Button-pushing, Strongholds and Love



Ever had a time when some of your biggest fears seem to be prodded almost daily? Ever been confronted with an aspect of your character that you didn't like, swear to change it then find that daily, you fall down in that particular area?

If you're human then, at some point in your life, you will have experienced one or both of these cirumstances.
Why do these things happen, especially if you're trying so hard to overcome that fear, making every effort to knock that bad attitude on the head? It can wear a body down and, if you're not careful, you can find yourself just saying "oh well, it's me. I can't change. It's just too hard. You can even feel like stamping your feet and saying "it's not fair!". Go on, be honest now.

 One of my great fears is rejection. I feel sick when I think people don't like me and, as I've touched on in previous posts, I'm a bit of a people-pleaser. Common sense tells me this is from my own insecurities but knowing that doesn't actually change anything. In the last seven days, I've come up against real and perceived rejection. It's hurt and angered me.

These experiences have caused me to now confront something unpleasant in my character.It's the old "tit for tat" attitude. If you hurt me by rejecting me then I'm going to behave this way (withdraw from you emotionally and sometimes physically or go on the attack and either be upfront rude or mutter under my breath or to others). I agree, it's pretty infantile behaviour really and not how a supposedly mature Christian should act. I should add here that "mature" is said tongue-in-cheek. I may have been a Christian for 30+ years but I act as though I have all the understanding of a newborn (I actually think most newborns are ahead of me really).

I've been pondering this, inbetween my mood swings of sadness at the rejection then anger at the "perpetrators", and have had some thoughts in the following order :

1. Early in the week and even up to this morning - It's the devil's fault. He knows I want to press on in God this year. He knows I want to see radical change in my life so he's chosen one of my key areas and decided to start punching that button, all the while laughing at my lack of faith whilst I boo-hoo to myself about being rejected. He must be chuckling away as I do some of his job for him in ignoring some people, whispering about people (me, who hates gossip, supposedly!). So I've thought about spiritual warfare, how might I fight him, how I need to plead for God to get him off my case so I can continue my walk in peace and harmony.
2. In the last hour or so (I like to keep things current) - If I've been praying for God to change my heart and draw me closer to Him, won't God want me to face these things - fear of rejection, the angry attitude and selfish behaviour? God spoke to me earlier this year (see my previous post) and told me that this year would be about strongholds and their removal. Well, fear plays a big part in my life and drives quite a bit of what comes out of my mouth, how  I act and also what I don't say and don't do.Fear of rejection is one of the strongest fears I have. Wouldn't God, in His love, want to tear that stronghold down in my life? So who is responsible for these circumstances? I'm not going to say God because I don't think He makes people reject us or make us think we are being rejected even when we aren't. I do, however, believe He will make use of such events in our lives for His own purpose.

So my conclusion is, if you have recently been praying for God to move in your life, to change you and make you more like Jesus, to being you closer to your Father where you can experience more of His love and fall in love with Him yourself, don't be surprised if things get tough suddenly. I think God is answering your prayer because He takes what you say seriously (sadly sometimes what we pray about, we're not actually that serious about).

So, thanks to a good friend, I've been reminded of Romans 8: 38-39. "38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

If I feel I'm being rejected I need to use what God has so generously given to me, His Word, and pray it over myself, declare it aloud and, most importantly, BELIEVE IT! It's pointless spouting this stuff unless there is belief that it's true and, if that's the case, then pray God will help you to believe it. I will be doing that for myself because it's easy to believe it for others but not for one's self - such an error.

God's love is such that He isn't out to trip us up but that, in the confronting of the attitude, the fear, there would come understanding, repentance if required, forgiveness, healing and release. It can happen.

I write this post as much for myself as for anyone who might read it. I can be very slow-witted when it comes to God, His love for me, the promise of His Word.  So, in putting this in print, I want to reinforce the message that God does answer our prayers for change but, in doing so, He may have to take us out of a comfort zone and make us uncomfortable so He can bring about that change we long for.

Hold on, keep going, persevere.I'm running with you. Let's press on.

Philippians 1:6

"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Facing ones fears - abandonment

I am continuing to read Captivating, a book that is speaking volumes to me at present and which I've already blogged on.

Well the journey I've begun in what God wants to reveal to me is also continuing.

When I was a little girl, I used to have a recurring nightmare. I would be sat on the roof of my parents' house and would watch them, my grandparents and my sister leave the house and begin to walk away down the road. I would call after them and they would assure me they would come back for me but I knew as they went around the corner out of sight that they wouldn't and I would be alone forever.

Recently I had a dream where I was young again, a teen, and in my dream I was at a party with a friend and no boy wanted to go out with me but my friend was inundated with offers of dates. I could feel the rejection in my dream. When I woke, I associated the feelings in the dream as being a very strong reflection of the real feelings of rejection I had when I was a teen going through this experience.

So how does this tie up? Well the chapters in the book I have read in the last two weeks have been about what God set in women's hearts, our desires, our hopes, what woman's character traits say about God and how our experiences have damaged us so that we don't refect God's character to the world as we should. (Hope I'm making sense here).

