I just reread yesterday’s post before starting this one.  As I was reading it I thought, “was that only yesterday and the day before that all that happened?”  I awoke this morning in a fog.  The pollens of spring are starting to appear and I’m allergic to most of them.  My eyes burn and my head is rummy.  I started my devotions feeling weary.  My mind was on a couple of the guys I spent time with yesterday and the burdens they are carrying.  While I was into the day yesterday I finished listening to a CD series called BELIEVING GOD by Joyce Meyer. It was helping me frame believing God rather than begging God which I had addressed last Sunday, I think.  However, this morning, in my weariness, I was trying to picture believing and wasn’t making any progress.  I was too weighted down with my old  thinking about my own believing.

As I began my devotions I wrote this struggle in my “Freedom” journal by Graham Cooke. There is no room for this struggle in God’s picture of His Freedom.  I just couldn’t seem to find it today.  My Bible reading was Hebrews 12 (I was rereading it from yesterday.  There is so much meat in it I needed to grasp it more deeply.)  The 28th verse said, “Let us therefore, receiving a kingdom that is firm and stable and cannot be shaken, offer to God pleasing service and acceptable worship with modesty and pious care and godly fear and awe.”  The 29th verse goes on to say–“For our God is indeed a consuming fire.”

As I began my journaling portion of my devotional time I told God I was feeling helpless.  After listening to these men yesterday, I was incapable of giving any assistance.  Instantly God told me I was placing these needs against my beliefs of me.  He reminded me that these needs are to be placed against my belief in HIM.  He went on to say that my beliefs in myself were formed from my childhood abuse both from my brother and dad.  It was time now to acknowledge His healing of those old beliefs now that I’m addressing believing with Him as a new creation.  He began to show me that I’ve been afraid to be touched and to touch due to the sexual abuse.  He now wants me to touch and to be touched because this is part of using my hands and arms for His Glory.  He told me that I have never seen me doing anything good with my hands due to dad’s verbal abuse criticizing any work he saw me do.  God told me to look around my yard and see all that I have built with my hands and have even heard much praise about it.  It is time to let God heal these character defects in my thinking of what He is doing for me and my BELIEVING.  He is truly awakening in me what the scripture says in Philippians 4:13–“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

God told me one more thing I’m hesitant to put into this blog but I will do it because I’m sensing His urging.  He said, “I want you singing.  Your singing gives hope to the down trodden.  Use it for MY GLORY.  There is Light in the gifts I give to My children.  Now go, do it My son.”  This was most tender for me to hear.  My singing has always been my coverup for the lack of anything else worthwhile I could do.  I believed God gave this gift to me just for that reason.  Today God let me know that this too is another character defect in thinking.  I’ve let it go and will believe it is a LIGHT for God’s Glory.  How much I love my Father God!