Simmer Down Now

So many things have happened in a short period of time that I cried so hard I was to the point of hyperventilation. It just got to be too much for me to handle. Which brings me to this realization... it is too much for ME to handle alone, I need HIM. I felt so stupid for worrying myself to the point of hyperventilation, because He is standing there waving His hands and yelling "Yo over here! I can do it, just come to me and I got your back!"

A very dear friend of mine, we'll call her Dr. Bailey, gave me a book a couple weeks ago. "Breaking Free" by Beth Moore. If you aren't familiar with her, drive to the bookstore right now or listen to her podcast on iTunes. A Christian woman who is humble, real, admittedly imperfect, passionate, and the best part... she is hilarious. And Southern : )

Anyways, the book talks about captivity and the chains holding us down. These words sound like something out of 'Troy' or 'The Gladiator', but they are very real in each of our lives. Of course we don't have actual chains holding us to the ground, or at least I hope you don't, if you do I don't really know what to tell ya. But for the rest of us, we have different kinds of chains. These chains can be doubt and lack of trust. They can be drugs or alcohol or even shopping. And the one we don't see as chains can be people. Are you putting someone in the place where God is supposed to be? I have plenty of times.

One big thing I read made me sit back and think 'whoops'. It focused on the issue of believing God. Not believing He exists and that He is up there somewhere and hopefully we'll see Him one day. I mean believing Him. Believing Him when He says the things He says and tells us what He can do.

Believing He is real and believing Him are two very separate things.

If a close friend tells you "I will be there for you always. You can talk to me anytime. I will never turn my back to you. I will love you more than you can imagine no matter what horrible things you do." When you hear that, you believe that person and it's a great feeling. So why don't we believe God when He tells us the same thing? Maybe you believe He'll always be there and blah blah blah. But if we are dealing with problems in life and worry about them, we are not believing Him. When we turn to other things or people instead of Him, we are not believing Him. I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the point. We can say we believe Him, but do we really? Are we acting like we believe Him?

Worrying= doubt= not believing.

Another thing that made me step back was the issue of praying. Praying is tricky. It can be tough, honestly. We are humans and we like to talk to people we can physically see and physically hear. You have to realize the power of prayer for it to be something meaningful to us. Not 'the power' as in if you pray for a big house you will turn around and there's a big house waiting for you to move in. I mean the power it has to make your relationship with God intimate and fulfilling. The enemy knows how powerful prayer is and it freaks him out. He will distract us with anything to keep us from praying. Even with things we think are good like going to church or reading the Bible all night looking for answers. These things are good, but they are a package deal. They are only good when there is prayer involved. If the enemy is so freaked out about us praying, there has to be a pretty big reason for it.

You have to think of what you have with God as an actual relationship. Think about your relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife. What kind of relationship would you have with that person if you only talked to them for 2 minutes before you went to sleep at night. Or only came to that person after you've gone to everybody and everything else for help with a problem. Or didn't believe him or her when they told you how much they loved you. What a terrible relationship that would be! You have to think of your relationship with God that way. That's the one point that totally changed my life. When I realized what a relationship with Him actually meant. The correlation with that and how physical human relationships work made me realize I need to involve Him in my life all day every day, take Him with me wherever I go, don't just talk to Him right as I'm falling asleep at night or only when I'm having a problem.

So these are the things I have learned in the past few days. I thought it would be selfish not to share. If Dr. Bailey hadn't shared with me I would still be on the floor and defeated. The amazing thing is, the second I believed Him, I felt total peace. He literally told my heart 'Dude don't worry, I got this. I am going to be right by your side as you go through all of this and I can hands-down take anybody or anything that gets in your way. You just have to trust me." How lucky are we to have that on our side?