Receiving the Truth

I had the urge today—the urge to run. And not for my health. I felt discouraged. I felt the enemy tugging at me, to pull me away and isolate me in a corner—and if not a physical one, an emotional one. I recognized the spirit of discouragement, as I’ve been pretty acquainted with it throughout my life. The question I had to ask myself this morning, though, was ‘did I want it?’ Well, no, not really, but what was I going to do about it?

 I was up in the prayer room at church, already muting Discouragement’s voice as it tried to tell me I didn’t belong there, should just go downstairs and pretend not to be there, should really just give up on the whole day. I was muting it, but some of it was getting through.

Then a man who is like a grandpa/father figure in our church greeted me and asked me how I was doing. I thought about how to respond—it was a moment of potential rejection, wasn’t it? No, this was an opportunity to be “real,” I decided. I simply answered that I was feeling a bit of discouragement. This precious man put his arm around me, saying, “Let’s get that off of you; you weren’t made for that” and began to pray over me. As he held me and prayed, I felt the presence of the Lord—and as I did, the discouragement lifted.

I let my heart be open to receive—and I did. If we want to be delivered from things like discouragement, depression, hopelessness, etc., then we need to actually want to get rid of them. Part of that “wanting to” results as we recognize that these things don’t belong to us. In other words, they didn’t originate with us—they’re from the enemy. They are spirits sent to keep us from the abundant life God has for us (i.e., “…you weren’t made for that”).

For many of us, it’s going to be a process. But whatever truth you can receive today is truth you won’t have to wait until tomorrow, a month from now, a year from now, or even years down the road to “get.” Freedom is readily available. “For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

This is the day that the Lord has made—I am thankful that I’ve received enough of God’s truth in my life that I was willing to stop and get rid of the baggage so that I could rejoice and be glad in it. Maybe I haven’t felt perfectly joyful or perfectly on-top-of-the-world encouraged the entire day, but I know that I am being perfected (in my attitudes, perspectives, and freedom) and that I was made for much, much more than what the enemy would like to put on me. And so were you! “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10, NKJV).

Thank you, Don Pike, for speaking the truth of who I am to me today—I’m walking it out, one step at a time, with a mighty good God to lead me.