Hello everyone! I have a new podcast episode over on the blog. Just in case you missed the last episode, you can find that one here. Today’s podcast episode is entitled, “The Sin of Cynicism-Part 1”. My podcast is now available on YouTube. Click here to subscribe to my YouTube Channel for podcast episodes.
Good evening! Welcome to the Healing Our Brokenness Podcast. Today’s recording is Episode 25: “The Sin of Cynicism-Part 1”
Definition of Cynicism
Cynicism is
the process of being a scorner, doubter, scoffer, having paranoia, mistrust,
and skepticism about things. Everyone is
cynical at one time or another, however, cynicism becomes a concern when it
gets in the way of life’s joys for us, other people being around us, and it is
labeled as part of our brokenness.
Blessed is the man that
walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor
sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
(Psalm 1:1)
Factors that Predispose Us for Cynicism
There are
several factors that make up the reasons for one adopting cynicism as part of
their lifestyle:
You
have experienced a lot of issues with betrayal.
There
are historical patterns of things not working out in your favor, or working out
in a way that is undesirable to you.
You
get to the point of seeing too much and hearing too much to think that things
will be different.
Most
of the people that you trusted let you down.
The
few times that you thought things would turn out good, they turned out bad, and
you lost faith in believing that things could be different.
Whatever,
the case may be, from the outside looking in, it is easy to be judgmental to
something we don’t understand. It is not
a license for us to commit the sin.
However, empathy helps us to understand that the sin of cynicism is just
like having any other sin. It becomes
addictive, spreads like a disease, creates negativity, and begs for more.
After having to deal with a divorce from a toxic individual, I experienced some cynicism creeping in. As a matter of fact, I had someone to mention it to me. It made me become more aware of when I was allowing it to get a foothold.
Abuse and Cynicism
I have also
noticed that when individuals have been abused, and the abuser has run an
all-out smear campaign packed with lies against the victim , and then
brainwashes, and pulls in the victim’s family, it becomes the perfect tool for Satan
to intertwine inside this person as a stronghold, rather than just a phase of
grief.
The
individual starts to believe that no one can be trusted. We know that this isn’t true. However, when we are in pain, we often shake
hands with Satan for all kinds of addictions and coping mechanisms to cover up
our hurt.
We can vacillate
from one end of the spectrum to another.
Either we are too trusting, or we distrust everyone.
Trust takes
a while to gain. When trust is broken
through lies and betrayal, we are left with the thoughts in our minds that
everyone will do the same thing that this person or persons did to us.
Replacing
our pain and hurt with healing is the hard, but fruitful way out of cynicism. But as with any coping mechanism, what we
have allowed to go on for so long becomes part of our normal and dysfunctional
patterns of behavior.
When things
aren’t happening our way, in our will, and in our timing, we trade whole faith and
God’s promises for broken pieces of cynicism.
I want to
leave you with some bible verses to help you if the sin of cynicism is a part
of your brokenness:
11 I ask,
then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an
Israelite, a descendant of Abraham,[a] a
member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom
he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he
appeals to God against Israel? 3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have
demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” 4 But what is God’s reply to
him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the
knee to Baal.” 5 So too at
the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it
is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
15 We who
are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and
not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good,
to build him up. 3 For Christ
did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who
reproached you fell on me.”4 For whatever was written in former days was
written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the
encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God of endurance
and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in
accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Therefore welcome one
another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
Thank you for listening to Episode 25 of Healing Our Brokenness: “The Sin of Cynicism-Part 1”. Remember if this podcast is making a difference in your life, recommend a friend for listening. Thanks, and have a beautifully blessed weekend!
Good morning! Welcome to Healing Our Brokenness Episode 24: Hurting People. We have all heard of the phrase “Hurting People Hurt People”. While some of us may not like the phrase itself, it is the truth. God gives us freedom in truth. We are all broken. We live in a broken, fallen world. Because we are broken, until we mend and glue together the broken pieces of the puzzle to our family’s iniquities, we will continue to intentionally and unintentionally hurt others.
Unintentional Hurting
We unintentionally hurt others when we live with unhealed brokenness from the wounds of our past, sin, pain, and pride. Our unhealed wounds bleed out onto our immediate and extended families, coworkers, and Sisters and Brothers in Christ. A lot of times, when we are broken, we become so self-absorbed in our own pain and wounds, that we don’t even notice that other people are going through things themselves.
We make vows that we will never be like our family member or other person who inflicted pain upon us. However, if we are not going through some form of healing, whether it’s seeing a therapist, coach, or seeking self-help through books, we end up being just like them. Our kids start learning dysfunctional patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms for pain. We hurt them with our pain, and then they learn how to live their adult lives by what they see us doing. We continue to pass down this vicious cycle.
My Family’s Pain
Upon moving to my last residence, my kids and I had suffered so much trauma. And it wasn’t just that we had suffered trauma. We were trauma bonded through some of the events that had taken place. Because we were all dealing with an extreme amount of pain, initially we could only see ourselves as the ones who were the victim. Each one of us blamed the other person and put on the persona of being innocent. In actuality, each one of us had hurt each other unintentionally. We were blind to the truth.
Before moving from my last residence, I began taking serious steps of dealing with the trauma that I had endured in my life. Not only did I begin to deal with it, but I learned how to be vulnerable. And I had to learn the difference between vulnerability and surface vulnerability. When surface vulnerability occurs, you tell stay on the surface, only telling people what you think they want to hear so that you don’t look like the “broken one”.
Intentional Hurting
When we intentionally hurt others, we make sure that other people are going to pay for what someone else did to us. If we were invalidated, then we make sure that everybody else is constantly invalidated. If were abused, then we abuse. If we were judged and criticized, then we make it our mission to judge and criticize others. If our beef is with something that another male or female did, then every male and female will have to pay. We turn into bashers.
Application
For example, I was watching a television show, and on the show, one lady was trying to run a smear campaign on her former brother-in-law because he had operated on her sister, who had cancer and died. It had been discovered that negligence hadn’t taken place. However, she kept making her point that he would pay for what he had done.
Another female character told her that making her former brother-in-law pay for her sister’s death wasn’t going to bring her sister back. She had wounds that she needed to heal. She had pain that she needed to deal with. Blame blinds us to facing the truth that we are hurting. Blame works as a comfort pacifier and prevents us from seeing what the real problem is. Making others pay definitely doesn’t change the truth. It doesn’t right what was wronged. It doesn’t stop our hearts and souls from bleeding out. It only makes matters worse.
