Day 29

Too much, too much, too much. Praise God that today has been a culmination of so many truths and lessons He's been trying to teach me! It's as if so much has been made clear to me in the past 24 hours that I scarcely know where to begin. I'm going to do my best today to stick to the first revelation I had while visiting a different church this morning in order to witness a friend's baptism. This point is also the most related to the concept of forgiveness, so I'll save the rest for another day. Please thank the Lord with me for all the ways He's moving in this broken life of mine, and continue to ask Him to reveal more of Himself to my heart.

THEY'RE JUST SLAVES.
With yesterday's lesson, we talked about the importance of pouring out our hearts to God, even if it feels like we're just tattling on those who have hurt us at first. It is a step in the right direction to be able to get down to the nitty gritty with your Savior. Beth Moore teaches that before we are able to learn true forgiveness, we must go through the act of praying about the person who needs it. It's been a good thing that God taught her the forgiveness process in baby steps, because I simply couldn't have followed it any other way. We will get to this another day soon, but I think it's acceptable to tell you that the next step in Beth's book is to begin praying for the offender as opposed to just about them.

I have to admit that I didn't expect God to prepare me to do that in the way that he did this morning. I assumed that this idea, like most of the others in this project, would come to me as a painful truth about the way I'm called to live. I also figured that, like most of the other steps in this project, I would have a hard time applying this concept. I thought I'd have to force it at first. I imagined that I would have to constantly remind myself that these people needed prayer and that in order for my own healing to commence, I would have to learn to pray for them. I didn't want to, and I assumed it would be a very long time before my heart was conditioned to see their real needs and get past the damage they have done to my life. I was wrong.

Instead of this long, forced process of trying to learn to see Ex-Husband and his girlfriend as sinners in need of a Savior that would end in my genuine prayers for God to break their hearts, He took another route. While standing and singing a beautiful melody in a corporate worship experience I've been desperately missing lately, God broke my heart and opened my eyes. The words of the song alluded to a passage of scripture we would read later in the service.

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve..." Isaiah 61:1-3a
--Though I don't remember the exact words we were singing, or even the title of the song, I experienced a paradigm shift that I hope will stay with me for the rest of my life. As the words spilled out of my mouth, and the tears spilled out of my eyes, somehow the anger and resentment flowed just as freely out of my heart. It felt as if you could have seen the trail of ashes going from my seat, down the aisle of the church, out the doors, and away with the wind. Those ashes represented the burning indignation I have been wrestling with in relation to the way I feel about the situation I'm in.

I have allowed myself to play the role of the lone victim, and that has clouded my vision and threatened to choke the life right out of me. When the anger and fear would rise inside of me, my breathing was physically labored, and the air felt too dense and heavy to inhale. I have spent months, if not years, gasping for air, and today the soot was stripped from my lungs. The air around me hadn't been the hindrance all this time. It was the blackened, grimy residue that had invaded my insides when I was grieving the death of my dreams. As I had watched my family destroyed like a house on fire, I had taken in much more of the toxic smoke than I had realized.

And there was the truth that cleared my lungs, broke my heart, and unclouded my vision. They are the poor, the captives, the prisoners. To believe that Ex-Husband and his girlfriend don't experience moments of overwhelming pain and sorrow is naive. No matter how far they have fallen, they are God's children, and people can't live the way they are living without occasional regret. They may just be in too deep to give in to the feelings of brokenness. If they were to allow God to show them the whole truth and the consequences of their actions, they would (in their minds) be left with nothing. The lie is all they have left, and they are clinging to it like the last piece of a sinking ship. They are prisoners of that darkness, and neither of them sees a way out.

Please don't think that I'm saying they are somehow not responsible for the choices and actions that led them to this point. But I am saying that at this point, they've handed over the reigns to the enemy, and he's the one piloting their ship today. Slaves. The bible says that we will all be slaves to something, and it is my heart's desire to be a slave only to Christ, who grants us freedom in it's truest form. But part of being a Christ-driven individual is having the ability to recognize the spiritual warfare all around me, and to sincerely pray for those who are losing the battle. How can I not be crushed to see that the man I married, the father of my children, is giving up the fight? He has, like so many others, accepted what he sees as his only fate, taken on the heavy yoke of being a slave to sin, and relinquished his will to that of his master. I'm no longer enraged, but I am somehow empowered. I know that my God is strong enough to break the chains that bind these two people to their sin and shame. I will pray that He will do just that in both of their lives until the day comes when they are truly free from the weight of this world and their own self-condemnation. Please join me in praying this over all those in this world who are serving the wrong master.