Battle for the mind... continued

I have been mulling over a few things that have happened to me recently, and the topic of the battle of the mind came to me. I have been blessed recently at being able to partake in some mind opening heart cleansing. I never realized how caught up a person can get in his own false beliefs. There is a saying if you think you can, you're right, if you think you can't you're right too!

Before I headed back to 'Toon town, for the next chapter in my life, I was given a gift from God to do a little soul searching, and lot of weeding in my heart! The turmoil of that is still leaving me with some aftershocks, but the soil in my heart has been broken and is now ready to take in deep root, new shoots for the harvest.

I was able to take part in my own Freedom in Christ journey and did not realize what had been keeping me so locked up in side. Something so obvious, something right in my own eye that I just kept looking through all this time. Every event in my life had been filtered by this veil, that had me suffocating in it's grasp. This false belief had been so ingrained in me that it was like a second skin, a layer of armour, dragging me down keeping me from pushing onward. I was so accepting of this label put upon myself, that all I did was make a joke of it, the inevitable unbeatable false truth that my family and I kept dragging around with us like a ball and chain weighing us down from true Freedom.

You wonder what sort of horrible lie this thing was that I allowed myself to believe was. It is something that not many people would see as something all too bad, but something some would call just dumb luck. I was raised with the label that my family was destined to be screwed. To be useless, a failure, not much good for anything, second rate, never first Destined to be always last or maybe if you were lucky second place at best. This is something I have hung on to for way too long, believing that nothing could really change, and that I had to do my best to protect myself from this, to work as hard as I could to erase this label, and show it who's boss. I had something to prove, and at times, I did beat it, but that label kept raising it's ugly little head, every time I was doing good. Just like clockwork, I would find myself flubbing it all up, and having to start from scratch, never able to be consistently good at anything. Never able to really trust anybody to help me with anything, for the fear that it would all get messed up and I would at a loss yet again. Always capable but never the best at anything. I think that is way I am so eager to try something, new, I am always in search to find something that I am the best at. That is where failure was always sure to intervene. Because I was running from this lie imposed on myself and my family... I found that instead freeing my self, by trying to further remove myself from this demon, that I just kept running deeper into it's trap. Instead of confronting it and not allowing it's power over me, I kept reinforcing it's lie deeper and deeper in my soul. My focus was always on escaping this label, this curse as it may be called. I found myself focusing more and more on defeating it and found that it had a deeper hold on me than I ever thought it could. I found myself always being the victim, finding blame in others for my circumstances never owning up for my life. This label has been my crutch for way too long, always the excuse for the bad things that happened to me. I was always on the look out for when it would strike next to screw me over again. The sad part about this, is that I could never trust myself or others, I always had this veil over me skewing my life experience with this hesitation, this mistrust in life, for the fear of been screwed over once again. I even carried this into my marriage, always worried, how my wife would like to take advantage of my good will yet again, always worried, that I would miss out yet again. I wanted control, I like being needed. I longed for love, and satisfaction in my wife. I looked to her to complete me. That is where I faltered. I was looking for my identity in my marriage, in my career, in my Church family. I was not looking to God for my identity. I was allowing myself to look to things of the world to give my life meaning. That is where the lie kept me, looking for approval and success in things of this world. My identity in Christ is what matters now. This life ends up in death and nothingness in the end without Christ. Failure is what my identity in the flesh was. Now I am no longer a failure in Christ. I am a new creation, God's Child, God's beloved. I am Free, and no longer a slave to the failure's of the flesh. The lies of the enemy have no power over me now!

That was why I had problems with keeping close relationships. I just couldn't let myself get too vulnerable for the fear of being duped, or being taken advantage of again. I still have this radar on now till this day but I am not listening to it's lies anymore. I have blessed just recently to this wisdom.

There has always been a glimmer of hope in all these situations, God has always been there by my side, waiting for me to turn to him for Strength. The bridegroom has been waiting for me to ask for his hand to lift my veil and reveal to me in Him the new life, the freedom found in Union with Him. The veil of my old life has been lifted away, to enter into a new light of freedom. A new journey to be free to live life and relationship. Now that I am free of that veil that blurred my vision of my true identity in Christ, I can clearly see this lie. I am blessed to be able to remember what believing that lie has cost me, in order to not fall prey to it again. I am in the vine now, a new shoot of life, ready to be pruned, and in order to grow new life.

Now I wonder, what is in store for me with this new realization. What is the next step...well I guess that's up to me now... it's up to me to be willing to let God do his work in me, and not try to jump blindly ahead in fear of the unknown. There is some wisdom in the realization that God is a patient God, and that he is slow to anger. We see in that verse, that he is not rash, he does not rush. I can be confident that if I do stumble or mess up in my journey he will no judge me harshly and that I have nothing to fear. I have to be still to hear him, I must not rush, or try jump ahead thinking I know what God wants for me. He is God, and I cannot box Him in.