David and his men had been out on a mission. They returned to Ziklag, only to find it burned, raided, and the women and children taken captive. They were all in such pain, that they almost killed David. Killing David would have only provided temporary relief. At the end of the day, whatever we use to numb our pain will only be temporary. Our problems are still there. We have only added to the depth of them.
30 David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it, 2 and had taken captive the women and everyone else in it, both young and old. They killed none of them but carried them off as they went on their way.
3 When David and his men reached Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. 4 So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. 5 David’s two wives had been captured—Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 6 David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.
7 Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelek, “Bring me the ephod.” Abiathar brought it to him, 8 and David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I pursue this raiding party? Will I overtake them?”
“Pursue them,” he answered. “You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue.”
How to Stop the Cycle
When we are in pain, we take out hurt and hearts to Jesus. He is the only one who can help us to sort through the mess of our past.
Take responsibility and sign up for therapy and support group where we can be held accountable.
Refuse to give in to the enemy’s plan to isolate ourselves.
Listen to good preaching.
Read self-help books.
We are intentional about not making ourselves targets for the spirits of self-pity and blame.
Pray and ask others for forgiveness and patience as we wrestle through the pain and wounds of our past.
Thank you for listening to Episode 24: Hurting People! Have a blessed day in the Lord!
Sabotage Our Healing with Busyness and Instability
Sabotaging Our Healing by Allowing Shame and Perception Of Others to Reign
Sabotaging Our Healing by Surrounding Ourselves with Clutter
Lastly, we Sabotage Our Healing by Refusing to Do What We’re Told
Podcast Transcript
Good morning! Welcome to Healing Our Brokenness. And today we are recording Episode 23: Sabotaging Our Healing. When we think of the word sabotage, it suggests the following: “getting in the way, damaging, intentionally interrupting, preventing something from taking place. When we think of sabotaging our healing, it means that we are harming or preventing ourselves from healing. Since the rewards of healing is astronomical, why would we want to prevent ourselves from doing it? There are several reasons why:
We’re afraid to face the pain.
We don’t want the work.
We don’t want to use our free time to do it.
We really don’t want to be free because we have been in bondage for so long, and so, the bondage that we know is better than the freedom that we don’t.
There are several ways that we sabotage our healing:
Sabotage Our Healing with Busyness and Instability- We will fill our days up from morning till night being busy so that we don’t have to sit long enough to feel. If we work outside the home, we spend hours shopping after work before going home. If we work inside the home, we make sure that we are busy from morning to night. We think that we can outsmart our mind and emotions. I have been guilty of doing this one myself. What I noticed is that one of three things usually happen.
Situation 1: When we finally lay down to go to bed, our minds are going 100 mph with anxiety. We start going over all the things that we did during the day. The feelings start coming up. Our past starts knocking on our door. Unhealed brokenness starts bleeding out. Obtrusive thoughts start settling in. Then, we end up not being able to go to sleep for several hours because our minds are trying to process everything that we didn’t allow it to process during the day. Several days of this can turn into weeks, and then weeks into months. And if we didn’t have trauma before, there is definitely a chance of developing it then. We can only go so many days like this. Our bodies can’t sustain this lifestyle without breaking down.
Situation 2: We conk out as soon as our heads hit the pillow. Because we haven’t processed anything, we are running on empty in every area. We keep putting off dealing with certain things until they are a must. And when we have to deal with it, we end up shutting down, or having a complete emotional meltdown/tantrum. This can play out at work, school, home, church wherever.
When we are on emotional and mental overload, there is no way to control when and where it will come out. Even now, I have to remind myself to take a break from work and give myself thirty minutes to lay down and think about nothing. This became an issue for me after the trauma that occurred within the last seven years. Believe it or not, as soon as I begin to relax, I can feel emotions coming up. I also like to have reflection time in the morning when I wake up. If I am in a rush and have to leave out an emotional mess from backed up grief, my emotions only intensify as the day goes on.
Situation 3: We become consistently inconsistent at everything. Lack of structure gets in the way of our healing. When we are all over the place, our minds are all over the place, and then our lives and relationships are all over the place.
Sabotaging Our Healing by Allowing Shame and Perception Of Others to Reign-This is also one that I am guilty of having to watch myself. If I allow my brokenness of perfectionism and the shame that it’s friends with to kick in, I am more tempted to want to hold off sharing with my life-giving friends or therapist about what is going on now, or a situation that happened in the past.
I get caught up wondering what the person will think of me, how I will be perceived, and the list goes on and on. I also get caught up in wondering whether or not I will possibly “lose it” and have an “ugly face” cry in front of others. I have to remind myself that these are safe people, and if I cry, so what! I ‘m human. We’re all broken. Satan will try whatever way that he can to discourage us from being vulnerable. Vulnerability in a safe environment with time and space chips away the stone of shame.
Sabotaging Our Healing by Surrounding Ourselves with Clutter-We fill up every knick and cranny of our homes and our cars with clutter. It prevents us from being able to gain clarity about anything. It prevents us from having structure and space to feel. We also have problems making decisions because the clutter is serving as an emotional pacifier. As soon as the clutter starts being lifted, then we can be tempted to go back again. Our addictions take the place of feeling the hurt and pain that we are holding keeping at bay. Being surrounded by excessive clutter takes the place of being able to dig into our feelings. Therefore, we often go back to our addictions. The pain becomes too much to bear. And instead of pressing in, we press out to comfort.
Lastly, we Sabotage Our Healing by Refusing to Do What We’re Told-If our therapists, coaches, friends, pastors, or others give us godly counsel in regard to our behavior, we have already come up with 50 excuses as to why we can’t begin to make changes. We are intent on doing it the way that we want to do it. However, nine times out of ten, our way isn’t going to work. If it was, we would have started making changes.
Naaman went to see Elisha in order to be healed from leprosy. He almost sabotaged his own healing because he didn’t want to do what he was told. He wanted Elisha to come out and do a powerful healing ceremony. He thought that he was “too good” to stoop to Elisha’s healing instructions. Elisha instructed him to wash in the Jordan seven times. He finally did it, with some prodding from his servant. But, he definitely wasn’t happy about it.
So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
Naaman almost missed out on his healing because he wanted it “his way”. What happens when we want things our way? We miss out on everything God has to offer and more. God uses wise people to lead us to make wise decisions. However, he will not beg us to do our part.
