Category Archives: SPIRITUAL GROWTH Series (Inner Transformation)

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A List of 8 Items that Changed My Life (16)

My story is a little different. The changes in me came as a result of a vow and a list.

Teacher pic from that year.

Teacher pic from that year.

Both the vow and the list were promises I made to God from out of a wounded heart and after years of struggle. I decided that I would use anything God wanted to do in me or reveal to me for His glory, and to help others who suffer in silence.

I made the vow in February,a week after my mate chose to leave our marriage of twenty-one years.  This vow was the first step that essentially opened the door for my transformation to begin.         

 

 

My first journal entry:

Actual Journal Entry

Gracious Father, Work on my heart and mind. Help me to learn to listen. Help me to push past my fear and to have eyes to see. I want to see Jesus. May my reality adjust and readjust as my vision for you changes. May I see you alone. May the work you are doing in me be used outwardly to minister to others. I seek you and you alone.” 

 

 

 

Two months later in April, 2002: The next big step occurred when I made a commitment to change, which impacted and revolutionized my life. It was what happened after I wrote the list, which would forever change my life. The key, why it worked and impacted my life was in its intention. I made a purposed choice and surrendered my stuff, all of it with no exceptions, to God. It was radical

The list was written by me on the day I was served divorce papers. It was my forty-sixth birthday.  I submitted the list to God in a prayer, asking Him to do something I could not do on my own. I was on empty. I had done everything the best way I knew how–and it had never been enough.

The list was a declaration of what I wanted God to do in my life and with a plea for Him to change me.  For all my trying I hadn’t been able to save my marriage, now I wanted God to save me from defeat and despair and from becoming a bitter old woman.

1. God first in everything. I want His power and strength in all I do. I want to change.
2. Healing in my emotions and deep inner spirit. I want to be free. I want joy.
3. Be myself. Let go of the chains and conflicts that bind me.
4. Become more self-decisive, less worried about what others think.
5. Develop more honest “transparent-real” friendships with godly people.
6. Seek deliverance from the bondage I’ve been under.
7. Pray for repentance which brings godliness, for wellness in all areas of my being.
8. Pray for God to change me. I will pray for awareness and humbling.

I sought God for all I was worth. He initiated change in me.  Surprisingly (or not so surprising), every one of the items on the list became true in my life. I received a full, spiritual beauty make-over!         

God can take a broken person and breathe life into them. His life becomes their life. His Spirit renews and heals their spirit. These days I can not imagine living without God. He has become my breath and being, my sustenance and joy. It is hard to explain how even the simplest of common things, like a dainty wildflower, can reduce me to tears of wonderment and joy. 

When we give God access to our lives, what God gives to us is His love. We, in return, receive a beautiful heart. After the healing transformation has begun, our hearts becomes free to love in a new way. Because of its swelling abundance it must share its love. It becomes an outworking of the love God has given us which replicates through us in an a sundry of ways.

God makes something beautiful out of something ordinary. He is that way. We must trust Him for the journey. I must say, though, it rarely is easy, and we are desperate at times. Yet, He walks with us right in step … even when we can’t see him through the fog of circumstances.

It is a privilege to help a Christian sister or brother who is going through the fire, to encourage them, to tell them that they will make it and life will get better because you know it is true, you have lived it. The more real God becomes the better it gets, even through the difficulties and heartaches. He touches us where we need touching, in our deep inner places. He frees us through his love, forgiveness, and life.

Because of love, true love, God gives us the most gorgeous valentine of them all and its words say, “I LOVE YOU!” He does love you, and He is crazy about you. Believe it and embrace it.
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I’d love to hear from you. Have you had a defining moment when God did an amazing work in you?

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Embrace Father-God (15)

God notices when we thumb our noses at Him and disregard His ways and leading. It must cause Him some measure of pain.

PATH TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM – LIVE A TRANSFORMED LIFE

I heard a story the other day about a man who bought some fries at McDonald’s for his four year old son. His son was eating the fries and the aroma was tempting the dad. He reached over to snag a couple of fries when his son stopped him. “Don’t, Daddy, these are my fries,” the boy exclaimed as he pushed his father’s hand away. Now, in reality, the boy wouldn’t have had any fries if his father hadn’t bought them for him. In essence, it was a moot point. However, what bothered the father was that his son didn’t want to share with him what he had given his son in the first place.

After the exchange with his son was over, the father began thinking about what had just happened.

It made the dad think about God and us and our reaction to God. He saw a picture in his mind of God with His children, how God must feel when He gives us what we need and desire, but then we aren’t willing to share back with Him out of what He has given us.

If we could just grasp this concept. All that we have comes from God. Why wouldn’t He want to be a part of our lives? He does. Our Father wishes to have His children’s love and loyalty in response to His great love for us that He desires to share and complete in us.

It is similar to when we wish to be with a person we love, but we find we can only see them for a limited amount of time. We alter our schedule and responsibilities in order to make time to see that person even at the expense of other things of importance.

God wants our love, our friendship, our time, our desire for Him to be of value, interactive, and reciprocal. I believe God to be this way. We are dependent on Him, but it need not be a contest of God’s will versus our will. We pull together. He in me, and me in Him. Our lives pivot with Him at His command. Even our bolting and erratic behaviors are not apart from His yoke, no matter how independent or self-motivated, actualized we are.

When we quit fighting and yield and lean in to God, bend our will to His will, as part of the team and with no form of resistance, then we find spiritual rest. This is a true state of rest for our souls, soul-rest, spiritual rest, formulated in trust. We find ourselves never alone. God is with us, always.

The key to supernatural spiritual rest is found in God. Spiritual rest will not and can not happen until we let go of ourselves. This will come as we yield. Come to Him. Look deeply inward. Ask to take His yoke, His life as part of yours.

Seek to learn, not just know.

Allow God to manifest Himself in you by actually surrendering your right to yourself. Then the rest will follow on its heels. With spirit-rest, there will be peace, joy, and genuine Christ-likeness. The end result? A person begins to change on the inside, and we stop being Christian phonies and become real spiritually.

What about our pain? Its healing becomes part of a renewal process as you give it to God for His tender graces as you seek Him for truth, righteousness, and healing. The healing may come quick or it may be slow. It is a part of the transformation that occurs as you seek to find God in a spirit of openness, humility, and with God-sufficiency. You are done with your own self- rule and self-sufficiency.

It is freeing to let go of ourselves. Let go, and let God. Many of us have found this to be true. It takes an act of the will. It takes trust in God. It takes initiative on our part. And it takes time. It takes all of these and always will. In time they become who you are and you are a new creature in Christ.

Those who seek God will find God in the intimacy of relationship, real and loving, and worth every problem and heartache it has taken to get there. God makes us new. He restores, heals, and renews our lives. In this, He refreshes our souls. I am so thankful that this is true. It makes life worth living. Freedom is where it’s at.

Joy comes in the morning.

Believe it. Know it. Embrace it. Start living!

Embrace your new life. God is there for you.
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