Y’all, I am going to be real and honest right now. The last few weeks have not been easy. I can’t explain it…it’s like all the lessons I thought I had learned the past few months and had “passed” resurfaced or something and I found myself having to once again die to myself. I found myself having to once again declare to my circumstances not what I was seeing with my physical eyes, but what I could see with my spiritual eyes. I had to once again declare my victory in the face of what felt and looked like defeat.
I don’t know why, but sometimes when I’m really battling something I find myself driving to the graveyard. It’s like I need to talk to my Daddy, and that’s the closest I can get…so sometimes when the battle is raging I just find myself hopping in my car and taking a drive there. I mean, know he’s not really “there” but in those moments I really wish he was so I could talk to him…so I guess I get as close as I physically can, and that’s his grave. Anyway, on this particular day I was just battling and feeling the “weight of the wait,” as I’ve heard it called before. You know, that place where you have to decide whether you’re going to press into God and really believe and trust in Him…or if you’re not. So, I found myself parked near where my Dad is buried, but I didn’t get out of my car…I just felt a deep need to be able to close everything and everyone out and really get a hold of God!
I read in a book once that there are many postures of prayer. Some are more quiet and reserved, some are on your face in surrender, and then there’s the one I experienced that day. It’s like this deep urgency rises within you and get this, well, this boldness like the Bible talks about. It says to “…come boldly to the throne of our gracious God…” (Hebrews 4:16 NLT) That’s the deep urgency I felt that day. I had to get in touch with God and I was given the grace to approach God’s throne boldly! I found myself praying so vehemently that I was actually shouting! I was shouting to the enemy the promises God has spoken to my heart over the past few months. I was shouting that I knew where my victory was…and that’s with God! I mean the very Word of God says: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans’ 8:31 KJV) So, I was proclaiming to the enemy my assurance in Jesus Christ! Sometimes you just have let the enemy know that you know where your victory is and you know He’s already won the war! And what better way to declare victory to the giant than to shout it?! I mean, if someone would have heard me that day in my car (and I’m sure they could have because I was really loud lol!) they probably would have thought I was crazy…but I simply didn’t care! I had get a hold of God and He gave me the ability to be bold about it! As I left the graveyard that day, I knew something had shifted in the spiritual realm! Something happened through the fierceness of my prayers…I can’t explain it, but I knew some kind of battle had been waged in the spirit and God helped me to win!
I went back home and things didn’t seem any different…but there was a difference in me! I knew God was fighting for me and that change was on the horizon! I’m convinced that we walk around in defeat when God doesn’t want us to! I mean we are children of the living God! All the power He possesses, we can posses!! Yet, we walk around carrying all these weights and trying to work all our problems out in our human selves, when all along our victory is found in surrender. Our victory is fought and won not with our physical selves, but in our prayer closets. The Word of God says: “For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood , but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.” (Ephesians 6:12 AMPC) Sometimes, we need to be reminded of the power we actually posses as children of God, so I am here to tell you today: You are victorious through the mighty power of our living God!!! Just because your circumstances feel and looked defeated, doesn’t mean they are! I encourage you to surrender everything to God and when you feel the need to do something…instead of carrying around the weight of it, step into your prayer closets and fight with your prayers! Worry doesn’t change a thing, but prayer can change everything!!
A few days after my intense prayer session, I really started asking God why it felt like I had to almost start all over. Why did it feel like I was having to relearn and once again walk out the lessons I thought I had passed earlier? This is what He said to me: “Haley, just as you have to take quizzes and tests in school to make sure you’ve really learned the material you’ve been taught throughout the year; so you have to experience quizzes and tests in life to make sure you’ve really learned the lessons I’ve been teaching you through this fire.” That’s when things started to make more sense! Ok, so now that I’ve learned how I am supposed to respond to the fire that I am currently in, He gave me a “quiz” to see how well I had learned those lessons! Was I going to dig in deep and declare truth when the enemy was whispering his lies? Was I going to believe God’s promises over what my physical eyes were seeing? Was I going to die to myself and my will and once again surrender to God’s? Was I going to pass my quiz? I’m not going to say this quiz was easy by any means, but having learned these principles a few months ago really did help me during my quiz. I could remember how God had been faithful just a month before to me! How he answered some huge prayers! How He has truly performed miracles…so I was able to encourage myself this time and say, “hey! If God did it then, He’ll surely do it now!” I was able to use the faith He had built up in me to be able to die to myself and how I wanted to see things worked out. I was able to once again, release my “control” and give it over to God. You see, sometimes it’s not our choices that lands us in the fires of life…sometimes they just happen, but it is our choice whether we will allow God to do what He wants to do and how He wants to do it in our lives…
Join me in my next blog post where I’ll explain more about what God has recently shown me in His Word and how my title of these blog posts actually makes sense…
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