So, what is the solution to combatting sabotage? Desiring a life that thrives over a life of stagnancy. No one can give us the desire and motivation to heal. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula. The comfort is that Jesus will be there with us in the fire. We can teach our kids and leave a legacy behind that stops the generational sins of our fathers.
God bless! Thanks for listening to Episode 23: Sabotaging Our Healing
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Good afternoon! Welcome to Episode 22 of Healing Our Brokenness. Today’s Episode is entitled, “Opposition Against Your Calling”.
Analyzing Calling
How many of you have been told by God that you were destined for a calling? You went through the steps of walking in that calling until Satan started to shame you with your personal struggles, and what your present reality is, rather than God’s truth. That is what has happened to me as well.
When life’s disappointments begin to scream at us from every direction known to man, we start to second guess what it is that God already promised us. As a matter of fact, when God spoke your calling over your life, the promise was so strong, that you could feel God’s peace over you.
God is not a liar. His word will not return unto him void. However, we are not in charge of the timing. But, because we don’t see God’s promise coming to fruition right away, we allow the enemy to shame us with doubt and negative views of God. We detach ourselves from seeing his provision, faithfulness, and goodness while we wait.
The Effects of Our Calling
When God puts a calling on our lives, it can bring out the best or the worst in people. Some people will cheer you on and confirm the calling that has been spoken to you clearly about. They might even offer to help you with anything that you need to get started. These are usually the ones who will pray for and with you and walk through the entire birthing process that God has placed upon you.
But then we have the second group of people. This is the group of people who will try to do everything that they can do to discourage you from stepping into what God has already told you is yours. I have had this to happen to me unfortunately. They will spew out everything that they can possibly think of in the area of negativity. There will be subtle hints of how you should do something else. Or hints of your current status not being representative of anything close to your calling. They might make comments about your clothing or physical appearance.
Unfortunately, in my own personal experience, I had all three of the above instances to occur. I noticed there was a pattern that occurred. As I celebrated each small accomplishment, there were suggestions that I should do something else. It took me a while to catch on. What becomes dangerous, and something that we very much must watch out for is when people will use the Holy Spirit to speak into what you are supposed to do, and it is not lining up with what God has told you. God does speak to other people. However, if it is in direct contradiction with what we have been told, we need to be careful. The scriptures tell us to test the spirits.
One thing about negativity is that when it gets into your head, it becomes like a disease. It is easy going in, but not easy getting out. Your mood will shift from one of being upbeat to depression until you start noticing where the source of this negativity is coming from.
What Happened to Me in My Calling
When everything fell apart in my life in 2018, and I started the beginning of my job trials, Satan tried to convince me to stop following the steps of my calling. However, now that I look back, his work was so evident that he decided to have almost every single appliance in my home to break down one after the other. It was unbelievable.
Then, within the last week, as I was coming to a place of acceptance of letting God direct me in my next steps, and on a spiritual high from this “new place”, once again, Satan showed up in trying to prevent me from doing my calling. Out of nowhere, I had major problems with my printer. Then, I narrowed it down to realizing that the issue was just with my laptop.
Then, I thought, “Oh Great!” I found myself getting upset because it took several hours away from productivity for the day. I had already had two days where I couldn’t do as much work since I wasn’t feeling well, and this particular day, I was ready to get things done. However, the printer was not. I came up with a plan to tackle it later and kept going.
What Happened to Me in My Calling- Part 2
And the enemy kept going. I had three blog posts to get done, and two podcast recordings to complete before the week was out, and my blog’s website had a three-part glitch. The technicians fixed two problems and gave me a workaround solution for third fix so that I could get back to working.
The temporary fix caused about six other problems. At this point, I had to pray. I admitted to the Lord that I was really angry at this point. I asked him to help me not to sin in this anger, and to work through the problem. Sometimes we just have to get honest with our feelings. He was already aware of what was going on. The six other problems resolved by this morning, and I am still working in a temporary editor until their developer fixes the bug. But God is good! Satan didn’t totally cripple me from doing what I needed to do. However, there was a lot of frustration along the way.
As Nehemiah and his people tried to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, they faced a lot of opposition. Like with myself, people tried any and everything in order to get Nehemiah to come down from building the wall. Sanballat and his crew even sent a false prophet to Nehemiah to make it seem like the Lord had given orders.
6 When word came to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it—though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates— 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages[a] on the plain of Ono.”
But they were scheming to harm me; 3 so I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” 4 Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.
5 Then, the fifth time, Sanballat sent his aide to me with the same message, and in his hand was an unsealed letter 6 in which was written:
“It is reported among the nations—and Geshem[b] says it is true—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king 7 and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem: ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us meet together.”
8 I sent him this reply: “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.”
9 They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.”
But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”
Scripture Part 2
10 One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.”
11 But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” 12 I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.
14 Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophet Noadiah and how she and the rest of the prophets have been trying to intimidate me. 15 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.
Opposition to the Completed Wall
16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.
17 Also, in those days the nobles of Judah were sending many letters to Tobiah and replies from Tobiah kept coming to them. 18 For many in Judah were under oath to him, since he was son-in-law to Shekaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah. 19 Moreover, they kept reporting to me his good deeds and then telling him what I said. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me.
Just like with Nehemiah and myself, Satan will send anybody and anything to stop you from doing what God wants you to do. He will send your kids, your family, your friends, appliance and technology failure, etc. Anything! He will send people to us to have us to waste five hours that could be invested in getting things done. Or better yet, waste five hours surfing on social media, and then for sure you aren’t going to want to do anything afterwards.
Solutions for Opposition
How do we combat the opposition against our calling?
Be aware of patterns of behavior in others in others that cause depression and sadness through the spirit of negativity.
Prepare yourself to do some exchanging of your inner and outer circles.
Know that if at no other time, your calling will be the time when it will be clear if you will have to let some friendships go.
Test the spirit to see if what was prophesied lines up with what God promised you.
Keep yourself prayed up and encouraged in the Lord. There are many times that David had to do that.
Persevere with consistency and give yourself grace along the way.
Be honest with your feelings when opposition comes your way.
Thank you for listening to Healing Our Brokenness: Episode 22: Opposition Against Your Calling. I hope that you have been able to have some takeaways to add to your healing. God bless!
In case you missed our last podcast episode, you can catch that one here:
Podcast Episode 21: Approval Addiction Outline:
Dissecting Approval Addiction
Analyzing People-Pleasing
Perfectionism’s Trap
My Issues with Perfectionism
Moses’ Issues with People-Pleasing
Solutions
Podcast Transcript
Approval Addiction
Good afternoon! Welcome to Episode 21: Healing Our Brokenness. Today’s Episode is entitled, “Approval Addiction”.
