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Image by Snæþór S. Halldórsson
How do I cast my care on Him, you ask? For now, take your list (see Part I) in hand, and say Father, these are my very real emotions in a normal day. They bog me down and hinder me in my quest for freedom. I am asking Jesus to take this heavy weight. The devil dropped this package off for me and I don’t want to receive it! I don’t know how You are going to do it, but by faith, I am releasing this burden to You. Please restore to me my joy, peace and intimacy with You. Transform my thought life by the renewing of my mind. Teach me how to experience truth, Your Words, Your thoughts of me (Jeremiah 29:11) So be it!
Now pause for some time and picture The Creator of the Universe embracing you, and gently wiping the tears from your brow, as He kisses your forehead and says “I am proud to be your Father, and I am aware of your troubles. Rest in Me, knowing that these too shall pass.”
God is faithful! Don’t be surprised in what a little time in His presence can have on your day!
I Peter 5:9,10 says this concerning the devil and his packages. “Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. Jesus’ primary mission on earth was to reveal the Father, so that we might have a “Safe Place” to run to. (Proverbs 18:10)
Here are 5 Keys to Casting your cares on Him;
- Recognize~ the heaviness and its destructive properties.
- Resist ~ the devil by faith, he must go (James 4:7,8).
- Release ~ releasing is not “sharing the burden”, it is completely giving the worry, anxiety to Him.
- Renew ~ the mind (Romans 12:1,2) be transformed by the renewing of your mind (thoughts – Bible Truths).
- Refreshed ~ continue your day with joy, times of refreshing by the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19).
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Crying Girl by David Lewis Baker
Remember the famous physical workout saying “No Pain/No Gain”? Here we will address the processing of pain so our “gain” is more freedom.
MANAGING PAIN
Every single negative emotion we ever feel (sufferings), Jesus has experienced the same! The Bible says that “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have One who has been tempted in every way, just as we are; yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15) Let’s see, Jesus’ pain? Firstly, perhaps village shame due to secular perception of His conception. In their eyes He was illegitimate! Secondly, Joseph, His dad died probably during His teen years giving Him a sense of abandonment. Thirdly, His adult rejection is clearly documented in the passion story of His arrest, trial, scourging, and crucifixion. Isaiah 53:3,4 uses words describing Jesus as “despised”, “rejected”, “sorrows”, “grief”, “smitten”, and “afflicted”. Do you ever feel any of those?
Let’s take a practical exercise to help you identify and release your pain to become His pain!
- Choose a day, why not today?
- Start your day with a blank sheet of paper.
- Every time you feel a negative emotion, log it in.
- At the end of that day, observe how many negative emotions you carried that day.
That was the identification process, now let’s look into the release process.
I Peter 5:7 says “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”
You were not created to carry that load of burden and worry! You were created for intimacy with God. You cannot have intimacy with God while carrying on your back all the weight of your list.
Watch for part 2 of “Your Pain/His Pain” available to you in a few days. It will cover the practical application of release! Tried and True!
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Drink this in...
You’ve heard the old saying “you are what you think”? Well, to be sure, it truly does make a difference what we believe, and what we believe has already gone through our thinking processes. What we think and believe helps govern the way we respond to life in all its circumstances. Often times similar events happen to us that are in our memory and old emotions and thoughts (usually negative) come back to haunt us. See my wife’s latest blog post “No more dressing up”. Whatever we believe or believed about that initial event will be re-activated and we find ourselves leaning towards the same old response, feelings, fears, and often times “sense of defilement”. It’s like “drinking in poison” and the effects soon begin to manifest. This creates major hindrances to our peace, tranquility, and joy. It’s impossible to experience intimacy with fear present!
Now get ready to “Drink this in…”
Our minds work by way of association. Have you ever noticed any time you engage in conversation, firstly you hear the subject, then your mind unconsciously scans for entries or past experiences relative to that subject, next you choose to share or be quiet about that association? Interestingly, we are all products of our past. The good with the bad, the constructive with the destructive. Some have said, “I am what I am today, because of the hardships I have been through.” If that is the case for you, my question is “are you “drinking in” the poison of judgment-shame-rejection, or that which gives life?”
Getting thirsty yet?
When I teach about father issues, I teach from my weakness’ as a father, and it often stimulates similar memories to my audience. They can re-connect with their pain, appropriate it, and then they are usually really ready to enhance their belief system so they can “drink this in..”
John 17:23 says that Father God who is eternal, has, is, and will love us the same way He loves His Son Jesus (my paraphrase). That reality will quench the driest, hardest, emptiest thirst a heart could ever have. To be loved by the Father unconditionally, has the potential to eradicate the most deadly poison one could “drink in”.
The next time you find yourself “drinking in” negative thoughts and circumstances from yesterday or yesteryear;
“Drink this in..”
- You are Safe
- You are Loved unconditionally
- You are Accepted
- You have Purpose
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I have heard it taught “there are two kinds of people…
1. Those working through their issues.
2. Those in denial that they have issues”!
I truly believe that even those of us who have chosen to work through our stuff, have certain things that are not healthy in our lives, but refuse to acknowledge them as a legitimate issue. My observation is that we all have a bit of denial in us, my question to you is, just how deep is your denial?
