Beauty for ashes: receiving emotional healing (9 page)

Press On to What Lies Ahead

Paul went on to write:

Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp)andmake my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of meandmade me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have capturedandmade it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]-.forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,Ipress ontoward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward" (Philippians 3:12-14, emphasis mine).

If you have been miserable because of the things thathavehappened in your past, I encourage you to do as I did and your focus in a new direction. Determine to be what God

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wants you to be, to have what God wants you to have, and to receive what Jesus died to give you.When you are ready for change, say, "I am not going to live in bondage anymore. I am not going to live in a box, comparing myself to others, and trying to be what they say I should be. I cannot do anything about what I have done in the past, but I can do something about my future. I am going to enjoy my life and have what Jesus died for me to have. I am going to let go of the past, and go on pursuing God from this day forth."

It takes maturity to let go of the past, but a mature Christian receives the fullness of God's blessings. You can forget old failures, old disappointments, and old relationships that did not work out. Instead, you can discover the new mercies that God is ready to give you every day because of the covenant He made with you when you put your trust in His Son Jesus Christ to save you.

King David searched for relatives of his predecessor King Saul because he wanted to bless them, simply because he had a covenant relationship with Saul's son Jonathan. In 2 Samuel 9 is the story of how David found Jonathan's crippled son, Mephibosheth, and brought him into the royal palace where he could take care of him. Mephibosheth did notdoanything to deserve this protection and provision, except that he had a relationship to one who had a covenant with David.

This is a picture of why God cares for us. He blesses us because, as believers, we have a relationship with His Son. We do not deserve to be blessed. We do not earn blessings. We may even be crippled emotionally from some incident in our past. But God picks us up and restores us to our rightful place in His kingdom of peace.

God is not waiting for us to do all the right things before He blesses us. In fact, the most anointed prayer we can ever pray is, "Lord, help me." We cannot reach perfection apart from

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God. We must be totally dependent on Him to keep His promises in our lives. We are only called to be "believers"; otherwise, we would be called "achievers."The disciples asked Jesus, "What are we to do, that we may [habitually] be working the works of God? [What are we to doto carry out what God requires?]" (John 6:28).

!Jesus replied, "This is the work (service) that God asks of

you: thatyou believe in the One Whom He has sent[that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger]" (v 29). Verses 1-12 of Psalm 51 offers a powerful prayer for us to pray: have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercyandloving-kindness blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly [and repeatedly] from my iniquityandguilt and cleanse meandmake me wholly pure from my sin! For I am conscious of my transgressionsandI acknowledge them; my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, haveIsinned and done that which is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified in Your sentence and faultless in Your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me [and I too am sinful]. Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean [ceremonially]; wash me, and I shall [in reality] be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladnessandbe satisfied; let the bones which You have broken rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guiltandiniquities.

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Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering,andsteadfast spirit within me.Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.

If we simply ask God, He will deliver us from the pain of our past mistakes and create in us a steadfast spirit. But while we do not have todoanything to receive God's deliverance, we can miss out on blessings if we run away from our problems without letting God bring us through them.

Moses looked for the easy way out of his problems after he had stepped out of God's timing. He had killed an Egyptian, and there had been a witness to the murder, so he ran into the wilderness to hide. Before God called Moses to go forward to the promised land, He told Moses togo backto Egypt (see Exodus 3:1-10), saying, "Because I have most assuredly seen the abuseandoppression of My people in Egypt and have heard their sighingandgroaning, I have come down to rescue them. So, now come! I will send you back to Egypt [as My messenger]" (Acts 7:34).

God was sending Moses back to the people who had "denied (disowned and rejected)" him (Acts 7:35). His own people had mocked him, saying, "Who made you our ruler (referee) and judge?" (see Exodus 2:14). Moses probably was not excited about going back to face his problems in Egypt.

God does not always call us to go back physically to a place we have been. But if, for example, we have a difficult time submitting to a boss with a certain personality, God may call us to continue working with someone who has the same personality until we master the situation in a godly way. God does not want us to be on the run; He wants us to confront our fears and frustrations in order to find peace in Him.

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In 1 Kings 19, Elijah was running away when God told him to go back and finish what God had told him to do. When Jonah ran from his problems, he wound up in a whale's belly. When God delivered him from the whale, He told him to go back to Nineveh and deliver His message to the people there (see Jonah, chapters 1-3).If we try to solve our own problems without waiting on God, we can make bigger messes. Sarah did this when she convinced her husband Abraham to have a child with her handmaid Hagar rather than waiting for the child promised them by God (see Genesis 16). Hagar eventually ran away because of the way Sarah was treating her, but the Angel of the Lord told her, "Go back to your mistress and [humbly] submit to her control" (v. 9). He promised to bless her obedience by giving her many descendants (see v. 10).

God may be telling you to go back to the place of your frustration and pain, and allow Him to walk you through that doorway and into victorious living. Do not run from His invitation to emotional healing.

