feel there is so much more of the journey I would like to share. Just when you think you’ve learned something you know. I know this post is insane and I truly apologize. I want to quote what Marcia posted a long while back and I wrote down…

I feel like the Lord is asking me, ‘Will you wait on the promises when it looks like I’m taking you in the opposite direction? Will you remain steadfast in doing what I called you to do today and not worrying about fulfilling the promises yourself? Will you trust my leadership and my timing? Will you wait for me?

I’m currently writing a Pt. 2 of my “Reflection” story that I had written a long while back. It is about a woman who tries to look perfect on the outside while all along she has run far from the loving arms of her Savior. I praise God for placing me in the wilderness, I praise Him for the promises and that He does what He says, I praise Him for the adventure and I pray I never forget that the adventure is now.

Let’s help each other live in freedom…for to have a spirit that is soaring in chains is a gift beyond measure. WE ARE FREE INDEED!