Sherri Sand's Blog, page 6

How Honest Does God Want Us To Be With Him?

How deep do we want to go with God?

I just returned from following my seventeen-year-old son across three states to watch him compete in several basketball tournaments.

One of them was held in Las Vegas. For this rurally bred girl, I find it a disturbing city. On the outside it’s sparkly and alluring, but beneath the lights lurks so much darkness. It reminds me of a giant Venus flytrap.

We stayed at a casino and the people were nice, but maybe a bit jaded? As if it wouldn’t surprise them a bit if you tried to pull a fast one on them. Which is what they’ve likely seen and experienced in that environment.

So how do we keep our love on for people when we see them at their worst? How does God keep His love on for us?

God is calling us to new playing grounds. To deeper levels of intimacy and connection.

He’s inviting us to open our hearts to Him. To really open our hearts. No holding back that guarded five percent (or fifty) that we do with most people. That safety zone we hide in when we get fearful or uncertain.

God wants us naked and transparent in all our emotions. Not coming to Him after we’ve locked anger and resentment, or jealousy and envy back into the closets of our minds. The place we store all those ugly “not Christian enough” emotions.

That smoke and mirrors room that shields our imperfections.

He wants us to bring everything to Him. All the dirt and ugliness that we slog through. It can be incredibly difficult to be honest with God. We don’t want to be rejected or judged by the One who matters most.

But we never will—–His love through His blood has washed us clean.

It can also be tremendously exciting to be completely honest with Him.

There’s that curl of anticipation, like when you find out that the boy you’ve had a crush on just might like you.

It’s called HOPE.

Hope that God truly will embrace us when we stand near Him with the fruit of our poor choices weighing us down.

Hope that the truth that we read in the Word will make that twelve inch drop from head to heart and flow into every part of our being.

Hope that we will truly begin to grasp the Nature and Goodness of the One who created us.

Prayer

Father, teach us how to trust You with the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Help us to love ourselves as You do and treat ourselves with the kindness and gentleness and goodness that You embrace us with. Teach us how—-in our transparency with You—-to receive Your love and acceptance. You understand us more than we even do ourselves and You have the greatest plans for our lives. Release Your hope into our souls. In Jesus name, amen.

How Does Being Adopted Change Our Relationship With God?

Do we truly see ourselves as God’s adored kids?

I recently had the privilege of visiting Expression58 and hearing Jennifer Toledo speak.

She shared how she had been lamenting to the Lord her lack of a testimony. Having been raised with an intimate relationship with the Lord, there was no riveting dark alley conversion.

He then gave her His view of her testimony. In a vision of black and white, He showed her walking a path along with a multitude of people. As she walked, she noticed a castle with a beautiful king, all in brilliant color. Her little girl heart wished that somehow the king would rescue her and take her into his castle.

The king left his castle and started walking, pressing through the crowd of people until he came to her. He knelt down, looked into her eyes and said, “You. I choose you! I want to be your Daddy. Will you be my little girl?”

He took her into the castle where she lived. Then one day he gently explained, “Living in the castle is so different from how you lived out there. In the castle you get beautiful clothes, but out there you got dirty. But in here I wash you and clean you up.”

He continued, “You need to understand that you’re really adopted. I am really your father and you are really my daughter. You need to learn how to talk, how to think and how to live as royalty and stop thinking like a slave.”

Jennifer paused and looked at the congregation, “That’s all of our testimonies.”

In The Message, Eph. 1:3-8 says, “…Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ… Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—–free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free!”

That, my friend, is good news!

As Jennifer said, “He wants to make us holy by His love, not by a whip.”

Why is it that we anticipate punishment instead of goodness from His hand and judgment instead of loving kindness from His heart?

I think it is because we let a legalistic spirit talk to us about what we perceive as our lack—–our lack of time spent with Him, our lack of praise worthy motives, our lack of goodness.

But that thinking makes us the source of our own goodness. What if we dug deeper and truly understood what it means to be forgiven, to be given robes of righteousness, to be called His children instead of slaves.

Are children expected to have the maturity of adults? To be mistake and sin free?

I think we tend to believe that if we “know” the Bible, we are held to more exacting standards of behavior? But I wonder if that just proves that we may know the letter of the law but don’t understand the law of love.

