Tag: freedom

THE ROAD IS NARROW, BECAREFUL YOU DON’T FALL!

I hope everyone enjoyed the past Resurrection Sunday. This time is always a time of reflection, a time to remember what Christ did for us on the cross, a time to remember that we were once dead in our transgressions until we believed and accepted Jesus into our lives and were brought back from death, given the gift of eternal life! Hallelujah!

I wanted to return to blogging but I had to recognise that I was going through a difficult season spiritually first before I could stay true to what my blog was built on, HONESTY! I am really trying my best to be transparent with you, not only does it help me on my walk, but it can also be a help to YOU on your journey. Life can be so distracting. It starts of as something almost insignificant diverting your attention, then it slowly spirals into something even more distracting and time consuming, and before you know it all the spiritual disciplines you had made a habit of become almost non existent! Suddenly the fire that once was ablaze starts to dim a little and you start to become a little relaxed in your convictions. I know some of you might feel like that could never happen to “me”, and maybe you are right, but that is not realistic in the world we live in. We all have our moments when we are not as on fire as we used to be. Now I am not saying that this has happened to me, although my lack of frequent blog posts may suggest otherwise lol I may have been quiet here on the blog but still have been involved in my church activities, and still consistently doing bible study with mum, which in itself has been very fruitful for her and our family; repairing relationships that I never thought I would see repaired, and allowing unforgiveness to depart and hearts to be softened. In my absence from blogging I was also blessed to be able to give another sermon at my church which I will share with you in a later post! So Although I haven’t “fallen off” I did recognise where my consistency in the habits I had built had dipped, and because of that I noticed that a few strongholds I thought I had a handle on are now tormenting me again! How easy we forget what life was like when we were bound to our desires, when we were slaves to our flesh! As soon as you receive freedom from such things and you live for awhile without the torment, oh how quickly you forget how bad it was! That was my fault, I got too relaxed and for a minute forgot that we are in a constant spiritual war! Being in a never ending battle means that I must always be ready for attack! Unfortunately I told my soldiers to take a break and they fell asleep for too long and before they knew it, they were rudely awoken by a sneak attack from the enemy. Now we all know the enemy can not win the war because Jesus defeated the enemy when He died for us on the cross, but he might leave us a little wounded if we are not prepared. That is exactly how I feel right now, wounded!

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One day I will reveal what my struggle is, but right now I feel I want to be truly free from its clutches before I disclose all the details. Maybe that is the wrong way to view my situation, but I really wanna share when it is not such a trigger for me, and I really wanna share with advise of how I overcame! I will disclose with you all what it is, I promise but just not in this post. I will say this before I continue, there is no shame in whatever your bondage is if you truly confess it! And I don’t mean just to God in prayer, but also to your brothers and sisters in Christ who you trust and can hold you accountable! When we keep our sin to ourselves we don’t address it the way we should, we even stop talking to God about it cause of our shame and that is very dangerous. It’s a slippery slope, because we start lying to ourselves about the severity of what that sin is that keeps us bound and before we know it, we are stepping further into darkness! I definitely have people that hold me accountable so I advice you all to do the same. Just know whatever you are struggling with, God can bring real healing and breakthrough!

When you lived a worldly life, you can be left with a kind of stain from it. Of course there is glory to be had from that “stain” because your testimony will always be powerful, and that just gives more glory to God! I never grew up knowing God, so what I participated in when I was part of the world sometimes haunts me like an old movie, and it’s those memories; or images that the enemy likes to use to bring me back to his will. When I first accepted Jesus into my life I went through a hard time, like most do. I was truly under spiritual attack, and the way it manifested itself I really struggled cause it was something I had never experienced before so intensely! When I realised doing things on my own was not working for me, I then understood that only the armour of God would suffice! EPHESIANS 6:10-11 “FINALLY, BE STRONG IN THE LORD AND IN HIS MIGHTY POWER. PUT ON THE FULL ARMOUR OF GOD, SO THAT YOU CAN TAKE YOUR STAND AGAINST THE DEVILS SCHEMES.” It was at this moment that I decided to build spiritual habits or some might call disciplines to really help me through when I felt tormented the most; which was always at night. I decided to read the Word before I went to bed, a few chapters of the bible for a bout 10mins before I closed my eyes. I did this consistently night after night, and let me tell you, nothing happened…..at first. As my nights became more intense, the nightmares I started having were so real I would awake in tears thinking I had given into my sin. I remember really crying out to God in that moment because I understood that even though I hadn’t received any breakthrough, I knew that God still was the only way I could receive freedom from it all. I then started to read the Word in the mornings, before I got out of bed, before I picked up my phone to scroll the normal social apps. I then started reading the Word for 30mins at bedtime, and I would pray for breakthrough. I did this without fail every morning and every night, and by the third week I had the most disturbing dream of them all; I dreamt of a demon (yes you read right) I dreamt a demon who seemed like a queen because she had a crown that was melded to her head, she was floating above me, legs crossed glaring down at me, teeth which were sharp and long grimacing at me, anger pouring out of her, just glaring at me. Using the mental power she seemed to have over me, she was trying to close my mouth, but I was fighting my hardest to open my mouth so I could confess my love for Jesus! I woke up shortly after never experiencing anything like that in my life! I started to play spiritual warfare prayers whilst I slept. I did all of these things consistently that it became normal practice, I didn’t think about it. Sometimes I read for longer than 30 mins, I had fully immersed myself in it all. By the fourth week I got my break through. God gave me my first (and so far only) prophetic dream!