Dissecting Approval Addiction
Perfectionism and People pleasing are more acceptable words to say. It sounds better and makes us feel better than to tell someone that we suffer from approval addiction. Saying the words approval addiction makes us want to cringe. However, the deeper issue of these two sins is the need for approval. When it comes to the brokenness that occurs in our lives, either we tend to follow in the footsteps that this emotion caused, or we will do the exact opposite. People pleasing and perfectionism stem from rejection. If we are rejected, then the natural thing to do is to 1) disappear, or become invisible, or 2) to make sure that someone sees me.
Analyzing People-Pleasing
First of all, we will examine the sin of people pleasing. When it comes to people pleasing, we are focusing on doing the things that people want us to do. If it gets to the extreme, where we are so trying to keep everybody happy, that we have literally lost our own sense of self in the process, that’s when we get to the point of waking up one day, and then asking ourselves, “Okay, what do I want?”
I have done everything that everyone else wanted me to do. How do I live outside of this? For example, If there are 50 people in a room, and we took a survey to see how all fifty of these people thought that we should style our hair, we could possibly have anywhere between 20 to 50 answers. What if we decided to follow their advice, we’d be going around just like the energizer bunny, worn out, and a tired, hot mess. They would be happy, but we wouldn’t be because we have decided to forego being true to ourselves. We have lost a sense of what we value and hold true to ourselves.
Perfectionism’s Trap
The next sin that we will examine is that of perfectionism. I was abandoned by my dad at age 11. I felt rejected. Since my mom and dad were no longer together, and we were total opposites, and I had to have some kind of conclusion to come to in a child’s mind, then I felt rejected by her. Thirdly, I had a situation where I stood outside of the Baptist church that I grew up in, and one teenager said to another, “Her mother is so beautiful. I wonder what happened to her.”
To a teenage girl, this is devastating. Mix it in with the fact that I already had double issues of rejection from my parents, as well as physical insecurities. It rocked my world. I internalized what was said. And then, I was setup on the course for dating and then marrying my ex-husband, who had his only brokenness of being controlling, manipulative, emotionally abusive, serial cheating, and the list goes on. I endured a 20-year marriage of this. And the question is, since I had grounds for divorce, why did I stay so long?
My Issues with Perfectionism
The above two reasons that I mentioned: extreme insecurities about my appearance and the three-part rejection issue. He was able to keep me in his back pocket so long because of my low-self worth. And, unfortunately, in my brokenness, I allowed it. It wasn’t until about three years ago that I got to the root of my perfectionism/approval addiction issues.
God was gracious and merciful at the time. Secondly, he showed me how it played out. I was the rule follower. The “good girl” in grammar school and high school. Katina didn’t get into trouble. My perfection played out in winning spelling bees, high grades in school, and performing in oratorical contests. I loved doing all these things. However, there was also recognition for doing all these things. Instead of choosing to become invisible, I chose to be seen.
Because of my ex-husband’s brokenness, he pretended like all I had to do was a few things and we would get back to the way that things were. What I didn’t know in the beginning is that I could do 50 things, or 1000 things, and the relationship was never going back to the beginning. I had been love-bombed, gaslight, devalued, and being groomed for discard unfortunately.
Perfectionism went from one area of my life to every area as I tried to fix him and give structure and control an out-of-control person. Who was I fooling? There was a two-way street going. I was on a mission to the fixing what he needed, and I took the devil’s bait of getting my self-worth from him instead of God. We will never be filled by another individual in an area that only God can fill. And if you are dealing with someone with his type of brokenness, they will just keep adding to the list, making you think, “if only you do this”. Trust me, it will never happen.
Moses’ Issues with People-Pleasing
Moses had the same setup from the Israelites. He led the
people out of Egypt as God had told him, but then all of the
needy people were coming to him for everything.
Here is the scripture taken from Exodus 18:
Jethro’s Advice
“18 Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. 2 Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her home, 3 along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom (for he said, “I have been a sojourner[a] in a foreign land”), 4 and the name of the other, Eliezer[b] (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”). 5 Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God.
6 And when he sent word to Moses, “I,[c] your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,” 7 Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent. 8 Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. 9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.
10 Jethro said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. 11 Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.”[d]12 And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.
13 The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. 14 When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” 15 And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God;
16 when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.”17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good.18 You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone.
19 Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, 20 and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. 21 Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
22 And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”
24 So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. 25 Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.26 And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. 27 Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went away to his own country.”
What happened to Moses is kind of like having your children say, “Mom”. You answer and then it turns into fifty more times. And to be honest, by then you are aggravated, and ready to run away or ring someone’s neck. It gets played out real fast. However, like in my relationship, Moses had his rejection issues from birth, and then his life in Egypt that were never resolved. He got caught in people pleasing/approval addiction. He could help the people in their neediness, and they could help provide him with the approval that he craved that should have been filled by God.
What happens? We get tired after a while. Emotional, physical, spiritual, and psychological exhaustion takes place on both sides. Codependency sets in, like in me and Moses’ situation. Bottom Line: We can’t give people what they need.
God is telling us like he told Martha, “Come, sit at my feet. Rest in me. Fill your soul with spirit-filled activities. People are never going to be enough.” He is a jealous God. And he is jealous of our people worship.
He keeps telling us: “Come unto me all ye that labor, and I will give you rest.”
When we choose people pleasing and perfectionism over God, then we choose to settle for broken pieces of shame, other people’s expectations, rejection, unworthiness, and unacceptance.
Solutions
So, how do we start the recovery process from approval addiction?
We remind ourselves that our identity is in Christ.
We speak to our soul and tell it, “God loves you!”
Remind ourselves that Jesus was despised and rejected so he can identify with our pain.
Christ is enough, and we are enough in Christ.
Rest in God.
We tell ourselves the follow statement:
“We are all broken, and so when we look to others for approval, we are getting approval from everyone else’s broken lens.”-Katina Horton
Thank you for listening to Healing Our Brokenness: Episode 21: Approval Addiction. I hope that you have been able to have some takeaways to add to your healing. God bless!
If you missed the last episode, you can grab it here. Today’s episode deals with something that we have all found ourselves doing. Click and take a listen!