As Jennifer said, we try so hard to grow fruit, but it’s not our job to grow fruit. It’s our job to remain as the branch. Fruit is the byproduct of abiding in Him.

Just as blood takes nutrition to every cell in our body, it also takes away all the waste. Spending time with God is like blood flowing through your spirit. All His goodness comes to us, and He gently works with us to remove all that causes harm.

He showers you with His love where you are, with no condemning glances at whatever sin you find yourself in.

He so wants you to know how dearly loved you are, how delighted He is with you. How He longs to take you deeper into His heart and His nature.

Prayer

Father, please show us how to live in You, in Your nature. How to abide and what that looks like. Break off all that comes from a condemning spirit that lies about who we are. Give us a vision of how you see us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Lonely Girl photo via Pixabay

Girl & Dad photos by James Chew via Flickr

 

Do Thoughts Determine Whether We Are Victorious or Defeated?

What thoughts are we thinking?

Bill Johnson says that any thought we have that doesn’t inspire hope is under the influence of a lie.

When things get rough, we tend to go straight for the S.O.S. prayers. “God, get me out of this mess!”

But what if God has a miracle he’s waiting to give us, but our fear and lack of trust keep us from receiving it.

Joshua and Caleb were two of the twelve spies sent to scout the land God had promised Israel. Ten men came back spreading stories of how futile God’s plans were. The giants in the land made the men look like grasshoppers, they said. The conviction of doom spread through Israel’s camp (Numbers 13).

Why? Because they looked through the eyes of human logic and reason.

Logically, Israel could not defeat their enemies. In their own strength they would lose the battle.

They didn’t believe God’s promises to them. The god they believed in was very tiny and lacked power.

Yet Joshua and Caleb had a very different perspective. They had been with the ten. They saw the giants. And they knew they would win. Not could. Not might, but WOULD win.

Why? Because their God was powerful and mighty and on their side. They knew God favored them.

Where We Fit In

We also have God’s favor. Why? Because when we received the beautiful gift of Jesus’ sacrifice, God placed us into Jesus (1 Cor. 1:30) and each one of us became His favored child. (John 17:23).

But we can’t presume that favor means easy and painless outcomes. God wants to grow us up. If we let our kids just play video games and devour all the treats in the pantry, they would become weak in character and body.

Difficulties develop us. God doesn’t necessarily create the difficulties in our lives, but he wants to use everything the enemy throws at us to take us to a new level in Him and wreak vengeance on the enemy in the process

(Rom. 12:19).

So how do we move from fearful and defeated thinking into trust and victory in the midst of trials?

You have to discover how God views your circumstances.

If you haven’t learned to hear Him well yet, practice being still and listening. If your mind is overrun by fearful thoughts that drown out His quiet voice, play some praise music. Or write down the fearful thought and ask God, “What do you say about that?”

Then listen. Write down what you hear. Everything God says to you will line up with His character. It will never contradict His love and kindness toward you (Gal. 5:22).

He may just give you one word. Peace. Or Hope. Or Be Still. Or Trust. Then pull up an online Bible and search for that word, or for scripture that aligns with what you heard. You can even google, “Bible verses about (blank).”

Take the ones that resonate with you. Stand on those. Put them on post it notes in your car and on your bathroom mirror. Speak them aloud. Pray them over your situation. Stand firm on what He (and His word) is speaking to you and declare it with Him over your difficulty.

You’ll develop a picture of how God views your circumstance.

Do you want to walk in agreement with Him or walk in the fear and mistrust that nags at us? Well, what if I’m wrong. What if I’m making this up?

What if you’re not? What if you’re actually being given the strategy to come through your circumstance with hope and peace? Standing firm on truth (1 Cor. 16:13).

God speaks to us all the time. We just have to practice listening and trusting and stepping into what we believe He’s doing.

Prayer

Father, teach me how to hear Your voice. To quiet my mind and bring it to stillness and rest in You. To trust that You will guide me if I get off Your path. That You are the one who applauds and rewards risk when I’m taking steps of faith that feel new and uncertain. Help me to discern when the enemy is feeding the fear and show me how to send him packing. I want to stand firm in faith and trust that what You have for me is good, because You are good and Your goodness surrounds me and wants to invade my life and bring great blessing to me and my family. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Photos via Pixabay

 

 

 

 

How Giving Up Our Rights Brings Freedom

Quite a few years ago we went on a long road trip. Family reunion in Canada, a lovely sojourn to Wallowa Lake and then visited friends as we meandered back home.

