Do you ever wrestle with the question does God really love me? Sure, it’s easy to believe God’s love for us when everything is going smoothly, blessings are abundant, and we are healthy.  However, how about those times when everything is falling apart, dreams are shattered and it seems like life just won’t let up.  The Word says in Romans 8:38 “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below indeed nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  However, if you’re like me you know that verse by heart but do you really believe it with all your heart that absolutely nothing can separate you from God’s love? I would like to think I do but when hard times come sometimes it is hard to keep hanging on to this truth especially when everything in life is telling you different.  When you get divorced and your greatest heart’s desire is to be married to your Boaz and serving together in ministry, or when you lose your job, your self-esteem,  your financial security. Then right after that you end up in the ER with a failed gallbladder and gastritis when all you want to do is enjoy your life.  If that’s not enough, 6 months later, you find out you have an incisional hernia from the surgery.  But wait, when getting prepared to have the hernia fixed, suddenly the day before Valentine’s day, the anniversary of your marriage and divorce when emotions are already intense, you get a call from the Breast Center saying that they need you to come back for diagnostic test to rule out findings on the screening. At this point your reminded you have had pain in that area for the past two weeks but had chalked it up to residual gastric issues.  Immediately fear pounces on you like a lion stalking his prey and your thoughts start racing trying to figure out what this means, how much you will have to go through, or is it nothing at all.  During these times, can we trust that God really loves us? It can be really hard especially when the enemy of our soul whispers to us “See your worst fears are coming true, God really doesn’t love you or care about you, he wants you to be sick, he is punishing you for your sins”. Don’t believe him he is a liar and the father of lies! John 8:44 “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks of his own native language, for he is a liar and a father of lies.”  However, when you are going through struggles, he can make it seem real and it can be hard to believe that God loves us. So, what you do when you are lying in bed alone, thoughts racing, beating yourself up for being a failure, not good enough and defective; you call on the name of Jesus and He promises that when you call on Him, He will answer you, He will be with you in trouble. Psalm 91:15 “He will call on me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble” He will step in and take over your battles. Don’t try to fight on your own because it is through Him that we have the victory! 2 Chronicles 20:15 “He said “Listen King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the Lord says to you: “Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours but God’s”. I promise you He will show up in your darkness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing and He will calm your fears.  Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing”. He will put a new song in your spirit to strengthen you and spur you on to victory! Psalm 40:3 “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him” and all you have to do is to sing it back to Him and He will show up and the enemy has to flee! Isaiah 59:19 “When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him”. He will bring you peace that passes understanding, He will send you prayers and love notes through your sisters in Christ, and if when you feel you just can’t face the world, you will get that phone call from a friend who says God placed you on their heart to encourage you, lift your spirits, and pray for you.  So yes, even though the trials, struggles and uncertainties will show up, we can trust that God loves us and that truly none of that can separate us from His love found in Christ Jesus and He alone can bring you peace, joy and fulfillment even in the midst of them. In fact, I think God loves it when we call on Him and He can go to work fighting on our behalf just like a loving daddy does!  He will sing over you, encourage you with a Scripture, bring a friend to walk alongside you, or even just let you cry out and vent to Him because He can take it! So, if you are going through struggles right now and the enemy is prowling around and roaring trying to devour you, call on the name of Jesus and let Him love on you because He loves you with an everlasting love! Jeremiah 31:3 The Lord appeared to me from ages past saying “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore, with loving kindness I have drawn you and continued my faithfulness to you”.