Episode 20: Just a Little White Lie Podcast Outline
Welcome to Valley of Grace’s Healing Our Brokenness. Today I am featuring “Episode 20: Just A
Little White Lie”. Lying is something
that we have all done. When we lie, and
someone calls us out on it, our response is usually, “Oh it’s just a little
white lie. Everybody lies.”
So, what are some of the things that we are lying
about? Sometimes when we lie, it is to
spare hurting someone’s feelings. Other
times we lie to make ourselves look good, or as if we “have it altogether”,
when we don’t. When we enter the church
doors on Sunday morning, and we are greeting other Sisters and Brothers in
Christ, and they ask about our status, we are afraid to tell them “Okay” or
“Not too Good at the Present moment”, or “I’m going through trials at the present
moment, but I know that God is good.”
Forbid if we get real. No, we
have to say, “Really Good” or “Good”. Or
better yet, “ Fine.”
The last one was one of my favorites until I saw how jacked up that made me feel afterwards. If I was not fine at the time, and I tried to outwardly act like I was happy go lucky, my emotional and mental state knew that something wasn’t matching up. It would actually cause me to experience the trauma symptom of having dysregulated emotions and depression. Go figure.
A few months after I started noticing that was happening, I read a psychology article stating that it makes your emotions harder to control when you do this. Not that we should wallow in self-pity or anything, but when you think about it, we are one way, and trying to signal our emotions and body to do a quick 360 degree turnaround and be okay. The answer is “No” to that one.
r emotions and body to do a quick 360 degree turnaround and be okay. The answer is “No” to that one.
What else are we lying about?
We lie about our jobs, the kind of cars that we drive, our marital
status, and whether we were at home when someone tried to reach us.
When we’re at work, and the ladies or men are in a huddle
talking about their kids and their extracurricular activities, material
possessions, or their socioeconomic statuses, we lie about ours.
When we are in our church small groups, we lie about our
woundedness for fear that everybody else will have lighter sins and issues than
us. We don’t want to look “too broken”. We have to look as close to Jesus “perfect” as
possible. When we lie and head to the
perfection side of things, we actually cause someone else to miss their
opportunity to know that they are not alone.
Not only that, we quench the Holy Spirit , and miss out on our blessing.
No matter where we are, we find ourselves lying about our
intentions to others. We come to them,
telling them one thing. However, our
agenda is another. In a lot of cases, the
person that we are lying to is totally unaware of what is going on. One thing about being actively in the pursuit
of lying, there is always someone who witnesses what’s going on. And if there isn’t what the other person
doesn’t know, God knows. And such is the
situation that occurred with David.
David was on the run from Saul. He was without food and weaponry. He went to Ahimelek the priest and lied to
him about his intentions.
David at Nob
21 David went to Nob, to
Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you
alone? Why is no one with you?”
2 David answered Ahimelek the
priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know
anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told
them to meet me at a certain place. 3 Now then,
what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can
find.”
4 But the priest answered David, “I
don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some
consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from
women.”
5 David replied, “Indeed women have
been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men’s bodies are
holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” 6 So
the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there
except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on
the day it was taken away.
7 Now one of Saul’s servants was
there that day, detained before the Lord;
he was Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s chief shepherd.
8 David asked Ahimelek, “Don’t you
have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon,
because the king’s mission was urgent.”
9 The priest replied, “The
sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of
Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it,
take it; there is no sword here but that one.”
David said, “There is none
like it; give it to me.”
David made the assumption
that lying to Ahimelek would prevent Ahimelek from getting in the crossfire of
Saul’s hunt for David’s life. What David
didn’t anticipate was the fact that Saul’s right-hand man, Doeg, the Edomite, would
be hanging around Nob, witnessing the whole transaction that occurred between
him and Ahimelek. Therefore, Doeg was
going to give Saul the report according to his perception of what he saw.
David underestimated the
demonic forces that he was dealing with.
If Saul was willing to kill his own son, what would he do to someone who
wasn’t? So, what ended up happening?
Just as we are thinking, Doeg tricked on David. Basically, he said something like this, “Saul,
guess who I saw over in Nob, getting Ahimelek’s blessing?”
6 Now Saul heard that David and his men had been discovered. And
Saul was seated, spear in hand, under the tamarisk tree on the hill
at Gibeah, with all his officials standing at his side. 7 He said to them,
“Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and
vineyards? Will he make all of you commanders of thousands and commanders
of hundreds? 8 Is that why
you have all conspired against me? No one tells me when my son makes a
covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is concerned about
me or tells me that my son has incited my servant to lie in wait for me, as he
does today.”
9 But Doeg the Edomite, who was standing with Saul’s officials,
said, “I saw the son of Jesse come to Ahimelek son of Ahitub at Nob. 10 Ahimelek
inquired of the Lord for him; he also gave him
provisions and the swordof Goliath the Philistine.”
11 Then the king sent for the priest Ahimelek son of Ahitub and all
the men of his family, who were the priests at Nob, and they all came to the
king. 12 Saul
said, “Listen now, son of Ahitub.”
“Yes,
my lord,” he answered.
13 Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and
the son of Jesse, giving him bread and a sword and inquiring of God for him, so
that he has rebelled against me and lies in wait for me, as he does today?”
14 Ahimelek answered the king, “Who of all your servants is as
loyal as David, the king’s son-in-law, captain of your bodyguard and highly
respected in your household? 15 Was that day the first time I inquired of
God for him? Of course not! Let not the king accuse your servant or any of his
father’s family, for your servant knows nothing at all about this whole
affair.”
16 But the king said, “You will surely die, Ahimelek, you and your
whole family.”
17 Then the king ordered the guards at his side: “Turn and kill the
priests of the Lord, because they too have sided with David. They knew he was
fleeing, yet they did not tell me.”
But
the king’s officials were unwilling to raise a hand to strike the priests
of the Lord.
18 The king then ordered Doeg, “You turn and strike down the
priests.”So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck them down. That day he killed
eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod. 19 He also put to the swordNob, the town
of the priests, with its men and women, its children and infants, and its
cattle, donkeys and sheep.
20 But one son of Ahimelek son of Ahitub, named
Abiathar, escaped and fled to join David. 21 He told David
that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord. 22 Then David said to Abiathar, “That day,
when Doeg the Edomite was there, I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I
am responsible for the death of your whole family. 23 Stay with me; don’t be afraid. The man who
wants to kill you is trying to kill me too. You will be safe with me.”
David’s lying caused Ahimilek, and all of his household, except for one, and all the other priests of Nob to be killed.