There was very little grousing from the short people in the backseat as we wound our way up over mountains and down through canyons. That gave us much to be thankful for (we cleaned out the public library the day before we left).

It was perfectly delightful in most ways.

But TDH wasn’t his normal cheerful, fun-loving self. This was due to the fact that bouncing and dragging behind the trailer the entire 2000 miles of our travels were the stresses and worries from several things back home.

It reminded me of that commercial, “Don’t leave home without it.” Well, trust me, I wished we had.

He was really great, mostly. Just a teensy Jekyll and Hyde-ish at times. Nothing we couldn’t live with, until the afternoon he got irritated at something I’d done.

All my defenses locked into place and I went into glacial mode. Ice queen reigneth.

Warm connection was replaced by short, clipped conversations with minimal eye contact. I withdrew into my cave, and felt completely justified in pulling back.

After all, I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Oh, how the smug get humbled.

I was stewing in the trailer when the Lord gently cleared his throat. He reminded me that TDH wasn’t being prickly on purpose. The more prickly, the more love he needed. Loving words and loving touch.

Rather than complaining about him being a bump on a log, I needed to polish the burl. (For those of you that don’t know, a burl is a growth on a tree that has an unusual grain and is beautiful when polished).

After the Lord patiently let me stutter through a litany of buts (“But, he…”), I headed back outside.

Do you know how hard it is to be nice when you feel wronged? When you’ve already decided that he needs to make the first move toward reconciliation?

I felt like a rusty old pump. Loving words jammed and crowded in my throat, coming out in spurts and muttered sputters. But I kept that pump handle moving.

The more I walked in faith, knowing I was doing the right thing, the more my feelings started to follow. Pretty soon, I wanted to love on him. Wanted to encourage and help smooth those pricklies down.

And then we were laughing.

When I let go of my rights—–my right to be mad and my right to wallow in my hurt—–God’s grace could start to work.

That opens the door to freedom and connection.

Prayer

Father, help me to let go of my rights when love is the greater goal. Teach me how to let You be my vindicator and protector. And show me how to love when love isn’t deserved and hasn’t been earned. Help me to stop keeping score and trust You to meet my needs. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Photos via Pixabay

 

Why Some People Struggle More Than Others

Why do some of us seem to struggle more than others?

Many of us have learned to hide our struggles because society tends to focus on outward behavior. We haven’t been taught or we tend to ignore the reality that outward behaviors (i.e. drinking, gossip, criticalness, stealing) are symptoms of internal struggles.

Wounds that haven’t healed. Patterns of relating in unhealthy ways that have become entrenched. Spiritual inheritances that haven’t been broken and redeemed.

We’ve learned that people (ourselves included) just want “bad” behaviors to stop. Choose differently, we think. Stop doing that, we frown. Don’t you see how destructive your choices are?

We think it’s about choice, when so much more is involved.

If stopping were so easy, wouldn’t most people put a kibosh on unhealthy behaviors? They’d stop choosing the abusive boyfriend, they’d stop sabotaging their success, they’d quit being so fearful and critical.

But it’s not as simple as choosing differently.

And yet there are people who don’t seem to struggle. Parenting flows fairly easily for them. They don’t lean toward outbursts of anger or critical mindsets. Addiction doesn’t attach itself to them.

Our Spiritual Landscape

I wonder if it is due in part to the spiritual landscape of their lives.

One day I was thinking about how my kids have been dragged along on my journey to freedom. My three oldest remember the “before” days when I operated under heavy doses of fear, control and anger. They’ve witnessed from front row seats the transforming power of God in my life.

But my momma’s heart wishes they had been born into my freedom instead of my process.

As I pondered this, God brought to mind two men who do ministry together. One is a fifth generation Christian and the other is the first in his family to know Jesus. The fifth generation pastor has such blessing over his life, as does the first generation pastor. But the first generation pastor has had huge trials and difficulties he’s had to overcome, as have had his children.

The picture was a little bleak for me. I long for my family to walk in the blessing and freedom of the fifth generation pastor. But then God gave me a new perspective. He brought to mind pioneering homesteaders who were given plots of land by the government.