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I won’t be sharing my dream with you, sorry. Sometimes we must keep things to ourselves, especially when they come from God! Not everything must be shared, not at least until you truly understand what God is telling you. I do believe that God showed me a glimpse of my purpose and what I would be doing for the kingdom. After that dream God gave me peace! The nightmares had stopped! I was no longer tormented and the urges I had to fall into sin left me! After that I still kept up with the spiritual habits and they became something I did without even thinking about it. During that time I was really on fire for God, He was moving me along in my journey and because I was being obedient He was presenting me with opportunity after opportunity and all I had to do was say YES! JOHN 14:21 “THOSE WHO ACCEPT MY COMMANDMENTS AND OBEY THEM ARE THE ONES WHO LOVE ME. AND BECAUSE THEY LOVE ME, MY FATHER WILL LOVE THEM. AND I WILL LOVE THEM AND REVEAL MYSELF TO EACH OF THEM”

As time went by and life happens, things in my personal life became a little full on. I was doing so much at one time and wasn’t leaving myself time to make my spiritual habits a priority. Before I knew it I stopped making time to read before bed, and after awhile my morning ritual of reading the Word before I started my day began to suffer. I started to learn to drive so I was consumed with watching videos and reading the highway code. I didn’t even realise I had stopped my habits all together! I realised when one day I was looking for a certain scripture and I was checking my bookmarks, that’s when I saw it had been 10 weeks since my habits had come to a complete stop! I was still picking up my bible but it was for my normal usage like bible study. MATTHEW 4:4 “JESUS ANSWERED, ‘IT IS WRITTEN: MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT COMES FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD’ “ If we need to eat everyday to survive, I am talking about breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday! How much more of God’s word do we need to consume daily, multiple times a day even??!? We stop taking our spiritual food: God’s Word, and spiritually we become weak! Continue to not eat and eventually you die! What does death look like spiritually? I would assume death looks like how we once were before we believed and accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour! It would look like you falling off the narrow path and landing back on the wide path that leads to damnation! And believe me I am not even being dramatic. It’s funny because when I stopped spiritually consuming food daily, I noticed that I became spiritually weak! It was then that I started to be reminded of old habits which God had given me freedom over. Because I stopped consuming God’s Word daily, it allowed my mind to become idle and I would think about memories that were triggers for me and almost at times catch myself meditating on it! That is how I let the enemy attack me once again! I stopped being prepared for war.

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The most important thing is realising that there is a problem and instead of falling deeper into the rabbit hole, asking God for the strength to overcome! And that is exactly where I am at right now. So now that we are all caught up, it was my struggle that really made me realise how easy it is to “fall off”. You can be the most on fire for Jesus person there is but you can still “fall off” It happens to the best of them. Think of those well known Pastors of present and past who had glowing reputations of being on fire for Jesus; bringing many to know Christ! But then it comes to light that they had deep dark secrets and were doing unspeakable things. They are all perfect examples of what happens when you don’t address your sin, when you keep it hidden! Like I said before we start to make excuses for ourselves and our desires, and minimise the severity of it. Once we take a bite of the forbidden fruit, it becomes almost impossible to stop eating! We all know how to be performative when it counts. We will always keep up appearances and look like we are flourishing from the outside, but inside our hearts are not right, and our personal relationship with God suffers! Remember the road is narrow, be careful you don’t fall! This blog post is a reminder to eat your “food”, stay strong and stay alert! No matter what you struggle with remember God’s grace is always a gift that never runs out! Don’t let the enemy have you thinking that you are not good enough to receive this gift because that is a LIE! You can fall seven times, but as long as you get back up seven times, God’s hand will always be outstretched to you! Dust yourself off and keep your eye on the prize as they say! Believe me when I say I am doing just that, I am taking my own advise and I am back to eating my food again! It’s a habit that needs to be rebuilt, because its very easy to make reasons to not create these spiritual disciplines! But I have noticed a difference already and I find I can hear God more! I am feeling inspired to write and my fire is getting brighter!