Stewardship Lying
The last thing that I want
to talk about are the lies we tell about our stewardship. When we find out others are giving more money
than we are, we tend to lie about how much we are giving. When it comes to lying about stewardship, we
are lying to God, not men.
If we were able to, we would go back in time and ask Ananias and
Sapphira about this. The Christians over
in the book of Acts were on fire after being filled with the Holy Ghost. They operated on “one accord” at the time. If there were any brethren in need, they
would sell their additional land, and then offer it up to the disciples. No one was without. Ananias and Sapphira sold some of their land.
Their desire was to keep back of the money for themselves. They could have expressed this to the
disciples, but they didn’t. Selling your
land was an act of the heart and will.
It wasn’t a force situation.
The thing is, they wanted to appear super generous like everyone
else. Unfortunately, their lies caught
up with them, and then cost both of them their lives:
Ananias
and Sapphira
5 Now
a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of
property. 2 With
his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but
brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled
your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for
yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong
to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?
What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human
beings but to God.”
5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great
fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young
men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had
happened. 8 Peter
asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,”
she said, “that is the price.”
9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of
the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door,
and they will carry you out also.”
10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the
young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside
her husband. 11 Great
fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
And so, the question that I will leave you with is this, “What
“little white lie” are we telling that could heap disastrous results?
Thank you for listening to another episode of Healing Our Brokenness.
Anxiety is something that we will all face in life. The causes of anxiety and the solutions for dealing with this common problem will vary from person to person. Listen in to Episode 19 as I discuss this topic.
Good morning! Welcome to Valley of Grace’s Healing Our Brokenness podcast. Today, you are listening to Episode 19: Anxiety!
Introduction
Picture this scene: I was in 7th grade, and at the time, I enjoyed competing in oratorical contests for fun. However, because my mother was a single parent, and had to work, she was never able to come to see me compete. I should have been grateful that she was working. However, I got caught up on her being there. She finally decided to come. However, she forgot to forewarn me. I was on the stage, and she waved to show me that she was there, and my mind went blank after the first two lines. I could hear my words trembling, and feel my whole body shaking intensely. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but my lack of preparedness for her coming totally threw me for a loop.
Normal Anxiety
When we hear the word anxiety, all kinds of thoughts come to mind. Anxiety is normal in certain cases. For example, recently I was waiting for the test results from a mammogram, and as I was listening to the person on the phone, I became anxious as I proposed what her words would be and how I would react to them. Anxiety can sneak upon us as we get ready to take a quiz, and it can cause us to forget everything that we were going to say.
Hereditary Anxiety
Anxiety can be debilitating. This type can often be hereditary and would fall under the column of anxiety disorder. That means that if our grandparents and parents have suffered from anxiety disorder, then it is a high chance that we could be dealing with the same issue. When we suffer from this kind of anxiety, it is something that we had no control over.
Trying to be Sovereign Anxiety
There is, however, another kind of anxiety that I am going to discuss. This type of anxiety is from the things that we place on ourselves. Examples of this is trying to fix problems that we don’t have control over. We try to control our adult children and the mistakes that they make in their lives. There is a desire to control whether or not people will accept or reject our uniqueness.
We try to control whether the job that we have had for over 15 years will be the job that we retire from. Do you control the discipline that God gives to a family or friend in regard to their sin, and in the process, we began to enable the individual? When we try so hard to control, it only makes us more out of control. This eagerness to control creates an addiction within itself. This is what the devil doesn’t tell us. We don’t know until it’s too late.
Self-Inflicted Anxiety
Another type of anxiety that we place on ourselves is that
of making changes for the sake of coming out of vicious cycles. For example:
Stacy notices that she has an anxiety attack every morning in regard to
getting out the door and getting to work.
Reasoning: Every morning Stacy
stays in bed until 30 minutes before it’s time to leave to go to work. She has to rush to put makeup on, get her
breakfast, and pack her lunch. Stacy
knows what is behind this problem, but she fails to make the changes. Stacy is self-sabotaging.
Scheduling is another type of self-inflicted anxiety. This is the area that I am guilty of, and starting to make progress in. We pile as much as we can into a given day. The more things we keep adding to that list, the more things will be added to our list of anxiety about. The first thing that we don’t consider is exactly how long it will take to get each thing done. There are only so many hours in the day.
If we work outside the home, those hours are shortened. Unless we are God, there is no way that we can get all those things done, but we try. Sometimes it is possible to get those things done, but we have used this time up on social media, or doing a little bit too much relaxing, only to start the vicious cycle all about again.
Trauma-Induced Anxiety
The last type of anxiety that I would like to discuss is that of trauma-induced anxiety. Unfortunately, this kind is one that I am very familiar with. One kind of trauma anxiety is created from having to be in hypervigilant mode all the time. The other part of trauma anxiety that I have noticed for myself is that I might have a flashback or a trigger of something.
Then, what happens is that my mind may start to think about the details and feelings that this event caused. I push the thought away, thinking that maybe it is unimportant, only to realize later when it resurfaces, and continues to occupy my emotional and mental space, that it is something that I need to deal with. However, since trauma wants to be in control, it will cause you to start self-protecting, and then rationalizing why you shouldn’t talk about this thing.
You think you’ve somehow outsmarted trauma, but it outsmarts you because when this event keeps coming up, it usually causes anxiety to go from 0 to 1000 in your body, while the flashbacks are occurring, and what you don’t realize is that avoidance of discussion of this event is keeping the physical energy in your body, and delaying the healing at the same time.
I learned this the hard way when I tried avoiding talking about seeing my father abuse my mother in our apartment as a kid. I kept delaying and delaying, scratching off on my therapy notes, and saying, “Nope, not this week!” Weeks turned into months, and then finally when I couldn’t take it any longer and started feeling the impulse of swinging and punching at its peak, I did the best thing that I could do. I talked about it with my therapist. It got worse before it got better.
Now, when those feelings come up, I pretend like I am
kickboxing in order to release the energy from my body. Before discussing this event with my
therapist, I would zone into worship music to calm the impulses. What I didn’t realize is that the energy
needs to leave your body.
We ask God to help us with all kinds of things. However, we forget to ask him to help us with
anxiety, and to get to the root. In
Psalms 139 David reminds us about how God knows everything. We can’t hide anything from him. His presence follows us.
139 O Lord, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me. 2
You know when I sit down and when I rise up [my entire life, everything I do];
You understand my thought from afar. 3
You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And You are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4
Even before there is a word on my tongue [still unspoken],
Behold, O Lord, You know it
all. 5
You have enclosed me behind and before,
And [You have] placed Your hand upon me. 6
Such [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high [above me], I cannot reach it.
