“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans” 1:20 (NIV)  

 As I sit on the beach and relax in the sun and listen to the hypnotic sound of the waves I observe some little birds searching for food. it is interesting to note that these fast little birds follow the receding tide looking for food in the sand and will allow the incoming tide to chase them back, barely staying out of harms way, always ”living on the edge”. It looks as if they will get swept up by the tide but they are able to go right to the edge of the incoming tide flowing into the shore but always darting out harms way just in the nick of time, making it to safety.

 I am  grieved  and disappointed as I  recently heard the sad news if the demise of the Lakeland, Florida Revival because of a moral failure and marital separation of its leader. That should behoove us to evaluate ourselves and not to “live on the edge”. I am not criticizing  the revival or its leader. I do not want to get into that, but for the grace of God their go I and you as well.  I am seeing alarming moral demise not only in our culture but in the church and its leadership as well. In my Theophostic Healing Prayer work and in my counseling practice I am witnessing this phenomenon on a daily basis.

 I do not need to name names but on the local to international level, even in the past few years their have been many moral failures, divorces and many disillusioned believers who are  compromising the gospel. Unfortunately many are not even taking the time to be genuinely restored, healed and ministered to. It has become progressively easier to slip through the cracks, in a culture in which, ” almost anything goes” and that we are seldom shocked any more. What a sad day this is and we need to repent, heal and bring change in our own personal lives. WE CANNOT TEACH OR MODEL FOR OTHERS THAT WHICH WE PERSONALLY LACK. We, the church are becoming like the little bird who believes he can “live on the edge”. Maybe we have done it long enough that we do not think we will get caught or that it will happen to us or that there will be any consequences or even that there is anything wrong.

This is not to condemn anyone but is an encouragement to look carefully at any way we have been “living on the edge” or comprising. We need to be honest with our selves and invite other believers into our lives who will be honest with us and hold us accountable.  

 The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD,

 Searching all the innermost parts of his being. Proverbs 20:7 (NASB)

 Allow the Holy Spirit to actively search through our spirit and WILL to cooperate with Him. Allow Him to shine His revealing lamp or spotlight into our inner being so we can deal with, heal and renew our minds. Might I suggest that many of the sins, places of comprise and issues we struggle with even though they are “SIN”, they more often than not are rooted in our brokenness. There are issues in our lives that we have chosen not to address or have not known how to address and unfortunately some of us have been wrongfully taught that we do not need to address past wounds because our, “past is behind us and our sins are forgiven”.

 Action Steps:

1. Be honest with our selves and allow Gods’ light to illuminate our spirit a reveal our true hearts and hidden sins.

2. We need to repent of our sins and,

3. Confess regularly to God another Godly person.

4. We need to look below the level of the sinful behaviors to the woundedness below the surface and be willing to heal emotionally.  If we do not deal with our unresolved issues and wounds they will come back to hurt us like a boomerang we keep “throwing away” but keeps returning. 

Question:                                                                                                                     Are you willing to allow the Holy Sprit to cooperate with your spirit, search your heart and reveal what He wants to reveal so He can heal what He wants to heal and restore what he wants to restore?  The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the innermost parts of his being. Proverbs 20:27  Are you willing to truly repent of what he reveals and come into a genuine accountability relationship with a Godly believer?

Prayer:                                                                                                                        Search me, O God, and know my heart;                                                             test me and know my anxious thoughts.                                                            See if there is any offensive way in me,                                                             and lead me in the way everlasting.

Sincerely,

Frank Meadows

Meadows Healing Prayer Center

5 Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.     6 In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your path.  Proverbs 3:5-6 (Amplified Bible)

It is a simple, straight forward command, to just trust in the Lord with all of your heart and mind.  Mediate with me for a moment on how well do we really trust and have our confidence in the Lord and not merely rely on our own insights and understanding?

Gods’ Word says in Isaiah 55 that His thoughts and ways are not  like ours.  So if our thoughts are not like His then it is extremely difficult for our ways to be like His.

8″For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
    Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
9″For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
     So are My ways higher than your ways
     And My thoughts than your thoughts.
                                   Isaiah 55 (NASB)

So for us to genuinely trust in Him and His Word with our actions, is really quite a stretch for most of us if we are really honest.