Here is my first book recommendation for people struggling to create their own spiritual habits. I found this book really helpful and it will be a book I constantly go back to! Its called “SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES FOR THE CHRISTIAN LIFE” by Donald S. Whitney, you will not regret buying it and you can thank me later! Until next time, God bless and thank you for sticking with me.

FREEDOM FROM ANXIETY….THE SPIRIT OF FEAR!

Over the weekend God showed me that I had not fully surrendered myself when it came to dealing with my anxiety! All this time I thought I was truly free, I thought anxiety was a thing of the past! Technically it was as I hadn’t suffered with it for so long that I fooled myself into thinking I was truly over it, but the catch was I was still heavily relying on medication for it! before we go forward let me take you back to 2018.

Its important for you to know that I had no history of anxiety or depression before 2018, I didn’t even know what anxiety was until then, anxiety wasn’t something really talked about, it’s one of those things that people seem to suffer with privately. I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and like a child of hard hearing I ignored doctors advise to use medication, in my defence I had tried some medication back in 2015 when I was first diagnosed, but I had an extreme reaction to it that resulted in me going to A&E with symptoms that were similar to someone going into cardiac arrest (oh the drama of it all!) So after being told to try something else I am sure you can understand why I was reluctant to and decided I would try to manage it myself! Well clearly I failed because by 2018 I found myself back in A&E, same symptoms as before but with blood pressure so high I was told I could have a stroke at any moment! To top it off on that same trip to A&E after having the routine blood test that they give you, when my results came back I was told they had found what looked like a blood clot on my lung!(again, the drama of it all!) After having a scan, being prodded and mishandled by the NHS, and having to inject myself with blood thinners for 3 days, when I received the results of my scan it came back as normal. It was at this point anxiety reared its ugly head! The fear of “what if…” started to set in, I remember my biggest question about my health being “if I don’t have a blood clot, what was up with my first results that said I did??” then it morphed into “I must have something wrong with me, it’s just not a blood clot!” I spiralled out of control at that point, and after numerous visits to my doctor who at the time was THE WORST, I was dismissed and told I was fine without further investigation. I fell in to a dark place from that point, every time I had a palpitation it set me into a panic! I remember one week being in A&E three times because of panic attacks! I was scared to sleep because I feared I wouldn’t wake up, it got so bad that I needed my mum to stay with me because I couldn’t sleep in bed alone. My doctor ended up signing me off work for two months because I was mentally unfit for duty! That’s how bad it got.

It was at my next doctors appointment that I was offered anti-depressants, now I knew enough to know I didn’t want to take them, as I heard they could be quite addictive, plus I knew I wasn’t depressed! I was just sure I was dying (so dramatic lol) I remember after that appointment I was convinced it was my GP surgery that was the true villain of my story so I found a new practice and spoke to someone new. At this point the severity of my anxiety had reduced where I could sleep alone and was ready to return to normality, even though I was still easily triggered! I remember going to the cinema with friends one night and having a complete meltdown at the start of the movie because it was so loud it caused my seat to vibrate and that, for some unknown reason triggered my anxiety! The only way I could sit through it was to put my headphones in my ears to reduce the sound, after that I didn’t go to the cinema for a very long time out of fear! My new doctor suggested medication I could take that would help to prevent the physical symptoms I was experiencing, since I was assured they would have no affect on my mood, I started to take them! They worked, they reduced some of my physical symptoms so I was able to get a better control of my anxiety. But it never left, I still suffered, I was still triggered, and sleep became a myth because I still carried this fear of dying in my sleep. I just accepted that this was my life now, and I would just have to get used to it! PROVERB 12:25 “ANXIETY IN A PERSON’S HEART WEIGHS IT DOWN, BUT A GOOD WORD CHEERS IT UP.” My anxiety began to control me, I always had to consider my anxiety when doing anything social, I missed out on a lot of things because the fear of “what if…” I just wasn’t the same person! Now let me just say it’s normal to experience anxiety, Life can be like that, but it is not meant to control you!

