struggle

It’s Worth the Effort to Pull the Weeds

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment
CT.2-6
Photo and artwork belong to ComparisonTrap.org

This is the continuation of an earlier post about a Bible study in which I’m facilitating and participating.

We demolish arguments and every pretension
that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought
to make it obedient to Christ.
~ 2 Corinthians 10:5

The Comparison Trap:  Week Two, Day Six… Some of my reminders and my takeaways from the daily devotional include:

Sandra recaps the time when she first started a garden. It produced a great harvest, but she warns that “weeding was a constant part of the process.”

She reminds us that keeping our minds renewed is similar.

It is.

I’ve found great contentment in gardening over the years. When I did a search of my site for weeds, a few posts came up. One of my favorites, and the one I was looking for, was about learning to find patience through freshly picked greens. It reminded me of the Gardener. …the One who cares for us, lights our way, illuminates the path, is our living water, and is our source of growth.

We can plant great seeds into our heads and our hearts. We can produce a joy-filled outlook and make an impact on those around us. But if we’re serious about our walk with God, we will need to look closely for the weeds which have the potential to overtake and choke out His plans for our lives. The Gardener didn’t intend for these to be in the garden.

Sandra wrote in the book and excerpted in the photo above:

“When comparison, jealousy, and insecurity lodge thoughts in our minds, we can capture those thoughts.”

We can.

Sometimes we struggle, but we can.

These thoughts tie right into the Scripture for today because they are against the knowledge of God. We don’t have an oblivious God. We have the One who is all-knowing. These thoughts—comparison, jealousy, and insecurity—go against the very thing God has revealed as His truth, His will and His superior plan. They go against His intentions.

With Him, we can have confidence that we are capable of taking captive those thoughts and turning them around to make them obedient to Christ. Sandra’s encouragement closes out the day saying,

“We can identify them as lies and replace them with scriptural truth. Just like gardening, the harvest of a healthy mind and heart will be worth all the effort.”

Amen.
Pull those weeds.
It WILL be worth all the effort.

 

 

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Finding Hope in the Healing

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

Where is He?

God is present in our hurting. In the depth of our struggle, we don’t always understand how it is that He can allow our hurts.

God is also present in our healing. We often do choose to give Him credit for the healing.

But, where is He when we are at the in-between? When we are taking forward steps and sliding backward in our healing from the hurt, is He there? Do we allow Him to be there to walk with us and lead us along His path?

It is there — at the in-between times — in which we spend so much of our time. The hurt is done. It has forever changed us. We know that we need to move on — to move away from the hurt — yet we keep reliving that pain. This is where we dwell for far too long.

Is He with us when we dwell here? Why do we allow Him in only when we want to ask, “why?” or “why not?” Why do we allow Him to be with us, momentarily, when we want to scold Him for allowing this pain? Why do we often shut Him out?

When we choose to allow Him to be with us every step of the way, we will know from where HOPE comes. We will see His tenderness, His love, His tears shed for our pain, His ways of working our pain toward healing, His hand of protection keeping us from what could have been worse. We will see all of it when we allow Him to be with us.

There is a beautiful worship song called, “Everything” that is sung by Tim Hughes. The song provides a wealth of reflection when sung, when spoken, when studied and when prayed.

Some of the lyrics of this song are:

 “…God in my hoping, there in my dreaming

God in my watching, God in my waiting

God in my laughing, there in my weeping

God in my hurting, God in my healing

Be my everything…

…Christ in me, the hope of glory

You are everything…

…Be my everything…”            

When He is our Everything, we will heal.

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Note:  If you’d like to hear Tim Hughes discuss his song mentioned above, you can do so here:  http://www.praisecharts.com/tim-hughes-discusses-and-sings-his-song-everything-/