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead), behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will take hold of me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me, And the night will be the only light around me,” 12 Even the darkness is not dark to You and conceals nothing from You, But the night shines as bright as the day; Darkness and light are alike to You.
13
For You formed my innermost parts;
You knit me [together] in my mother’s womb. 14
I will give thanks and praise to You, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well. 15
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was being formed in secret,
And intricately and skillfully formed [as if embroidered with
many colors] in the depths of the earth. 16
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were appointed for me,
When as yet there was not one of them [even taking shape].
17
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them! 18
If I could count them, they would outnumber the sand.
When I awake, I am still with You.
19 [a]O that You would
kill the wicked, O God;
Go away from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. 20
For they speak against You wickedly,
Your enemies take Your name in vain. 21
Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? 22
I hate them with perfect and utmost hatred;
They have become my enemies.
23
Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart;
Test me and know my anxious thoughts; 24
And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.
What are some helpful ways to reduce anxiety?
Taking a deep breath in and out
Meditating on worship music
Prayer
Exercise
Therapy
Sometimes medicine, along with everything lifted above.
I pray that you have heard something here today that has
been helpful.
Episode 18: Hearing God's Voice in the Midst of Chaos
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There are a lot of voices that we hear on a daily basis. However, discerning the voice of God becomes the most important one that we need to focus on. Do we know what to look for? Is it the same voice for everyone? These questions and more will be answered in this week’s episode: Hearing God’s Voice in the Midst of Chaos.
Good afternoon! Welcome to Valley of Grace’s Healing Our Brokenness Podcast! Today we are on episode 18, entitled, Hearing God’s Voice in the Midst of Chaos. When we think about hearing God, we often associate it with the Ten Commandments movie where God spoke to Moses on the mountain. Sometimes God is just that powerful. However, often hearing God can come in the small, subtle, or least grand ways than we expect.
So, the question
that you all are probably asking is, “Well, if it is small, how will I know?”
We do three
things:
We slow down enough to hear him. If we aren’t slowed down enough, we won’t hear God, or gain clarity on anything else that is going on.
We pray and ask God to help us to become discerning in regard to noticing his voice.
WE look for God to speak to us in themes or patterns. This can be via sermons at church, small groups and bible studies, therapy, or via inner circle advice.
Part #2 Hearing God’s Voice
I have realized
for myself that God speaks to me through my work. Since I read and listen to a lot of blogs,
articles, podcasts, and sermons, God will have them to center around a certain
theme for me to understand that it is something that I need to work on.
Sometimes he
speaks to me in dreams to prepare me. I
have heard others say that God doesn’t speak to other people in dreams as in
biblical times. I beg to differ. God knows each and everyone of us by name, the
number of the strands of hair that is on our heads, and the names of all the stars. I believe that God will use whatever means
necessary for us to know that it is him.
A few years
ago, after going through a horrific divorce, I longed to see my dad who I hadn’t
been in contact with for a while. I
searched for him, and unfortunately, came to a dead end. About two weeks later, I had a dream that I
was with him on the bus in Chicago, and he was wearing the leather jacket that
he often wore when I was a kid. I looked
down at his shoes and pants, and I realized that he had the appearance of not
keeping himself up. So, in the dream, I pondered
over asking him if he was homeless, but I was afraid to ask. I woke up, wondering what this all
meant. Less than a week later, my dad
got on the bus that a family friend was driving, and he was able to connect
with my aunt who brought him to my house.
The sight of
him nearly made me fall to the ground.
He had indeed hit hard times and was homeless for a period of nine
months. God has given me a lot of
situations like this to speak to me.
In several
other instances, I thought that it was me being strong-willed/lazy in regard to
something that someone else wanted me to do with them. I am not a strong-willed person. However, I am human, and a sinner. And like all of us broken individuals, there
are things that we know that we should do, but don’t feel like doing, and we fuss
and go on and do it. I thought this was
the case in about three situations, then I realized my whole will had changed because
God was trying to tell me that it is something that I shouldn’t be doing.
It took a
while to see the pattern. They weren’t
bad things. They were things that I had already
dealt with in my healing. There was
literally a pulling in my chest, and a feeling in my spirit that said, “No! This is not for you.” I was surprised because one time I had
planned to write a certain devotion, and I felt God’s Spirit telling me, “No!”. I decided to write on a different topic that
night: Handpicked by God. As I was riding
in the car the following morning, I received confirmation that I made the right
choice by getting a 3-minute clip on a Bible Teacher’s message. It coincided with the new devotion. The words that came out of her mouth were
almost verbatim to what I had said in my devotion. I choked up with tears. What I thought was simplicity was God
exemplifying that he is a God of order.
God can also
have us to sense things in our spirit that something is wrong when we talk to
people. Their emotions and psychological
dysfunctions can enter our emotional, psychological, and spiritual space. Sometimes it takes a while to figure this out. We are usually able to detect this in
patterns after a while.
A few months
ago, I had the feeling that my confidence had been stripped away. This was due to the trauma and the cycle of
shame that revolved around it. Even if
there were things that I knew how to do, I would get afraid of not being able
to do them. This is indeed a problem
with trauma, where you can forget how to do certain things temporarily at any
point and time. However, it isn’t often
that it happens. And I realized just
recently, that Satan was using this fact to create low confidence in everything
that I did. Right around the time that
revelation hit, I had three different instances of God speaking to me in regard
to this confidence.
The first
one included a conversation with someone that I met who was able to discern
this. The second conversation was from
someone wishing me a happy birthday, and then stating that 2019 would be the year
of confidence for me. The third time was
reading a book, and having a specific chapter speak on self-confidence, the importance
of it, and how to lean into God’s love to get it. For some reason, I had never thought about
praying for confidence.
Here are
some Truths that we can meditate on when it comes to Hearing from God in the
Midst of Chaos
Being too busy will miss out on hearing God’s voice.
If we are limited to our way, we will miss out on hearing God’s voice.
The failure to act in obedience in the small window of time that God gives us in emergency situations may hinder us from hearing God’s voice.
When we fail to act on God’s instructions to share what he has placed in our heart with someone else, we miss the opportunity to bless someone.
When we fail to act on God’s instructions to share what he has placed in our heart with someone else, we also miss the opportunity of bringing possible correction or rebuke to that person on an issue that God was already trying to show them.