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When I first came to Christ in 2019 I was still sure anxiety was gonna be apart of my life! I was getting to know God and as I got to know Him, TRUST began to build (like it does in any good relationship!) Fear causes us to doubt, and that has been the enemies tactic since Eve in the garden of Eden! 2 TIMOTHY 1 “FOR GOD GAVE US A SPIRIT NOT OF FEAR BUT OF POWER AND LOVE AND SELF-CONTROL.” This verse is what put things in to perspective for me on my journey! I realised that if I was calling myself a child of God, there was no way I should be letting anxiety control me, because what was really going on was that I had allowed the enemy to control me! That scared me but it was the scare I needed to realise I couldn’t have this bondage over me anymore! The enemy might have had control before, but now because of the mighty name of JESUS I had the authority to get rid of that spirit! I had to really start getting into my bible, I had to start a spiritual discipline for myself to get into the habit of reading everyday, and it wasn’t anything major to begin with, it could of been a chapter a day, but I was making the effort to feed myself spiritually, just like you feed your body daily to survive we must also feed our spirits daily to survive, because after all we are in a spiritual battle! JESUS said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God.” (Matthew 4:4) If we are honest there are a lot of mal-nourished Christians out here, and that’s not a judgment but an observation, even I could do better in that department!

I started to notice that my anxiety started to lessen, we went from being best friends, joint at the hip, to friends that got together occasionally for a life catch up and gossip. The more I began to TRUST and BELIEVE in Him, the more I discovered my identity in Christ and what that meant for my life, I started to sleep easier, and before I knew it six months had passed without a whisper from my old pal anxiety! Death was no longer a concern for me, because I had a greater understanding of what eternity meant for me now I was a believer! JAMES 4:7 “SUBMIT YOURSELVES THEREFORE TO GOD. RESIST THE DEVIL, AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU.” That’s exactly what happened! It’s really that simple but we tend to make it much harder than it need be.

Now lets fast forward to present day, like I said before I haven’t suffered with anxiety for a long time, and that’s saying something considering we all just experienced and are still experiencing the most trying time of our generation! This has anxiety alert written all over it! Yet I have not folded, not even once. My mind has been the most sound and at peace considering I have had to go out everyday to work consistently while a potentially fatal virus rages around me, and it’s because of this I know God orchestrated everything leading up to this pandemic because honestly I don’t know how I would have managed if I was still bound! He called me when He did because He knew I would need Him now the most! I say thank you, and thank you some more to Him daily! During my claim to freedom, God showed me that my faith was not complete! Well this whole time I had still been taking my anxiety medication, to be clear I take multiple medications for various things because I am literally falling apart lol So it’s become a habit to pop my pills without thought. I order my meds online because that’s the “thing” these days, and because I take so many I have a repeat prescription. Now please tell me why, of all times my meds were delayed?! Causing me to run out and be without! And please tell me why the only medication I ran out of was my anxiety pills!?! Bare in mind I receive the same amount of meds each delivery, so the fact that I don’t have these particular pills gave me the “Ah hah!” moment, a revelation that I still had trust issues! The Holy Spirit revealed that I had a little more work to do in that department! JAMES 2:22 “YOU SEE, HIS FAITH AND HIS ACTIONS WORKED TOGETHER. HIS ACTIONS MADE HIS FAITH COMPLETE.” This verse refers to Abraham being shown to be right with God because he offered his son to be sacrificed, trusting in God fully, a true act of faith! As I lay in bed feeling the stress of the unknown start to build in my chest, I broke down into tears at the realisation that I wasn’t truly free because my actions were not in line with my claim to faith! But I knew deep down in my heart that I was gonna be ok because I knew that God was testing me, He was asking me to truly let go and trust him! And after a tearful and heart felt prayer after reading that James verse, I some how let it all go! Its been a week without any anxiety pills, “we did it Joe!” (insert Kamala Harris meme here)

I know now that I didn’t need them, I was hanging onto them like a “break in case of emergency” safety net! But it was all in my sub conscious, because honestly it didn’t register that I was still relying on them! This is why we have the best helper, the Holy Spirit! My heart is in the process of restoration, it is hard, it is making me truly deal with my traumas and I am receiving healing! It is difficult but remember the things that are best for us tend to be. What I was reminded of was faith = action! We can’t claim to believe in God and his promise for us, but we still hold on to fears, we let these fears control us, letting these fears cause us to doubt our Father who doesn’t lie! Now we start to second guess and start trusting in our own feelings, rather than the Word of God! Remember in my previous post I mentioned how our feelings were not facts and how we can’t always trust our hearts, as the bible refers to our hearts as deceitful! Remember faith is acting like God is telling the truth, so take a moment, do a heart check, and ask yourself these important questions, do you live like you believe God is telling the truth? Do your feet move in sync with your faith? This walk with God is impossible without true faith! Our Father is reliable! Our Father is faithful! Our Father is trustworthy! And most of all our Father LOVES us! So whatever you are holding on to, let it go today! It will be the best thing you ever do!