Double Talk

Let's dig a little deeper into the source of what causes our grumbles with God. When that slimy serpent on our shoulder convinces us that his whispers are actually our thoughts, it puts us in a spiritual tug-of-war.

If you've been reading James, this will be familiar....

"A doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  They can't make up their minds.  They waver back and forth in everything they do." James 1

The thoughts and words that we allow will set the course for our lives.  If we allow satan's words to have power, then baby, that's what we are believing God for (ouch).  Job said "that which I feared has come upon me". The struggle that comes between floundering back and forth between the deceiver of the brethren (that's the snake) and the Spirit of truth (that's the Holy Spirit, who God puts in you when you accept Him) is exhausting and stops the forward motion of our spiritual journey.  That slimy snake whispers deception, which feels like our own thoughts and conflicts with what we know to be truth.


I like a former pastor's definition of insanity: "doing the same thing and expecting different results".  For faulty belief systems to change and give way to freedom in our hearts and minds, we have to adjust the way we think and the words we say.  This will get us out of the mud and moving again.  The way you change your thoughts is not by saying "I'm just not going to think these thoughts again", it's by replacing your thoughts with new ones.  I hope you have identified what is causing the downward pull in your spirit and emotions and are making progress to stop re-enforcing the negative.  Let's replace lies with truth.  What is causing you to be stuck?  Find what God has to say about that, and think about and say the same thing He says (Isaiah 55:6-11).

Do you doubt how God feels about you? His unfailing love surrounds you. Psalm 33:22

Is your heart wounded from rejection on the most basic level?  Even if your father and mother abandon you, the Lord will hold you close.  Psalm 27:10

Do you think God could care less about your pain?  He collects your tears in a bottle.  Psalm 56:8

Are you leery about trusting God because everyone else in your life has let you down?  He is not a man that He should lie.  Numbers 23 :19

Have you run out of strength?  God's power works best in your weakness.  2 Corinthians 12:9

Are you struggling with a fight against the desires of the flesh?  Sin's power is broken over you.  Romans 6

Are you afraid that folks who abuse you will get away with it?  God pays back those who harm you.  Psalm 18:7

Are you single and lonely, or married but disappointed in your spouse?  God is your husband.  Hosea 2:16

Do you think that the blessings of God pertain to everyone but you?  All His promises to you are yes and amen.  2 Corinthians 1:20

Are you having trouble forgiving someone?  If you will, your prayers will not be hindered.  Mark 11:25

Is an addiction holding you hostage?  The anointing of Jesus removes every burden and destroys every yoke in your life.  Luke 4:18, Isaiah 10:27

Is stress and anxiety consuming your thoughts?  Your heart will not be troubled if you trust and abide in Jesus.  John 14:1

Do you need deliverance?  God delivers you out of all your afflictions.  Psalm 34:19

Are habits of unforgiveness, impatience, and selfishness dragging you down?  You can choose to walk free by the power of God's Word.  John 11:43:44, Romans 8:2-6

Are you allowing envy and strife in your heart?  Refuse to give the devil license to bring confusion and every evil work into your life.  James 3:16

Have you been overlooked again and again?  The Lord blesses you because you are righteous and surrounds you with favor.  Psalm 5:12

Do you think God has lost patience with you?  His love and mercy endure forever.  Psalm 136:1

Are you in bondage because you have a fear of death?  Jesus has destroyed him that had the power of death.  Hebrews 2:14-15

Do you have rebellious children?  All your children will be taught of the Lord and great shall be their peace.   Isaiah 54:13

Are you worried about money?  Your God shall supply all your needs according to His riches.  Philippians 4:19

Has shame plagued your life?  God is not ashamed of you, therefore you should not be ashamed either.  Hebrews 2:11

Do you not feel safe?  No evil will befall you, neither shall any plaque come near your dwelling.  God's angels have charge over you to keep you in all your ways.  Psalm 91, Proverbs 12:28

Are you in a dark place? 

Jesus came as a light to shine in this dark world,
so that all who put their trust in Him

 will no longer remain in darkness.

John 12:46

Don't Look Down

When I train dancers, I frequently have to tell them "don't look down... the floor will be there whether you look at it or not... look up".  There are times God has wonderful things for us, but we miss them because we are not looking in the right direction.  If the eyes of our hearts are looking down, at the negative, at the problem, at the pain, fear, lack, etc., then the blessings of God are not in our field of vision (PAE). Where you put your focus is your choice. You can look and think up or look and think down. James 3 says we set our own course by the words we say.

If you have lived a life of righteousness, you have planted seeds of righteousness, and you have an eternal harvest of righteousness.  Expect it.  Look for it. Don't see it today?  Don't let that discourage you.  Keep trusting God and speaking life.  What you can't see today, you may see tomorrow. In 2 Kings 6, Elisha and his servant were about to war with the king of Syria. The servant saw the Syrian army of horses and chariots that were about to attack them and he was fearful, until Elisha prayed that his eyes would be opened.  Then he saw the "horses and chariots of fire" sent by God to defend them.  They were more numerous than Aram's army.  Follow me?  God's provisions and blessings were there, even though the servant did not, at first, see them.

I sincerely hope that you are, like I am, making progress rejecting the nasty lies from that slimy snake and your knee-jerk reactions are shifting from fear, doubt, and disappointment to trust, faith, and expectation.

Keep your head up baby.

"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened

in order that you may know the hope
to which he has called you,

the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
 and his incomparably

great power for us who believe."

Ephesians 1

Look who is sitting on your shoulder

Hello, my darlings.  Hope you've been doing your homework!  I'm going to give you more. 

