Choosing to be Vulnerable

Too often I meet people who are destroyed by the unfaithfulness of people in their life. They are abused by a parent, disappointed by decisions made for them by those in authority over them, abandoned by a spouse, traumatized by infidelity, or overwhelmed by grief from some loss in their life.

Through life's trials, I have learned that all people are inherently untrustworthy. You and I fall into that category as well. We never know how we will act or react to a moment of temptation and weakness. Yet, God calls us to love unconditionally.

If we withhold trust and love from others because we are wounded or fear the potential of being hurt, we cheat our self. We erect walls around our emotions and function in life from our mind only.

We refuse to feel anything because life is too painful for us. We do not emotionally invest in anyone, not even our spouse, children or church family. We simply show love by doing acts of service for them.

This attitude makes us feel like we are a success and doing our duty to others. Yet, this is a substitute at best - failing to fulfill us at the deepest levels of our soul.

We hide behind arrogance, which actually makes us more vulnerable and increases our load of unwanted emotional baggage. We collect the incidents of abuse in our soul and hold grudges, forgiving with our mind but never from our heart.

God is the only entity in life that we can truly trust. He always has our best interest at heart. Even if He disciplines us or allows life to bruise us, He never allows life to totally break us (Isaiah 42:3).

This makes life worth the risk of allowing our self to be vulnerable to hurt, in order to experience the joy of unfettered love and acceptance. We can even more freely love our self if we allow our self to love others (Mark 12:30-31).

 

Prayer:

Father God, our soul can only find our true and complete rest in You alone. You are our only salvation and constant comfort and strength. You alone are our rock and fortress. No matter what life throws at us, we will never be shaken as long as we keep our focus on You (Psalm 62:1).

Remind us that it is easier to forgive others when we realize that they are as vulnerable and human as we are. We can actually expect to be wounded by other people, but it hurts less when we have our faith in You rather than in our fellow sojourners in this life. You give us Your agape love to share with the world and it is healing and complete.

Thought for the Day:

God is our only help and shield from the inherent pain life brings (Psalm 33:20), because He alone is our strength in times of trouble (Psalm 37:39), and our courage in this insecure world (Psalm 130:5); we wait in silence before Him and find our hope only in Him (Psalm 62:5).

Good News for the Distressed

The Psalms is a great place to spend time when you are distressed or in trouble of any kind. Poor David and his friends, who contributed to the Psalms, experienced all of the negative emotions we are prone to today. They journaled their feelings and then usually ended up praising God before the Psalm is finished. What a great example to us.

There is no shame in having a bad day, experiencing emotional trouble in your heart or feeling stress (Psalm 25:17). We all experience negative thoughts and emotions, which are triggered by daily life. In addition to these current negative emotions, we also have emotional baggage from our past. In former experiences, we left segments of our true self along the road we have traveled.

Current incidents draw from the negative emotions we felt in these former traumatic conflicts. Names, places, colors, smells, topics of conversation or TV dramas, ornamental objects, etc. may all trigger memories from our past, which caused us pain or distress. All of that negative emotion comes to the surface and adds to our current emotions. 

Satan will plant a lie in each of these negative incidents. If we take time to explore these former experiences, we can resolve those conflicts and clean up some of our emotional baggage, which we accumulated over the years. This prevents these past events from influencing our future and controlling our current life. We put a stop to Satan's torment.

(Read these three free chapters and watch the videos:  http://theophostic.com/page13051343.aspx )

Prayer:

Father God, the devil is out to steal our joy, kill our ministry and destroy our relationships (John 10:10). We no longer need to give him permission or suffer from his torment. Help us to persevere in prayer with Your Spirit in a quiet, undisturbed place and time. Remind us to journal, so we have a way to vent our pent-up emotions. You will reveal to us the issues at the root of our feelings, and You will heal us with Your Word of Truth by Your Spirit.

Thought for the Day:

The Holy Spirit within us knows the exact time and place these trauma's occurred, and He will take us back to that memory, uncover Satan's lie and heal our emotions. This discontinues the current pain, which haunts us from the past.

Understanding Negaitve Emotions - Part 2

 

One reason that addictions are so prevalent in our society is that people are attempting to anesthetize their pain from past trauma. Until we face the pain from the past, we will never be free from it. Many fear experiencing that pain all over again and refuse to address these issues. What they fail to realize is that the pain already affects them every day of their life and causes them to react negatively to current circumstances (Psalm 25:17). They are doping instead of coping.

God is able to heal us of any trauma from our past and to free us to live a victorious future. Pilgrim’s Progress, by Paul Bunyan, is a story about a man who carries a load of baggage with him everywhere he goes. Through the story, he brings this baggage to the cross of Christ and finally lays them down. We do this same thing. We carry emotional baggage that gets heavier with each day we live. This baggage ends up controlling our reactions to life.

Satan rages war with us on the battleground of our mind. He uses our thoughts to infiltrate our soul and to influence our emotions. Then once he controls our mind and emotions, he can also control our will and our actions. This is why Paul encourages us to think only on positive thoughts (Philippians 4:8). In order to get rid of Satan’s negative influence and to think only on positive aspects, we come before the Lord in total surrender and sit quietly and listen to His voice.

Dismissing any distractions, we submit our negative thoughts to God’s microscope and use the principles in Part 1 of this series on Understanding Negative emotions to uncover their root cause. Once we uncover Satan’s lie, we can walk in God’s truth. This allows our emotional baggage to fall away. Sure, we will feel negative emotions again, but they will not be empowered by the pain of our past.

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for offering us a way to discard the negative emotions of the past, so we are free to walk in Your freedom and power each day of our life. Help us to concentrate only on whatever is true, righteous, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). Help us to live lives that are so full of holiness that the unsaved will see our good works and glorify You (Matthew 5:16; 1 Peter 2:12). Allow Your peace to transport us through any negative circumstance we encounter (Philippians 4:7).

Thought for the Day: Christ in us is our whole life, and we mature to walk in unity with Him. - Colossians 3:4