The first generation farmers had to remove the biggest obstacles—–trees, brush, cumbersome and heavy stones.

As each successive generation grew up and took over the farm, they would continue the process, but the obstacles and debris would become smaller and scarcer until the land became clean and grew healthy produce.

It’s the same with us. If we tackle the issues in our lives, learning how to be transformed so the negative has no place in us, the spiritual landscape for our family becomes altered.

Even if our children don’t live at home or they seem beyond our influence, the changes we make in our lives affect the atmosphere and dynamics in the spiritual over our families (Psalm 16:5-11).

The work we allow God to do in our lives has huge impact in the lives of those around us.

Prayer

Father, teach me how to go deeper in You. Lead me into wholeness and deeper connection with You. Please begin the process of removing the obstacles in my life that hinder the freedom and growth You desire for me. Growth that will lead me into deeper intimacy with You and will impact the lives of those around me. Teach me how to enjoy the journey and rest in Your presence. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Photos via Pixabay

The Relationship God Desires

What kind of relationship does God want with us?

In my last post, I shared how God had exposed a mindset that I needed shaken free from. A wrong belief that I had to please God in order to have His presence.

As soon as that understanding took root, stress and the pressure to perform disappeared and I entered into what felt like a blissful vacation in my soul.

Recognizing at a deeper level that I truly don’t have to please Him for Him to be with me and work on my behalf.

I had no idea that I’d lived with this low-grade stress. It was a constant striving to “do it right” for Him. Like the accelerator in my mind was slightly stuck and pressuring me to “do” for Him.

So for a few days I lived in a state of blissful freedom. No pressure to have a quiet time or “put Him first,” but just choosing to talk to Him when I wanted to without the sense that I needed to.

But one morning I woke up feeling that familiar push. And with it came a lot of irritation. I resented the sense that I had to have a quiet time in order to have His presence with me.

So I took myself for a walk to talk it through with Him. My pressing question was, “What am I supposed to be doing?” It was rooted in finding the path that would please Him most.

Friendship With God

He shared with me that I’m searching for a servant/master relationship. Where the master tells the servant what to do and the servant does it well so he doesn’t get in trouble.

But that isn’t what He’s after. He’s looking for friendship (John 15:15).

Where I’m asking, “What do I do next? Is it X, Y or Z?” He’s asking, “What do you want to do?” That interests Him. He doesn’t just want to tell me what to do and have me execute His command. He wants to know what cranks my tractor. He’s interested in my dreams. Blew me away.

And then I remembered a prophetic word a guy gave me about a year ago. He said, “I feel there’s been frustration at times because you’re asking God what He thinks about something, but you don’t hear a response. And I think it’s because there’s an invitation from Him saying, “Well, what do you think about it?” I feel like He wants you to know He really values your input. That you have awesome ideas. I’m reminded of when Bill Johnson said, “The tabernacle of David was not God’s idea. It was David’s idea, but David was God’s idea. So God created David and He knew he would come up with cool ideas.” It’s the restful reality where you can be totally yourself with zero rigidity and be completely at rest.”

So I’m learning that God truly wants a friendship with an exchange of ideas and thoughts, laughter and joy. And true friendships have tensions and disagreements (though they all may be on our end of the conversation).

This possibility could frighten some. It could bring a fear that friendship with God brings Him down to a human level. But we need to remember that we are created in His image. Friendship with God elevates us to a new level in Him. Into relationship the way He designed it. Friendship with God expands our capacity to give and receive love.

He is not being transformed to us. We are being transformed into His image. And invited into deep and wonderful intimacy that develops us more fully into who we are designed to be.

Prayer

Father, teach me how to be real with You. To share my thoughts even when they reveal the worst about me. Help me to understand that I am safe with You so I can be utterly and completely transparent with all of who I am. Reveal to me Your kindness and how deeply You love me so I can more fully understand who You are and what I mean to you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

 

Finding Our Way

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The Greatest Gift

How often do we attempt to control others without even realizing it?

We tend to consider it a form of love. If we see someone we care for headed along a path riddled with dangerous pot holes, how can we not step in?

How can we stand by and let them feel the pain of poor choices that would be so easily preventable if they would just take our guiding hand.

Fear is the breeding ground for control.