Okay. Let's get back to identifying why we get angry with God.  I think the reason we get bogged down in frustration, disappointment, and anger toward God is because we've been listening to, and agreeing with, the enemy of our souls. The truth is, God does not fail us.  He is good.  He loves us with perfect agape love.  His plans for us are good.  He does not throw defeat on us.  It is God's will that we prosper, walk in victory, and conquer every battle.

I know there are times when it looks like God lets us down.  There are times it feels like that, but it's not that.  When we start believing those things, it's because we have listened to and accepted lies from hell.  Remember we talked about the serpent and Eve in the garden of Eden?  Satan got Eve to believe that God was holding out on her, that He was keeping something from her, and she acted on that false belief system, which ultimately separated her from God.

It is satan's ultimate goal to get us discontent with God.  If he can get us to doubt God and believe his lies instead, he's got us.  And the longer we stay there, the more time he has to pump our hearts and minds full of negativity.  So we sit there, at the crossroads, looking back and forth between two directions, trying to decide if God is really who He says He is, this God of love and grace and peace and joy and miracles.  We aren't feeling any of that, because we're disconnected from Him, trying to do things on our own, the result of coming into agreement with the one who hates God and is working day and night to get us there too.

The thing about deception is that when you are under it, you don't realize you are being deceived.  It takes someone pointing it out to us, rousing us from the fog and the haze and the funk.  We can't always put our finger on what's wrong, we just know we don't feel good, don't feel right.  Maybe we are less interested in prayer and a little more comfortable with sin.  I want to help rouse you out from under the deception that God is the bad guy here. 

I am an artist, and therefore very visual.  God made me that way and He speaks to me that way.  Here's how I see it.  Satan knows our weaknesses, and he will take every opportunity to whisper untruth to us.  Imagine a slippery, slimy snake, crawling up your leg, across your back, and onto your shoulder.  Every time he speaks "God cares about every one but you" or "He let you down" or "He caused this pain in your life", and we hear him and agree with him, it's like giving that slimy snake a slimy kiss and patting him on his slimy head. Every time you entertain a negative, disheartened, discouraged, distrusting thought, I want you to see this....

You are kissing a @&#%  snake! 

You are giving him power in your life. You are believing lies. 

So, your next assignment.  Realize that you have harbored doubt against God, which is the sin of unbelief.  Ask God to forgive you for sinning against Him this way.  Yes, it's humbling to admit you have come into a partnership with a snake, but once you repent you will feel so much better. 

God is standing right beside you, ready and willing to forgive you, heal you, and loosen your feet from that stuck place. 

I'll be back.  Keep reading James.  Don't kiss snakes.

God gets a bad rap

I want to talk more about being disappointed/let down/angry at God.  I think this is the kind of stuff that brings us to the crossroad of confusion and indecision.  The first step is recognizing that what's going on in our hearts is actually anger/disappointment/unforgiveness toward God.  We often put our anger on people, but it can go way deeper than that. Once we identify what's going on spiritually, we can start dealing with it, dislodging us from being stuck in one place and begin the process of moving on into victory and freedom. 

Okay, next step.  Last week I was praying about this and asking God to reveal truth.  To confirm what I felt like I was hearing from Him, I consulted another prophet and asked for his thoughts.  The first thing he said was what I had been thinking too.....

It's not God's fault.

God gets blamed for so much stuff that He didn't do. God is not the problem, but we have a sneaky adversary who whispers in our ear and tries to convince us that God is hurting us, punishing us, ignoring us, neglecting us, making us sick, taking away people we love, having a party in heaven while we bleed to death on earth. Some pain we can figure out; we sin and there are consequences. Or we love God and desire to obey Him, but sometimes make poor choices out of ignorance or immaturity (think about it....are the choices you make now a lot wiser than the choices you made five, ten, twenty years ago?). Abraham was a mighty man of God, and even having a promise from Him (Genesis 15), still produced an Ishmael that he then had to feed. Other times it's not so obvious. We think we are doing everything right, so when things go wrong, it must be God's doing, right? We assume way too much.  We can't figure out who to blame (that's such an American thing, isn't it?), so we just dump it all on God and then harbor resentment toward the very One that we need to be close to.  We erect walls around our hearts, a monument to our pain, thinking we are protecting ourselves from further pain and heartbreak.  Do we not realize that this wall keeps the pain in, and keeps God's love and healing out?  It becomes a vicious cycle.  We get pissed off at God and avoid Him. We then become more and more miserable because we have cut ourselves off from our Source ....

"A branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine...

apart from Me, you can do nothing. "  John 15

The longer we stay in this place, the worse it gets. Anger leads to resentment and bitterness. We stop trusting God and think we can get on better on our own. Those walls of self-protection remain impenetrable as our heart hardens. Doubt sets in.  The original sin in the Garden of Eden continues. The serpent tempted Eve to doubt God (Genesis 3), and she fell for it.  That deception is still happening. If satan can get us to doubt God, he's got us right where he wants us. The longer we stay in the sin of unbelief, the more time he has to pump our hearts and minds full of negativity.  The 33,000 promises of God mean nothing to us, we're mad at Him. We put ourselves in the position to not receive from Him, and then get more upset that He won't deliver us from the torment that we ourselves are creating and feeding. 

Is this you?  Are these words making you think?  Evaluate?  Are you feeling a little conviction?  You are not alone, that was me too.  Let me help you.  Read the book of James (five chapters) every day until my next post.  Victory is near baby.  We are going to get un-stuck.