It Starts Small

I started to wake up with an excitement in me. I was excited to get out in the porch in the dark. To sit and pray. Talk with my God. Share my heart with him and open his Word. I was excited to discover how to just be me that God created but also to learn the right way to walk, talk, act and just be.

I realize this must sound silly. Isn’t it as easy as don’t sin, love God, and others? Pretty much, but it’s deeper. I needed to learn who I was and learn how to unlearn who I was. I remembered in therapy that we talked over and over about needs. Basic human needs. Therapy was all about how to fill those basic human needs with good things and not things that hurt me. It’s true! We were built with basic needs: protection and providing, to have the ability to make choices and make decision for ourselves, and relationships. I thought about this over a few days. Did you catch what I wrote? “We were made…”

It finally came to me that God had created us with these needs. My desire to be protected and provided for, to make decisions for myself, and to be in relationships with others was not wrong. He created this in me, but where was all that going wrong? I was submissive to my husband and looked to him for providing and protection. That’s not wrong. Isn’t that his role as husband? I had a desire to be able to make my own choices. At that moment I just wanted to make the right choices based on God’s Word. Before that point I did make them all myself. I had a desire to be loved and to love. It’s not wrong, but somewhere I crossed a line. Somewhere it got skewed.

My mind went back to the whole pride thing. I was trying to figure out the equation of pride and my needs while somehow adding God created them into it. What does it all mean? 😩 By the way, I hate algebra. Letters and numbers should be a math problem and I felt like in this moment I was trying to solve some great scientific math equation.

I closed my eyes. I could see a picture of God. I could see these needs. I could see pride. Everything was starring back at me. A small quiet voice said No one can serve two masters and only God can supply your needs.

Wait a minute!!! I had just read those verses!

My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Do Not Worry 25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:24-34

My pride, my willingness to put myself before God and not live in His truth, was seeking what He had created in me. I was trying to fill these gaping holes in my heart and no matter how hard I sought them, or what toil I ended up in, the desire was never satisfied. I was looking this entire time to FEEL protected and provided for. I was looking to FEEL like I was in control. I was looking to FEEL love. What if none of this was an emotion at all? What if it was a substance needed? By rebelling against God, everything I tried to cram into these holes was leaving me dissatisfied and empty. WHAT IF… God was the only answer to this.

Did God create us so uniquely that the only way to be whole is through him. The only way to have real protection and providing is through him? Is it possible that the only way to have choice is to give that choice to him? Was the desire to be truly loved only satisfied by him?

Cue dinner bell!

I slammed my Bible closed and scared poor Harley dog. I started laughing. God, it’s that simple? My whole entire life I’ve been looking for something that was inside of me all along. Well, that’s not entirely true. Since I was saved, but long before I was saved I had been looking to fill these holes inside of me and all I was creating was doing was creating wounds. Nothing on this earth could fill those needs except my Lord and Savior.

But…. There was something inside of me preventing me from letting God fill these needs. A small illumination of sunshine had turned into darkness in my mind. There was something in that junk yard. Something in the very inner place. Something I didn’t want to confront.

In my mind I sat on a hill overlooking my junk yard. In the center was. Palace I didn’t want to go. It was that shack. This time it was surrounded by a dark cloud. I reached out to touch that cloud and instantly I was filled with terror.

I was filled fear.