Hurdles

When my boys were tiny, I used to watch this movie with them about dinosaurs.  They loved it, so we watched it quite a few times!  The dinosaurs had to move from their home to a new place.  They didn’t know it yet, but the new home was to exceed the old one by far.  But first they had to overcome a huge hurdle and it wasn't going to be easy but it was going to be worth it!

And so it is with us sometimes, well me I guess.  God has planned many wonderful things for my life – I am not talking about stuff or material goods here, I am talking about being His, belonging to Him, having a plan with my life – but there are hurdles in the way. Just to clarify – I am also not talking about being saved.  That was all Jesus’ doing I cannot add to it in any way!!

But I can hinder my relationship with the Father in many ways.  One way is to believe the old lies that kept me from Him in the first place.  Some lies are quite obvious and so I don’t believe them anymore, but others are very subtle and sneaky, slowly still poisoning my mind.  Just like the dinosaurs I have some hurdles to overcome to really live my life fully with and for God.  If I keep on believing the lies it hinders me from going forward.  Just living a very mediocre life – right where the enemy wants me to be.  He cannot do anything about my salvation, but he can keep me in a place where I do not trust fully, or do not believe God could use me or that I am not important in any way, or that I won’t amount to much etc, etc, etc.  Lies from the past that I keep dragging along.  And there are MANY lies to keep me subdued, focused on me, I and myself.  Many lies that keep me in a place where, because of what I choose to believe, God is shut out.

But how do I refute these lies?  How do I know that they are lies, and not actually the truth?  If you hear something over and over for a few times you kind of start believing it. Add to that, a small impressionable heart and you have a few years of lies that has become seemingly truth.  How difficult it is when “significant” others tell these lies, sticking them on you like limpet mines – not easy to dislodge my boys tell me. And if you do want to try and dislodge it, they tell me, you have to find it first.  Find the misbelief about God and myself then do everything you can to get rid of it!  And although it may be painful dislodging this “mine”, it is so worth it!  

The first step for me is seeing things for what they actually are - lies!  And then bombarding it with God’s Word and Truth!!  This morning when I woke up, the same thought milled through my mind – God is not a man (or woman!) He is God.  He is not like man/woman. He is totally for us, for me.  He is on my side.  I do not need to impress Him to gain acceptance, not even for salvation!!  He loves me.  I am accepted not for what I have DONE but because He made me acceptable.  Like in a feel-good-movie where the prince loved the (undercover, poor and dirty) princess from the start – from before he knew she HAD or WAS somebody.  Loved her for herself.

Love.  My hurdle.  My big hurdle.  Accepting that LOVE from God was almost impossible for many years but God broke through and now I am His.  In difficult times that is the one place where the enemy attacks –I can hear his mocking voice “Does God really love you?  How can He love you because we all know you are ___ + ___ !  or CAN He love YOU? You?  Does He even care?”

Do I believe these lies?  If I let them in as truth I am back to square one but if I let the Holy Spirit’s voice drown out that of the enemy, if I let God’s Word sink in and I mean really sink in, then I can move!!  And just beyond the mountainous hurdle lies a beautiful place (coming back to the dinosaurs! J ) A place of love and acceptance of freedom to be who God created me to be.  A place to love Him back with all my heart!  I want to be in that place and so I go with the Spirit’s help from limpet mine to limpet mine letting God dislodge these lies one by one, even if it hurts.

Bella, (dearly) loved.