Part #3 Hearing God’s Voice
Samuel learned to identify God’s voice. And unfortunately, he had some sad news to give to Eli, who had neglected his duties as the person in charge of the temple in 1 Samuel 3:
And the child Samuel
ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in
those days; there
was no open vision.
And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was
laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that
he could not see;
And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where
the ark of God was,
and Samuel was laid down to
sleep;
That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I.
And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am
I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went
and lay down.
And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went
to Eli, and said, Here am
I; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down
again.
Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the
LORD yet revealed unto him.
And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and
went to Eli, and said, Here am
I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the
child.
Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if
he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So
Samuel went and lay down in his place.
And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times,
Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.
And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel,
at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.
In that day I will perform against Eli all things
which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an
end.
For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the
iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he
restrained them not.
And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the
iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for
ever.
And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the
house of the LORD. And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision.
Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered,
Here am I.
And he said, What is
the thing that the
LORD hath said unto thee? I pray thee hide it
not from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me
of all the things that he said unto thee.
And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he
said, It is
the LORD: let him do what seemeth him good.
And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and did let none of
his words fall to the ground.
And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of
the LORD.
I have had situations where I felt God speaking to me about sharing with someone in regard to my own person struggles. However, I allowed my own shame, and the worry about other peoples’ perception of me get in the way of obedience. There have been other times that I was more afraid of ugly face crying and losing control in the process of vulnerability rather than the obedience itself. I had to speak truth to myself about this. It is sin. I am calling it what it is. When we know to do good, and we don’t do it, it is flat out sin. I hope that you have enjoyed our episode of Hearing from God in the midst of Chaos. God bless, and until next time.
Are you tired of making excuses for everything that you did or didn’t do? How about hearing excuses from your kids when they didn’t follow through with their chores, or something you specifically told them to get done? In the beginning, it doesn’t seem so bad, but after a while, like anything else, excuses can get played out. Even with God.
Like the Israelites, we find ourselves in a vicious cycle. We end up begging God for mercy. saying that we’ll do better, and then going right back to continue the same sin over again. We end up cheapening grace until God steps in and causes a wake-up call! Listen to the podcast for this week to find out what happened to me when I ran out of excuses. Last week’s podcast episode can be found here.
3 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
Part Two
4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
3 Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
6 And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?King James Version (KJV)
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to the Valley of Grace Healing our Brokenness Podcast. And this morning, we are recording episode number 17 No Excuses.
We make
excuses for everything. We secretly wish
that we could do things as well as other people. For some of these things, we have the
resources and materials to do them. We
won’t put them on our calendars. And
when we do, we keep putting them off until the next day. I’ll get to it tomorrow. I’ll get to it on the weekend. The weekend turns into next week, then next
month, then next year, and then 5 years later we are still wishing that we could’ve
developed our skills in certain areas. We
trade our desires for time scrolling social media excessively or having Netflix
or cable tv marathons.
Here’s
another one: As soon as the kids are in
kindergarten, I will practice better self-care.
Instead of doing this, we become even more worn down from playdate
overload. Then, once the kids get into
middle school, I will get involved in small groups instead of isolating myself. Instead of getting connected, we become even
more isolated because we are running kids around 5 days a week for
extracurricular activities. A lot of
times our excuses is that we are tired.
And a lot of times this is the truth.
However, we miraculously find a way to get everything else done.
Here’s
another one:
As soon as
football season is over, we’ll start eating together as a family, having family
night, and the list goes on and on. What
happens is that the older our kids get, the more intentionality has to take
place, but also, the harder it is to plan because of conflicting schedules,
part-time jobs, girlfriends and boyfriends, and their desire to do more with
their friends than with their parents.
Before you
know it, we look up, and that time is gone.
Our children are young adults, and we are unable to get that time back.
Today, we
are going to look at one individual who made excuses in the bible. His name is Jonah. He was told to go to Nineveh to warn the
people of their sins and God’s judgment if they didn’t repent. Instead of going, he headed to Tarshish and God
had it where he was given a belly of the fish detour for disobeying his
command. Jonah felt justified in his
disobedience? Why? His excuse was that he knew that God would
forgive the people of Nineveh. Let’s
listen to the conversation that takes place between God and Jonah:
Jonah 3:10-4:5
“And God saw
their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the
evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he
was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in
my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a
gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest
thee of the evil.
3 Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for
it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the
east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the
shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
We would
rather make excuses for disobedience to God’s instructions when we have our own
opinions of what God’s end decision will be.
When I was
at my last residence, it got to the point that I knew that I wasn’t receiving
the correct amount of child and maintenance support money. I didn’t want the stress of going back to
court. I didn’t want the additional
trauma either. However, I struggled,
playing the Robbing Peter to pay Paul game, trying to keep up with paying
utilities and rent, and scrambling to buy food.
As circumstances would have it, (God) I got backed into a corner where I
had to go to take him back to court as my kids and I were facing eviction.
The process
lasted three painful years, and unfortunately, more lies than before erupted in
regard to income. Everything that he was
doing was projected on to me. Before
leaving the courtroom, I almost ended up unfairly with a humongous amount of
money to pay him. The whole scene was
one that was out of a crazy Lifetime movie, except it was my life.
When I got
home after court, the anger erupted, I said to myself, so basically three whole
years for this end result? Really!!!
However, the
Holy Spirit had already spoken to me several months before the last court date
and told me, “Even if you never see a penny of that money, it was never about
the money to begin with. It was about
accountability and God wanting you to fight for what was rightfully
yours.”
God knew the
only way that I would stand up for myself was to force me into a series of
events that gave me no choice.
And so the question that I leave with you tonight as food for thought is this: What excuse are you making that could be keeping you straddling the fence of disobedience to God?
Thank you for listening to Healing our Brokenness and have a wonderful rest of your night!
Call to Action
If you are ready to stop making excuses when it comes to living in survival mode, and dysfunctional patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms, check out my new online Teachable course. Remember: Healing, growth, and maturity is not a drive-thru service, it’s something that can take a lifetime. However, what are our choices: revolving door of stagnancy or thriving and freedom. YOU DECIDE! Click here for more information!
In case you missed our last podcast episode, The Sin of Complaining, you can find it here. Today’s podcast deals with the Comparison Trap. It is the issue that is ripping families, churches, and friendships apart. Yet, we still can’t seem to find a way to get out of it. Let’s explore the topic a little bit further to see how destructive it can be, and what solutions we can implement in order to get out of it.