Let us pray

Father, I come to you with my brokenness, hurts, and fears and cast them on you for your Word says that we can cast our cares on you that you care for us watchfully and carefully. Lord your Word says that you are close to the brokenhearted and that you bind up their wounds.  Father, I thank you that you will not break a bruised reed but that you will gently nurture, encourage, and strengthen it back to health and wholeness.  Father, I thank you that your perfect love is casting out all fear today and replacing it with joy, peace, and an everlasting love.  Lord, I thank you that you sent your Word to heal me and deliver from my destruction, and that although many are the afflictions of the righteous that you Lord deliver us out of them all.  God, I thank you that your Word says that my Beloved, I pray that you would prosper and be in health just like your soul is getting along.  I thank you Lord that as my soul blesses your name that you forgive all my iniquities, heal all my diseases and redeem my life from destruction that you crown me with tender mercies and loving kindness so that my youth is being renewed like the eagles.  I thank you Lord that those who wait up on the lord will mount up with wings like eagles, that they will run and not be weary and they will walk and not faint.  I thank you Lord that you are good to those hope is in you and that you never leave us or forsake us.  I thank you Father that I am the apple of your eye and that I can call on you Abba daddy and that you will show up and quiet me with your love, rejoice over me with singing and calm all my fears.  For you have not given me a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind and that there is no place that I will walk that you have not gone before and hedged me in in front and behind and that you are making my paths straight.  Father, I thank you that your plans for me are good and not for evil, plans to prosper and not to harm me to give me a hope and a future. I thank you God that I can trust that you are good even when life is not good, you are perfecting everything that concerns me and making all grace abound towards me just because you love me.  I thank you that when I feel discouraged, that you send a friend, a song, a Word to me that lifts me up out of the pit of despair and that you are for me and you will fight for me I need only to be still.  I thank you that when I speak your word, mountains move, enemies flee, that it is health to my flesh and strength to my bones and it will never return to you void but will accomplish what it pleases.  Lord I thank you that this is a day that you have made and I can rejoice and be glad in it no matter the circumstances or situation.  So, I choose today to rejoice in you and thank you that you Lord are my strength and my song and that you are making my feet like that of a deer so that I can walk upon the high places.  So, I ask that as I am in your presence that you will fill me with joy as your Word says that there is fullness of joy in your presence and that I will see you in amazing ways this day that remind me of your love for me.