It leads us to try to influence and direct the behavior and journey of those dear to us. Sometimes our influence seems benign, other times it’s manipulative.

But we would never name it manipulation because we think we are doing it for their best. We are preventing heartache and pain. We are justifying our over involvement.

Our oldest child graduated this weekend. It was a victory on so many levels.

He is a trail blazer. And one of my greatest joys.

Mat and I didn’t always know how to parent this gift and he didn’t often want to be parented.

My need for him to toe-the-line and his need (from the womb) to be his own man train-wrecked our relationship many times.

Ours was a path drenched with laughter and pain, heartache and joy.

For so many years I didn’t trust God with this boy. I didn’t trust God on a lot of levels.

When we butted heads and hearts, I would agonize over our parenting choices. I didn’t understand why submitting to authority was so challenging for him, until Mat finally gave me the look and said, “Where do you think he got it?”

Oh, yeah. I was a trail blazer who didn’t want to be told what to do. Who butted heads with authority all of my growing up years…and maybe a few years after. My son carried much of my DNA.

God cleared His throat loud enough to finally get our attention and reminded us of our ultimate goal—-relationship with our son. We delighted in this boy who knew his own mind and wanted to learn by his own mistakes.

I longed to prevent those mistakes. I carried the scars of so many of my own.

So God asked us to release this precious son into His hands. To accept him and love him and cherish him for who he is. Created and delightfully molded, not in our image, but in His.

When we took our hands off, this boy came back. He wants relationship with us as much as we want it with him. But he couldn’t thrive where he felt constricted.

God’s greatest command is for us love Him, love ourselves and love others (Matt. 22:37). Love disciplines, but it doesn’t control. It has absolutes, but it doesn’t demand and it doesn’t fear.

The greatest gift we can give to those closest to us is to let go of our visions and desires for their lives and step into worshipping the One who can guide them and love them to Himself. The very things we fear may be the circumstances He is using to mold and prepare them for His plans for their future.

Joseph didn’t anticipate that betrayal, imprisonment and hardship would be the training ground God would use to prepare him to save many lives (Gen. 50:20).

We are short-sighted when it comes to the plans God has for us. Leaning into Him and letting go of what is not ours allows us to love freely and completely.

Prayer

Father, teach me to lean into You and to let go of those things I can’t and shouldn’t try to control. Help me to keep my eyes on You and not on the circumstances I’m in. Remind me that You hold closely and carefully those that I love. Reveal Your power and character through my life so I can freely love. In Jesus’ name, amen.

The Hat Toss by David Morris via Flickr - no changes made

Heart photo via Pixabay

Lake of Grace

How deep is the Sea of Forgetfulness?

The other day regret came knocking on my door. Unfortunately, I answered. And he didn’t come by himself. Condemnation and guilt followed him right into my living room, while accusation slithered in on their heels.

Guilt and condemnation held up some past failures and accusation and regret jumped in, pointing fingers at how those failures had far-reaching effects. Far beyond God’s ability to fix.

I sat there feeling dismal. If only I could go back. If only I could redo my choice, my behavior, my voice tone.

Then God cleared His throat. He told me I was looking through Truth without Grace. They are never to be separated. We can’t have the Judge without the Lamb.

I got what He was saying, but had no clue how to apply grace to my past. He said, “Do what I did.” When I asked what He meant, He gave me a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross saying, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

He was asking the Father to apply grace to their lack of understanding. To their sin.

So I chose through faith to apply grace to my past, and felt peace and loving acceptance for who I’d been flow through me. Then a picture passed through my mind of a hard, grapefruit-sized mass being tossed into a lake. The sun was low in the sky and shone on the water, reflecting diamonds of light into the air.

I had no clue what this represented when God said, “That was your sin and failure being thrown into the Sea of Forgetfulness.” He continued, “It’s My Lake of Grace.”

I don’t think I had ever understood grace until that moment. We talk about His grace. We quote verses, but I had never understood it as covering my sin and failures in such a tangible way.

Now, when torment tries to knock on the door to a memory of failure (can you tell I’m a recovering perfectionist?), I simply see God’s grace covering it. And it seems to slip into that beautiful Lake of Grace.

I was listening to a powerful podcast the other day by Steve and Wendy Backlund and in it Wendy states that you can always tell when you are under a religious mindset because religion expects perfection.