Ways People Run from Their Problems

It is common for people to run from their problems, because they do not want to take responsibility for their actions. Most people look for the easy way out, instead of looking for the right choice. Some people physically run away from their problems, going from marriage to marriage, or job to job. Some people mentally run away from their problems through the abuse of drugs and alcohol. But problems do not disappear by avoiding them.

Every choice we make brings results. If we choose never to clean house, eventually everything in it will deteriorate. If we choose not to go to the grocery store, sooner or later we will

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not have any food to eat. The problem is that we want to make wrong choices and get right results, but that does not work. We always reap what we sow (see Galatians 6:7-8). If we choose to do what is right, we will consequently break the cycle of problems that come against us.Some people run from problems by making excuses. When God tries to confront them with something, they make an excuse, saying, "Well, I am acting like this because I am tired." Or, "I act this way because I have been mistreated all my life." An excuse is a reason stuffed with a lie. The problem with excuses is that as long as we hold on to them, we will not see change.

Jesus told the story of a man who planned a great supper and invited many guests to come (see Luke 14:16-24), but one by one they made excuses for why they could not come. The first one said he was too busy with a piece of land that he had just bought. Another gave the excuse of buying oxen that needed to be examined, and another said he could not come because he had just got married. So the man invited all the poor, disabled, blind, and lame people in the streets and filled his house with people willing to be blessed. Those with excuses never tasted the great supper that had been prepared for them.

Another way people run from problems is by blaming others for everything that is wrong. Adam blamed Eve for eating the forbidden fruit; he even blamed God for giving him the woman, while Eve blamed the serpent for misleading her (see Genesis 3). The Israelites blamed Moses for their misery in the wilderness and begged to go back to their place of bondage in Egypt (see Exodus 14:10-12).

I remember when I tried to blame everybody else for my problems. Everything was Dave's fault, or the fault of my upbringing. I had to see thatIwas my only real problem.

Jesus said, "Why do you stare from without at the very

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small particle that is in your brother's eye but do not become aware ofandconsider the beam of timber that is in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3).I enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom now, but it came through facing the truth about myself. God pointed out that I had a bad attitude, and my problems would not be solved until I changed. It hurt to change, but I had to face what God had revealed to me.

We will only get free by hearing the truth and doing what we hear God tell us to do. For example, if God tells you that you have a problem with jealousy, you will continue to miss out on blessings until you deal with it. You will have to start rejoicing when good things happen to other people. Whatever it is that holds you in bondage will have to be confronted with the truth before you can move on.

People also run from their problems by staying too busy. We can even get so busy doing church work that we do not take time to hear from God. I was in full-time ministry, helping people solve their problems, when God spoke to me and said, "Joyce you are so busy doing thingsforMe that you never spend any time with Me." I had to take an honest look at my time and stop doing many things that were not bearing fruit. Staying busy was helping me avoid issues I needed to deal with.

Paul prayed that we, the Church, would learn to sense what is vital:

And this I pray: that your love may abound yet more and moreandextend to its fullest development in knowledge and all keen insight [that your love may display itself in greater depth of acquaintance and more comprehensive discernment],

So that you may surely learn to sense what is vital,andapproveandprize what is excellentandof real value,

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recognizing the highest and the best, and distinguishing the moral differences], and that you may be untaintedandpure and unerringandblameless [so that with hearts sincere and certain and unsullied, you may approach] the day of Christ [not stumblingnorcausing others to stumble]. (Philippians 1:9,10)We need to know what to say yes to and what to turn down. I have had to learn how to say no, because I want to make every day count that I have left in this life. Many times what looks good is the enemy of the better thing that is coming.

For example, God told one woman I know that she needed to stop spending so much time helping other people instead of spending time with her own child. We need to know what God wants us to do with our time, and we learn what He wants by spending time with Him in prayer. If hearing from God is difficult for you, I encourage you to read my book titledHow to Hear from God.In it I share many ways that God communicates with us, and how it always lines up with His Word and leads us to peace.

Procrastination is another common way to run from problems. We make excuses, blame others, and say we are too busy, and so we put off doing something God has told us to do. We think we will do it later, but later never comes. We "delay or turn a deaf ear," just as Isaiah warned in chapter 1, verse 23.

Haggai 1:2-7 shows what becomes of those who put off what God has told them to do:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say, The time is not yet come that the Lord's house should be rebuilt [although Cyrus had ordered it done eighteen years before].

Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,

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Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house [of the Lord] lies in ruins?Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your waysandset your mind on what has come to you.

You have sown much, but you have reaped little; you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you do not have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages has earned them to put them in a bag with holes in it.

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways (your previous and present conduct)andhow you have fared.

We have to motivate ourselves to do what God tells us to do,whenHe tells us to do it. Solomon wrote, "He who observes the wind [and waits for all conditions to be favorable] will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap" (Ecclesiastes 11:4).