Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. James 5:16
Ok...so I'm sitting at home deep within my own thoughts...wondering about this Christian journey I am on. Full of hopelessness and despair...surrounded by people but still consumed by loneliness. And it dawned on me that out of all the people in the body of Christ...I cannot possibly be the only person who is or have ever experienced a drought in their walk with God. I completely and totally agree with and believe in the Word of God (whether it cuts me or comforts me)...but the problem I have been experiencing lately is living the Word of God while trying to process and push thru the pain of living "life on life's terms". Life has been dealing me a rotten hand for quite some time now, so much to the point that I have not been able to process it all and the enemy of my soul has been having a field day with exploiting and exposing my weakness(s). Well the Word of God teaches us that we should confess our faults, slip ups, offenses...sins to one another and pray for each other so that the healing virtue of God can deliver us because the powerful prayer of the righteous (in right standing, the believer) gets the job done. Sounds good...huh...and with all that is happening in the world around us and in our families, marriages, and the economy...it sounds like this portion of scripture is very befitting for the life of the believer...it's necessary! But the problem I have been experiencing is not with "what" to say or confess but "who"??? Who is the person that I can trust to help me process thru the pain without fear of judgement or condemnation??? Who will submit to the power of the Holy Spirit long enough to help shoulder the burden and pour the Living Water of God into the desert of my existence??? Who is selfless enough to really put their issues on the back burner to make the needs of others a priority in their life??? Who is the one who has too much integrity to exploit my issues as a topic for gossip!!! Too many times, as believers, we hide behind the scriptures. We use them as shields to hide and mask the Tsunami's that are poppin off in our lives. Some Christians do it to appear to be ok when they're not (otherwise called...faking the "funk") and others are too afraid to be vulnerable to others because they are not really secure in the fact that people will be able to handle or accept who they really are or what they are really dealing with or going thru (forgetting the fact that God already knows who you are...the real you...the good, the bad, and ugly you). At any rate, this should just not be the case. We should not be satisfied with hiding behind the "church" or "religion" because both of them are flawed anyway! The only thing perfect, good, right, and true is the Power of the Living God within us who wants to not only guide us in a relationship with Himself but also a relationship with each other. Because in the words of Hezekiah Walker...I really do need you to survive! So I started this blog as a sounding board...an outlet for the believer as well as unbeliever, to be able to take off the mask and let's get real so that the power of the Living God can love us past our issues and heal us where we hurt. I don't wanna to just know what the Word says...I wanna DO what it says and watch the Power of God manifest not only in my own life but in the lives of my sista's as well. I love God with all of my heart BUT I got some issues...I wanna do what is right BUT sometimes I do what is wrong. I am determined to fulfill the destiny and purpose that God has for my life whether or not I have to walk, run, or crawl into it and I need to link up with other like minded people who are on the same flight as I am BUT are experiencing some turbulence along the way and not ashamed to say it! God is ABSOLUTE!!! He is absolutely involved in the lives of His people and pressures of life that we deal with everyday BUT we have to do better in how we deal with and handle each other in order to experience the "Greater Works" we have been promised to display in the earth and one way to accomplish this is by eradicating the "phoney" image that we have portrayed as believers to the world around us and I am the perfect candidate to get this party started!
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ReplyDeleteWell all that is true, but did you answer your own question? Anyway, my problem is that I know Christians but trust them I don't because of the way they treat others. Do they truly love me when my back is to them?
ReplyDeleteAnother thought that has been on my mind is I heard a message about 15 years ago from Darlene at that time Waller. She did it on Pregnant With Promise. (I know that was a long time ago, but I have a great memory without taking notes) Anyway she went through the different stages and what can happen in pregnancy. Some promises are aborted through outside factors! I am not going to quote the entire message but I will say that as it relates to this we as Believers in followers of Jesus Christ have to be careful when we are in a storm what we attach ourselves to. When we are determined as Minister Stephanie mentioned to reach our destiny then we will go through many rough times because we are birthing our promise and our purpose not just for us, but our families, and whomever is attached in our present and our future.
ReplyDeleteYes my dear Tanisha, I guess i did answer my own
ReplyDelete?s lol, but I guess I was more or less asking hypothetical ?s to drive the same point u are making...Christians dont trust other Christians because of the fake and phoney facade they portray as well as the fear of being judged or mistreated and if we as Christians adhere to the Bible like we say we do then I am callin Believers to the carpet of accountability of that same Word that says we should be able to confess our sins, issues, habits, strongholds, faults, failures ect...to each other w/out fear and pray for one another so that we (the Body of Christ) can be healed from what is tormenting our lives because it is the prayers of the righteous that prevails! Girl I'm over here reading the scripture, believing it, and needing it sooooo badly at this season of my life but then became doubly disappointed because I didnt know who I could trust w/ the broken pieces of my life and it just should not be this way so the buck stops here...the change starts w/me. Sadly, most of the growth I've experienced in my life was not demonstrated to me by another believer but on the contrary, it was the pain from being isolated, alienated, rejected or judged by other believers that has always drove me to the decision to be the missing ingredient that I felt was needed in the body of Christ, such as the scripture I referenced today but now I will choose to make my self vulnerable to being let down by people by exposing myself and being to them what was never demonstrated to me that I so desperately needed b/c I dont want no one to have to feel what I feel right now at least not from me. So u can tell me your secrets...u can trust me. U can confess ur mess ups to me...I wont judge u. And together we will carry them to the foot of the cross where the blood came streaming down so that we can be free of all that torment our souls.
AWWWW!!! You can lean on me too. However, could you imagine how Paul felt (Paul in the bible). He was isolated but like us never alone. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is keeping us in spite of ourselves. I was just thinking that to know HIM is to love HIM, and to Love HIM is to serve HIM. In Paul's day his life probably felt like a constant hot mess! But GOD! HE NEVER FAILS US! Alright maybe this is starting to be a good thing so that I can write everything down! However, work is in about five hours so I'll write later!
ReplyDeleteI kno right...I often think about Paul when facing the challenges of this Christian walk. Paul pulls me thru every time because in my opinion no one took a bigger hit as a disciple for the body of Christ more than Paul. That boy took a lickin and kept on ticking didnt he lol!
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