The book refers to Eve's taking the apple (yes, that incident) and the lack of trust it showed in God but also the cowardly passiveness of the man and how that affected Eve. Since then women in general have a deep-seated fear that God won't come through for them and that they can't really trust Him so they go out to find security for themselves and here is where things go wrong. We go looking for love and security in the wrong places because we are frightened we will be abandoned. We long to be loved, to be secure, to be the beauty who is fought for, the woman who is protected and to be involved in a great adventure. Our questions are "Am I beautiful, am I captivating? Do you love me? Am I wanted?"

If we feel those questions aren't being answered positively then we go looking for the answers in the wrong places if we don't go directly to God. When the question is answered negatively we can become controlling and dominating as we don't want to be vulnerable again (as asking those questions make us) so we become strong in ourselves. Alternatively we can become needy, mousy and desolate or even a combination of the two. In our pain and rejection, we can start to hate the natural vulnerability that God set in womankind to show that tenderhearted side of the heart of God to all and to become guarded and feel we can't share our real selves.

As I pondered this, I realised that in having my questions answered negatively at an early age, I learnt to become a combination of the two. Mousy and weak in some instances, forceful in others and nearly always looking in the wrong place for the positive answer to my questions. I also know that I truly feel that I can't be myself because there is that fear of being rejected. "They won't like me if they see me as I really am so I must behave this way". The theory is that if people don't like you then they will abandon you either physically, emotionally or both.

Some years back I wrote a poem to this effect called the Chameleon. I have always felt the need to be all things to all people and have gone out of my way most of my life to fit in, not to rock the boat or have differing opinions in order to be accepted. This concept of having to wear masks that people seem to require from me because the real me might be too much for them or not enough. I have it even now and with other Christians as well as non-Christians. As you can imagine, this fear has truly stunted my growth as a Christian and meant that my witness as a Christian has been virtually at a non-existant level, a thing that causes me shame but that I struggle to get through.

I have been able to attend church a few times this year (difficult circumstances dictate it as something I can't do often without causing ructions in the home). The pastor and his wife have been very sweet and welcoming to me when I've turned up. However, I frequently feel as though they are analysing me and thinking maybe that I am a bad influence on their church and will tell me to stop coming, that they actually are waiting to say something to me along the lines of "you are a bad influence. We don't want you to infect our flock. We don't want you". It's pretty horrible to feel this way but its a very real and strong fear I have.

Captivating talks about this fear of rejection. It speaks also of shame. Now that isn't a word that I actually associated with loneliness and fear of abandonment, shame. But then I read the description...."Shame causes us to hide. We are afraid of being truly seen, and so we hide our truest selves and offer what we believe is wanted". If that isn't the definition of a chameleon then I don't know what is!

As I have pondered this over the last two weeks, other things have fallen into place. I mentioned a few posts ago about drinking problems in the family, including me. I was considering taking a break from drinking, learning to be responsible in my consumption. As I considered it, a voice in me said "if I stop drinking, will I become a bore, dull and unexciting, less fun and funny?" It was a shocking thought. Did I really think that by drinking it made me a more interesting companion, friend, relative etc. I've actually done some of the most ridiculous and stupid things when I have been out of control that way. Not the smartest thing. There was fear behind this thought, what if the real me stands up and "they" find out what I'm really like?

Another chapter called "A Special Hatred" followed swiftly on the heels of this revelation. It spoke about how satan has fed women with a message that strikes fear into her heart and causes her to take her eyes off God. A voice will subtly speak to her and tell her " you are alone,when they see who you really are, you will be alone and no-one will ever truly come for you". Its funny but a number of women I have spoken to over the years have said how they can feel alone, even when married and with or without children.

So why are we trapped in our loneliness and heartache, this fear of abandonment? God wants to be our source of security, He wants to be our everything and our sense of worth defined by Him and what He says about us. Sadly, when we are fearful, we can go to other things for this feeling of security. The devil uses this cunningly to get us to take our eyes off God and so look to ourselves or others to provide that security. 

Because God loves us so much, he will "hem" us in so that we come to an end of ourselves and come to recognise our need for God. The book mentioned a specific area and my heart jumped as it recognised this area to be exactly where I go currently for my security and salvation. However God is allowing such hardship in that area that I am being challenged to throw myself on His mercy and seek Him for the security I crave, where I should always be looking.

It's deeply unpleasant to be in this position but this also links into me praying a while back (again a few posts ago) for me to learn to love God and have a heart that truly desires Him and has a passion for Him, to be stirred up. God is luring me back to Himself. He will allow things in my life to draw me back to Him. He has a plan for my life and the key in that plan is my relationship with Him, restored, renewed and totally in love with Him, committed to Him.

There is some deep stuff going on. I am having interesting conversations with family members about the past, growing up and coming to a level of understanding of why I am the way I am. God doesn't want the Chameleon, He wants me with no masks but instead the person He created me to be. He doesn't want me to pretend to be anyone else other than me, the one He thought of as I was being put together in the womb (Ps 139). The amazing thing is God sent His Son to die for the person I really am, the person that hides behind the masks and the fears. If God loved me enough that He would do that, why should I go to anyone else for my security? God's answer to my questions are "Yes, you are beautiful, I created you. Yes I think you're captivating, I created you to be. Yes I do love you very much. Yes, you are very much wanted, you are My child, My daughter".