In Jesus Name

Amen

Does anyone else struggle with fear? What is fear really? I love the acronym Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear is not real and 95% of the time the things we fear never come to pass but it robs us of our peace and joy and can stop us from marching forward with God. So why do we fear? The Bible clearly tells us fear not over 500 times but so many of us still struggle with it. Where does fear comes from? Satan is the author of fear and it’s one of his favorite weapons in his arsenal against us and it can stop us in our tracks from doing what God has called us to do and hinder our walk. As such, we need to determine the root of our fears and identify the lies were are believing to overcome it and be victorious.  2 Corinthians tells us to take every thought captive and make it obedient to God’s Word. For me, fear is something I have struggled with as far back as I can remember and always felt uneasy, anxious and wrought up most of the time.  I was never able to enjoy inner peace and I was always negative and expected the worst. One memory that stands out is around age 5, I began getting these random thoughts in my head about the devil even though I didn’t know who or what that was and I would put my hands over my ears to drown it out. Also, I grew up with an alcoholic father who was emotionally and verbally abusive and an overprotective and overbearing mother and there was a lot of tension and anxiety in the home. I had all kinds of fears like not being good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, what people thought about me, and being alone. As time went by my fears grew to include fear of illness, fear of failure and since my father told me I won’t let anyone love me, I feared not being loved. Even though in reality none of this was true, I lived riddled with anxiety and fear was my constant companion. The only thing that changed is the nature of the fears depending on the season of life or the situation I was in. As a result, I turned to people pleasing, addictions and a myriad of destructive behaviors to cope with the fear but nothing seemed to eradicate it from my life.  However, that all changed when I completely surrendered my life to Christ in 2008 after a miraculous deliverance from addiction.  Through Jesus I had found a new confidence, love for myself, gained an identity and found purpose.  As I set out on this journey, I had total faith, trust and confidence in God but those old fears began surfacing and some new ones developed especially since I had found myself a target of the enemy now that I was a sold-out follower of Christ and not a prisoner of him and the world anymore.  Suddenly I found myself facing fear in a major way and I found myself in the middle of a war that I didn’t even know existed prior to this time. Even thought I had grown up in church, I was ignorant of spiritual warfare, Satan’s tactics, and opposition in the life of a Christian. Therefore, I had to quickly learn to rely on the Holy Spirit and God’s word to defeat fear in my life.  However, it’s not that easy because Satan usually waits until you are overwhelmed, discouraged, weary, tired, stressed, or sick to attack and he knows what we fear. Although there are many areas of fear that God has helped me overcome, there is one area that I had a major breakthrough in the area of health just 3 months ago.  I had been going through an extremely difficult time due to some poor decisions on my part that had left me joyless, weary and disillusioned and suddenly I began having stomach pains of unknown origin with no answers or resolution after repeated trips to the ER Furthermore, I have been mostly healthy with no medical problems or pains so this incited panic and fear.  One Friday night, at my Celebrate Recovery meeting, someone was sharing how God had helped him overcome some fears and how he had awoken one morning with God singing over him the song Fear is a Liar.  At the time, I didn’t realize that God was preparing me for what would happen next.  You know one of those moments where God has us right where he wants us to speak to us and it will be exactly what we are going through.  Well, the next morning, I woke up with that same song playing in my head with a peace and serenity about me no anxiety and I went about my day signing that song out loud.  However, around 12:00, I started feeling anxious again but this time I knew it was more than anxiety that something was wrong but I still kept telling myself it’s just anxiety”.  As the day wore on, I began to get nauseous and my heart was starting to race and I all I could do was sit on the couch because if I stood up, I felt like I was going to pass out.  At the same time, I was having severe pain in my right side under the rib cage and I started to get really worried and called my sponsor.  After praying with her, reading the word & seeking God, I knew God was telling me to call 911 because I knew that my son would be unable to handle my condition to drive me to the hospital.  So, I calmly made the decision to call 911 and when the paramedics came and saw that my blood pressure and heart rate were off the charts, they quickly decided to take me to ER and I was admitted for observation.  By now fear was welling up in me because they were running tests and still didn’t know what was wrong.  I am actually thankful that my vital signs were still off the chart because that’s the only reason they kept me to do more tests.  The next day after running more tests, they found that my gallbladder was failing at 7% and scheduled me for surgery. They also scheduled me for an EGD to check my stomach before undergoing surgery. Now my fear was at an all-time high two procedures that I had undergo anesthesia.  I had only had my tonsils out and a C section and no medical issues so it was scary for me.  I remember clearly God saying to me not to be afraid that he was the first one to use anesthesia when he put Adam to sleep and performed the first surgery.  This brought a new sense of peace to me and I knew he was in control but the fear still lingered.  However, throughout that 5 day hospital stay, God showed up in a mighty way, showed his faithfulness and literally like it says Zephaniah 3:17 that He will quiet you with his love & rejoice over you with singing He means it because both times I had to be put under anesthesia Fear is a liar was playing in my head when I woke up & he continued to place a worship song in my mind everytime I had to face a new fear like IV’s, taking medications, procedures, etc.  Throughout the hospital stay, I was completely overwhelmed with his love, his faithfulness & his provision and comfort. I have no family here but he sent people to visit me, brought me necessities to the hospital and used this experience to draw me closer to Him, increase my faith and trust, and helped me overcome my fears.  So, if like me you struggle with fear and anxiety, just cry out to God, lay it at His feet and God will show up calm your fears, show his faithfulness & quiet you with His love and rejoice over you with singing.  Fear is a Liar!

When fear knocks on the door, let faith open it! Fear is expecting Satan to move. Faith is expecting God to move! 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

All my life I have been told that I march to a different beat! Well turns out its true, it’s God’s beat, the beat of faith! Never thought of faith as a beat? It’s the beat that keeps us in harmony with God and obedient to see His promises fulfilled and obtain victory in our lives. The beat can be light, brisk, and easy but when the storms of life come, it can get long, strenuous, and rugged at which point we can get off key, out of alignment or even misstep.  It’s at those times, we need God and others to help us get back to tempo and keep marching forward.  Join me as I share how God has helped me keep in step with Him so that together we can march our way to victory!

Thanks for joining me!

2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight {living our lives in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises}.