My motto has become “What else is there to do at 2am but to pray”. I’ve been on this schedule for as long as I can remember, always awake at night. It’s an amazing refresher for an introvert to be alone in a quiet house. To have that breathing room to just be. Not so much when you have three dogs a creaky old house and a husband that has to get up early for work. So I’ll lay here awake, tossing around, trying not to make noise or let the dogs make noise but inadvertently at some point wake Regis up only for him to look at me and go “why are you still awake?” and for me to wonder how people sleep all night. If you’re wired this way, you’re not crazy and you’re not alone. You’re probably called to intercede in prayer.
I’ll sit on the floor by the electric fireplace at the end of the bed and pray. Sometimes I’ll lay awake for hours staring at the ceiling, listening for the Lord. Tonight, I asked the Lord to come and sit with me for a while. I poured my heart out. I haven’t been dedicating the secret place time to Him that I should. I’ve let working full time, school, the kids, and everything else take my focus. I’ve let the enemy attack me with feeling like a disappointment as a wife and a mom and a minister. Sometimes I feel like when I’m just being myself, awake at 2am, that I’m doing something wrong, even though I’ve been this way for my entire life. I’m having a hard time transitioning to living with a big outside dog and the enemy is using familiar spirits of all these random thoughts, anxiety and OCD to get me all caught up in the flesh. All these things that I have been free from, scratching at my door causing me to get caught up in my feelings. My failure to recognize that my feelings aren’t truth and get caught up in them has really caused me to lose my fruit recently. The very thing I was preaching to myself tonight in Bible study. I needed that message. I did a lot of internal heart checking tonight.
When I asked the Lord to come sit with me, I saw the Holy Spirit come and sit to my right. I looked to my left looking for Jesus but instead I was ambushed. It reminded me of a cartoon with folks rushing around trying to tie someone up real fast, moving so quick all you can see is that cloud of dust kicking up. I felt pushed back and wrapped up like a mummy. I felt all these demons swirling around me tying me with what felt like bandages. It felt suffocating, it felt binding like I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.
In my mind I cried out for the Lord and in that moment I heard the Lord say “It’s time to cut off the grave clothes, Ash.” With a swift feeling of relief I saw the Holy Spirit run his finger down the length of the side of my body. Instantly I felt the bandages fall. I felt the relief and freedom to move and the ability to use my voice again.
I felt the Lord saying that so many of us are stuck in old mindsets, old patters, patterns that worked with the old wine skins; but He is calling for new. There’s a call to cut off the past mindsets, the past ways of sin, bondage and slavery to the enemy. It’s time to beat your addictions, your fleshy bends, your idols. It’s time to free yourself from the past failures of unmet expectations. It’s time to free yourself from the way people view you. It’s time to free yourself from the bonds of dry religious rituals, it’s time to stop shopping and gossiping and start sowing and praying. It’s time to stop being held back by fear of rejection that never even happened yet. Stop letting the enemy have any space in your mind. It’s not his to have, it’s the Lords.
It’s time to find a new way to do things. A way that works for what the Lord is doing now. Pray with Him and partner with Him and let Him guide you in all the things. There is a beautiful thing in the pause to listen to the Lord and an even more beautiful thing in obedience to what He’s calling of you.
This life is not always comfortable but it is always good. God has a plan and His plan is better than anything we could possibly come up with on our own. Trust Him and stop clinging to what He’s calling you to lay down. I’m in this with you all, every step of the way. We are all learning, growing and experiencing this walk together. I don’t preach to a congregation anything I wouldn’t preach to myself first.
It’s time for something new. He’s calling us all to walk this out, no shortcuts. Cultivating takes time. New takes time. It’s time to get serious about our roots and about our fruit.
Isaiah 37:31
31 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
John 11:44
“And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.”
Isaiah 43:19 - Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
Job 8:7 - Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.
Revelation 21:4 - And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Isaiah 40:31 - But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
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