Appearing harmless

“You missed it”

“You’re just receiving the consequences of your past”

“Your sins are finally catching up to you”

“You’ll never be taken care of.”

“You’re a failure and will never be able to face this”

“God’s punishing you for your decisions”

“Gods punishing you.”

“God doesn’t care what the outcome is.”

“Why would He step in, you did this to yourself.”

The war in your mind can be the heaviest battle you face.

From the flightiness of your flesh, to the up and down of emotions,

To the lies that sound scarily true, and the voices in your head that you aren’t sure whose they are.

Our minds are a daunting place without the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth.

I can’t imagine a day without His leading.

Even days with His leading… sometimes are still hard.

As a follower of Jesus, I have been raised in “truths”.

Truths that are: 

God loves me, that He wants the best for me, and that He is good.

And my entire life the battle has waged against those truths.

From the struggle of fitting in in grade school, the struggle of body image, the struggle of relationships and the rejection that follows, and then the struggle of honesty with myself has been a very weighty thing to carry.

I’m not sure if it’s just my personality or if other people also have the desire to have it all together. All I know is it is a very heavy thing to face with someone, let alone by yourself.

I am absolutely not the best at relationships, romantic and platonic.

But, I am good at being self-aware.

Even if it takes me kicking, screaming, and denying it along the way to get to truth.

I am good at minimizing real issues, casting blame, and playing it off when I’m rejected as not caring and/or like it wasn’t my fault.

It’s a scary thing to not know that you can shut down and be cold without being aware that you’re even doing it.

When I write, sometimes it’s all at once and sometimes it takes days or weeks to put into words what I’m thinking/going through.

This blog, I wrote part of it and had to step away and a couple days later at a small group someone made a statement that was one of these exact questions I put at the beginning of this blog, just with different wording.

It was “why me?”

And instantly after having a small snippet of how that was just the enemy assaulting God to me earlier in the week, I saw it happening to a friend of mine too.

It boiled in me. I was so angry. I couldn’t believe what I had just seen without even knowing the words to express how I felt.

Sometimes I can be off, way off. And just mean, honestly.

No love or sympathy at all.

I don’t mean to be, but in this moment I was angry. I didn’t understand until that night after group when I began to file out what was going on internally.

I wasn’t mad at her.

But at the fact that the enemy was lying to her.

And it wasn’t just that, but he was challenging her belief of Gods character and deceiving her. He was distracting her from truth with a lie.

As much as saying, “Why me” appears innocent and like the focal point is "me", it’s really a twisted belief that says, “God is a punisher and is more concerned to harm me than to fight for me.”

Not that consequences aren’t a real thing that we face naturally, spiritually, and even physically. And that consequences happen because of our decisions/choices. But the mentality of defeat isn’t legal in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The mentality of shame, guilt, and defeat isn’t for believers.

Jesus swallowed up shame, guilt, and defeat Himself on the cross.

You ARE accepted by God the Father

Romans 8:15 in the Passion Translation says, “And you did not receive the “spirit of religious duty”, leading you back into the fear of never being good enough.

But YOU have received the “Spirit of full acceptance,” enfolding you into the family of God. And you will NEVER feel orphaned, for as he rises up within us, our spirits join him in saying the words of tender affection, “Beloved Father!”.

Condemnation is NOT for His children.

Romans 8:1 PT “So now the case is close. There remain NO accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One”

I can’t imagine being separated from Jesus in everyday life.

Meeting everyday with people at work.

People whom I have amazing conversations with and get to sit and peer into a small piece of their lives. They share their love life, their heartaches, their dreams, their jobs, their kids, and sometimes even their struggles.

And vice versa.

I cannot imagine carrying the weight of the world without Jesus to lay my thoughts and burdens on.

Its heavy enough in moments where we forget and think “why me?”

But I’m sweetly reminded by Holy Spirit a few minutes later that He is good, always wants the best for me, and is truly a loving Father.

God loves you more than you can imagine.

Romans 5:8 “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."