Yesterday, it was so hard to be face-to-face with my own want and depravity. In Your goodness, no human was there to distract me from my true help.
Psalm 121
“I lift my eye to the hills, From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!
He will not let your foot be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”
I felt like I was being forced through a tiny hole. Why was my soul so anguished? The wounds from childhood are still an enigma to me, but they impact my days nonetheless. When my heart gets fearful, and my tendency to fight to defend my wound rears its ugly head, I historically want to lean on my flesh to save me from my fears.
I think I can give my fear at least a generic name: abandonment. What happened when I was young? I’m not clear. But today, nuances of rejection can spiral into panic faster than the mind can think. Knowing this was a start, but how to stop a lifelong habit and belief that I can frighten my enemy away with my anger and flesh? I now realize I cannot do it.
When I came to the end of myself AND by God’s grace and love, no human was available to distract me from lesser help, I had to look up at the only ONE who truly had the power to save and give freedom.
I declared, “I’m going to take You at Your word, You said it, I believe it.
I am not who the enemy says I am. That fear must let go because of You. Only You. If You don’t answer, its my last hope. It all rides on You.”
Then I heard Your whispers to me in the dark night. My eyes can’t see You in this dark, but my ears are hearing Your still small voice start to list the truths.
I have the Spirit of adoption, not slavery…We are more than conquerers through Him who loved us…Overcome evil with good…My worth comes from the Lord…
I now sense Your compassionate eyes on me. You see me and love me.
I don’t need to believe the lies and accusations. I don’t need to be understood by those around me. You see me and know me.
You created me. Your heart beats fast for me and leaps when I look Your way. In the dark, I look up and try to see You. Even though my physical eyes cannot see You, my heart sees You looking at me in love.
A new hope enters my heart. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” is not just a set of words anymore. I just need to keep my eyes on You all through the storm. I’ve heard that all my life, but I’m kind of getting it now.
Everyday I need to be armored up. But when the storm comes, like Peter, I need to lift up my eyes, lock them with Yours, and You will lead me through the mine field. I can release everyone in my world to Your care. If they don’t understand, I will be ok because You do. I can love them anyway. This is freedom.
Even though I’ve never known such pain, I’m thankful for it because the other side of it is this freedom. I have been through a lot of pain lately. Pain of loss, pain of want. I had even come to thank You sincerely for these trials because they trained my heart to You. I recently marveled at myself for being good with sitting with the pain and even embracing it because it made me feel stronger after it did its work, more alive, and mostly helped me hear You and feel You near.
However, the pain of rejection had not been dealt with yet. This one terrified me. This one still had me slave to the flesh. This one was the smallest hole I had ever tried to squeeze through.
But now, I am daring to speak about this slavery in the past tense. I believe breakthrough began yesterday as You helped me be ok with it. To hold this pain in one hand while choosing to love and turn the other cheek in the other hand. I suppose this is why You created us with two hands.
So the goal is not to be free of the pain.
The goal is to be free in the pain.
Sin will not rule over me anymore. By Your grace I am free. The answer, once again, comes to identity.
Turn Your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.
Thank You Jesus for loving me and patiently, relentlessly, waiting for me to look up to You.
“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to You, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.” Isaiah 30
Streams excerpt for 1/26/2026: “God often waits for us…God was waiting to cleanse them, and the moment their faith began to work, the blessing came…We say we can never be victorious; that we never can conquer these enemies; but as we enter the conflict, One comes and fights by our side, and through Him we are more than conquerors.”
Suggested Bible Reading:
Psalm 121