Did you ever do the trust exercise where you fall backward into someone’s arms standing behind you, TRUSTING that they will catch you? It is one thing to say we “trust God”, but like falling backwards into someone’s arms, the reality of genuine trust may be more difficult when we step out into real life situations. If we have been hurt, wounded and betrayed especially during our formative years then our “truster” may be damaged and broken. In our brokenness we have internalized lie based beliefs that need a “God Truth Encounter”.

In verse 5 it says,”Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind”. Note that in order to trust we have to do it with our whole heart and mind. In other words what we believe deep down is the key to what we do.  In our mind we have two rooms, the cognitive and experiential rooms. In the cognitive room we can intellectually understand and even believe a Biblical Truth like “God loves me” or “I am forgiven”. I can “cognitively” believe that I trust God to be my provider but when I lose my job or experience other trials, then my true experiential belief system is exposed.  It is the part of the mind where our subconscious resides and that contains and stores past memories. In this part of the mind our core beliefs (strongholds), are formed and held in place. Our current emotional pain comes from these negative, lie based beliefs when current life situations trigger these historical lies.

Developing a genuine trust and faith is an essential, key element in our maturing in our relationship with Christ. Unfortunately many of us have been deeply wounded in our ability to trust God and our fellow man. Many of us have been wounded by our parents, caretakers or those close to us. Those that we should have been able to count on and trust have far too often let us down, hurt or betrayed us.

I know some of my early wounding that happened around middle school deeply effected my level of trust with my peers and ultimately with God. At that time of my young life I experienced some deep rejection and hurt. I developed and internalized core beliefs during that season of my life that greatly impacted my desire and ability to trust.

Some of my core lie based thinking has been, “I can not trust people”, “I am on my own”, “people will ultimately let you down”, “God was not there for me”, “He did not help and does not answer my prayers” so “I do not need God”. As a teen I became very angry and rebellious toward authority and ultimately God. I  have discovered on my own healing journey that I, like many people, have made a series of vows which is simply an inner decision.

I vowed or decided that, “I can not trust anyone so I have to insulate myself, withdraw, suppress emotions and isolate myself”. I did most of this outside of my conscious awareness. These buried internalized beliefs and many other lies I internalized set me up to abuse alcohol and substances in my younger years and act out my pain and anger in many self destructive ways. I had no insight in my earlier years as to what I was doing as I was shut down emotionally. I internalized a great deal of emotional pain, shame and self contempt. Can any of you relate to that?

As I continue to receive my own Theophostic Healing Prayer and choose to feel my painful emotions with Gods’ help, I have been able have first identify and expose many of these faulty lies in my thinking.  I then ask Jesus by His Holy Spirit to reveal His Truth in the root memories that emerge and that contain my core lie based beliefs that have stunted my ability to trust God and others. I am continually amazed how completely God heals when we are willing to cooperate with Him and allow His Truth to penetrate our unrenewed minds.

6 In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your path. Proverbs 3:6

Even the fact that I now share this without any shame is evidence of my own mind renewal, that God is trustworthy and has not let me down and has Blessed me immensely.  The result of healing and our own mind renewal is that we can Trust God and others in a greater way and move forward in His plan and purpose for your life unhindered by our lie based thinking and “He will direct and make straight and plain your path”.

Question: How well do you trust God and others? What beliefs have you internalized in regards to trusting God and others? When the rubber hits the road in life do we genuinely seek His guidance, Trust His Word and rest in His promises?

Prayer: Lord, help me to be honest with myself, about my limitations in trusting You Lord and my fellow man. I chose to lower my defenses, to not cover over and suppress my emotional pain. I choose to find the root memory places in my unrenewed mind where my lie based thinking resides. Lord, I will to trust in You and Your Word.  I choose to, lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all my heart and mind and not rely solely on my own insights or understandingly. In all my ways I choose to know, recognize, and acknowledge You Lord, and believe You will direct and make straight and plain my paths.

Sincerely,

 Frank Meadows

Meadows Healing Prayer Center