He Will and The Same Power

 Truth: I came close to giving up. It was too hard. There was a big ball of tangled yarn that could not be unraveled. Nothing made sense. Hope for help and encouragement was being smothered like a candle with no oxygen.

Then I understood. You can't give up. Only when I view this "hard" as a gift from God; my individual task...only then is when enough air enters this space in my heart to flicker hope into it.

We give up when we listen to the lies of this world. More and more believers are living unbelieving. We live blaming others for our discouragement. We see hypocrisy in those closest to us and feel justified in our reactions and thought patterns and unforgiveness. We go through gut wrenching pain from family members because of wounds they refuse to get healing for and in turn we continue the chain of blame and shame. The pain becomes the idol, the reason we hurt. We wallow in self pity or self righteousness while our hope for redemption flickers out.

When things don't change, when you are stuck in an unhealthy atmosphere, when life's circumstances are unbearable, when you are in constant conflict with a person and finding it hard to live in joy and peace; then is when an unbeliever must believe that He will.

All the promises written in the Word of God...He will do. What He says He will do, He will do. For some of us, this is hidden treasure because we don't even know there are promises for us when we have no hope. Our problems have become our idols. Our vision is obscured because we hurt too much and believe the lie that unless he/she changes there is no fixing this problem. It takes hope to dig for treasure. If I told you God's word is full of great and precious promises, do you have enough hope and belief to go look? 2 Peter 1:4.

We choose defeat when we think we can never grow or thrive until our conflict or trouble gets better or is healed. I think it must be opposite. I think we will never see victory and conquer death in our lives until we choose Jesus and His power in our hearts first. I must choose to forgive those that wrong me and misunderstand me...those who falsely accuse me and see me through the eyes of pain and suffering of their own... before I can fully understand the power of God's love in my life. 

The same power that rose Jesus from the dead...lives in us. Not until we believe that, do we really have the hope needed to live in peace and joy. What that difficult person or situation in your life does or chooses should not determine your ability to walk in forgiveness with him/her.

My daughter has a sweatshirt that says 'pray about it as much as you think about it'. If you have something in your life that is consuming your thought patterns, your joy and your peace, take it to your Healer God in prayer. DO it in secret. The same power that rose Jesus from the dead, lives in you. We avail this power through less talk to humans and more prayer to our Father in our closets.

Three small sources for this posts:

Ellie Holcomb - He Will

Jeremy Camp - Same Power

*Both of those songs have encouraged me greatly..go do a search on those lyrics.

When using Google to research the word 'unforgiveness', I read this fact: 61% of cancer patients have forgiveness issues... another known fact about cancer patients: cultivating gratitude and hope increases your chances of survival.