How often do we think it’s God demanding perfection, when that is actually the lie of the enemy? God isn’t interested in perfection, He is interested in progress.

God didn’t berate the people or the disciples for their failures. He knows the state of man and our desperate need for a loving shepherd to guide and protect us.

God delights in hearts that desire to please Him. He’s not as interested in outcome as He is motive (Matt. 21:28-32).

Sometimes I get a revelation from God and then run with it. Trying to work it into my life through my own understanding. I operate under the assumption that I’ve got to get it operational in my life (on my own) in order to please Him.

But He’s been showing me that He wants to be a part of our process. He’s not bothered by the messiness of our crash and burn attempts to reflect Him well. He wants to dig into life with us. Be a part of our messy process.

He wants Relationship. That’s what His heart cries out for with His children.

He wants us to run to Him to get things sorted out, whether it’s just living life, or practicing His principles and failing miserably, or a glitch in our character that needs to be worked out.

Prayer

Father God, help me to learn to come to you with all the circumstances of my life. Show me how deeply You love me and want to be intimately involved with each detail, whether important or not according to the world’s standards. You care enough to number the hairs on my head (Luke 12:7), so you care about the little things in my life. Thank you! In Jesus’ name, amen.

Hands in Chains by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures

Sparkling Sea by Saff’s Photography via Flickr - no changes made

The Standard We Carry

I had my feelings hurt today.

Do sometimes we need approval so much that we don’t stop to assess whether the approval giver is standing on solid rock? They may be a Jesus follower, but do their values line up with what Jesus values?

There is a lot of judgment in our world. We do a lot of judging. Many times not purposely. But we have prioritized standards we weigh other people’s behavior and choices against.

For some it may be clothing style. For others it could be how earth friendly people are—–what kind of a gas guzzler they drive. Or it may be the amount and type of education others have acquired.

Each of us carry these standards, most often unknowingly. Likely a conglomeration of how we were raised and the type of personality we have.

My daughter is a fashion maven. Color and style come naturally to her artistic eye. Organized she is not.

We have several teenage drivers in the family, so making sure I end up with a car can be tricky. My son and daughter traded off at lunch. He got the family car, she got the Jeep. I asked her to swing by the house after lunch so I could take her to school and keep the Jeep.

Lunch came and went, and still I waited. Finally, I leashed up the dog and we walked the few blocks to the school. When I stepped into her classroom, an adorable montage of thoughts crossed her face, “What’s mom doing here? Oh, the car!!! Shoot! Ooops!”

Today when she was home for lunch, wanting to relive that sweet moment again, I asked, “What were you thinking when I walked into your classroom yesterday?”

She said, “What is she wearing?”

Yeah, shocked me too.

My daughter and I have different standards for public attire. Pony tail and sweats work for me, not so much for her.

Embedded in her comment was a piercing arrow that took me back to a time where the people closest to me put a high emphasis on appearance. When we don’t know our value, the weight of another’s judgment can be so damaging. Deepening insecurities and creating facades we hide behind.

Interesting how another’s opinion can impact us at such a deep level.

Logic is no help, and can actually keep us from freedom. When we’re found lacking, our minds will try to talk us out of being hurt. Telling us, “Whatever,” or “Who cares what she thinks,” as it attempts to keep the comment from burrowing in.

With our minds trying to push the hurt away, our hearts have no place to process the pain. So what does it attempt to do? Shut off emotion. Stop feeling.

Hardness of heart becomes our protector.

What we can’t feel, can’t hurt us.

There are so many negative consequences to this coping mechanism. One is a lack of truly intimate relationships in our lives. And another is the inability to feel deeply of positive emotions (when we shut off the bad, we also shut out the good).

Our freedom lies in taking our hurt and dumping it on God’s lap and asking Him to sort it out with us. He so badly wants to heal our pain and walk us into forgiveness and grace.

Letting His wisdom and love guide us keeps wounds from festering and gives us the ability to freely love.

Prayer

Father God, help me to see the value You have given me. Help me to take my eyes off myself and stop listening to the lies of the enemy that so devalue my worth. Give me ears to hear truth and the strength to resist the lies. Show me deeper truths about who You say I am. Help me to be a builder of people and replace negativity with life, truth, and love. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Photos via Pixabay

Sunset Joy by flowcomm via Flickr – no changes made