When I first decided to blog about denial, God showed me an image of a river and a ravine. The river represented the “River of Life” where Spiritual life (water) flows, we can drink, wade, tread, be engulfed in, and even be baptized for complete surrender to His presence, ways, and agenda. The other, the ravine, was a deep, rocky, almost waterless river bed, with dried out trees, and the only thing that appeared to be alive was some moss. The water that was present, was stagnant. The moss represented a subtle remnant of spiritual life that used to be.
Photo by Alan Cressler
I would love to see a National Geographic documentary on the activities that take place in ravines! One thing you will find is divers predators! It’s their hidden highway through the forest, and all along the way they prey on those animals that find themselves in the ravine looking for watering holes. Hmmmm, sound familiar? Looking for the right thing, in the wrong place, and suddenly death has its way. If we dwell in the ravine of denial for very long, we will become prey. I Peter 5:8ff “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
I am writing this not because I have arrived at a lofty place of purity in my walk, but quite the contrary. I am beginning to understand humanity due to my own weakness’ and denial. I am writing this that you may consider your own walk, and perhaps make any adjustments that the Holy Spirit would quicken to you. My heart is one with Paul in Titus 22-25 who pleads with Titus to help those struggling, but to God all Glory!
I encourage you, if you identified with those who have become thirsty prey wandering in the ravine of sparsity to rise up out of the ravine (denial), ask a trusted friend to speak into your life concerning the issue. Rise up onto that higher ground, run! Run until your heart takes you to where your ears hear nothing but that rushing water of life. Psalm 46:1ff encourages us that God is our refuge, that THERE IS A RIVER whose streams make glad the city of our God! Run, rise up and run into the river of God, and you will be refreshed and set free from fear of the unknown, fear of man, fear of death, fear of famine, fear of sickness! God is bigger than all of those lies the devil has used to toy with you back in the ravine. Rise up! Run!
Be encouraged!
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Time alone does not heal, God does! Recently I attended my 29 year old Nephews funeral. Patrick left behind his wife Carrie, his 4 year old son Joshua, my older brother (his dad), and their immediate family, and a host of other people that knew and loved Patrick.
This huge loss for my brother Hal and his wife Patty, stirred up some memories of my losing my youngest son Robert Jr. back in December of 2005. As I contemplate that reality, and remember the waves of grief that I experienced, and the boat loads of tears that I shed, I realize more and more that it is NOT time that has brought me healing, but it is GOD and His mercy that has done that.
Most of us have experienced loads of pain in our lifetime. We were not ever in a position to choose when we would suffer it, it just happens usually when we least expect it! Unwanted infants experience rejection verbally, and at times through physical abuse, and often times leading to murder. Adolescent children suffer rejection from peers, parents, strangers, and often times other relatives. Teens almost always suffer multiple broken heart experiences due to the frailty of romantic relationships and their unhealthy boundaries, and then again parental, peers, educators, bosses, etc. And then there is adult pain! When life becomes incredibly serious, and responsibilities increase, the potential for traumatic experiences comes with the progression. Failed marriage after decades, death of a spouse, death of a child, business wiped out. All of these and more bring a sense of failure, shame, confusion and fear into ones life. And the question is, “Where do we run to?”.
If one goes through all of these mentioned stages of his/her life experiencing diversities of pain along the way, and believes that “time will heal”, guess what? One is still not only carrying their pain from childhood, but has layered it, and sometimes added to the magnitude of it due to improper processing (example; “time will heal” or “it really wasn’t that wrong” or “that was a long time ago” or “it will fix itself” or “I’m not sure now if it really happened that way or not”) or no processing at all. Whether or not we don’t process pain due to ignorance of “how to” or plain old “denial”, EMOTIONAL PAIN DOES NOT JUST GO AWAY WITHOUT AFFECTS!
If you wrestle with depression, oppression, obsessions, addictions, inferiority or superiority complex, marital issues, relational issues on any level, or just realize the excess of “drama” in your life, often initiated by you or often involving you, perhaps you have some emotional pain (baggage) that you will want to unload.
At times like these when the economy is in a crunch and politics, jobs, relationships, and our future seem to be unpredictable, many of our buttons get pushed and we learn a lot about ourselves in terms of our frailty.
If you have been reading this, shaking your head yes and saying to yourself “Bob is reading my mail” then I would like to comfort you with these two facts; 1. You are in good company, much of the population of the planet is wounded emotionally. 2. There are many ministries available that are called to and are committed to seeing people not only get some healing emotionally, but learn to love God, others, and themselves at levels they have not yet experienced.
Contact us at info@freedomquestinternational.org for either scheduling your personal prayer ministry session/s with Kelly and I, or for a referral to someone in your geographical area.
Don’t put it off until another time, time does not heal, God does!
May the God of all comfort chase you down and express His love to you in a way you can receive it!
Bob
