Hi guys, it’s such honor to have my aunty M. feature on this year’s edition of 31Days31Voices. Enjoy 😉
The lessons I learned in 2018.
This year has been a very interesting year for me because it has marked the birth of many things that I never thought would come to fruition in my life.
My narrative in 2018 is based on some life changing events that happened in 2017, which was a very difficult year that I could not wait for to end. It was fraught with work and personal challenges the likes of which I had never seen before that culminated in my having to quit my 11 year running job without a safety net, based on an inner conviction, but quit I did and despite all the ups and downs and fears conquered I am so glad I took that step and followed my inner voice. I say my inner voice, not referring to my own voice but to my own personal Word from God.
I read a book many years ago titled “My Word from God”; I am not sure that the book is still in print but the main lesson I took away from the book was this: to live my life as an undeceived Christian I have to learn to converse with the spirit within, based on God’s Word. I have to question anything and everything regardless of its source, and put it on trial by the Word to either acquit or convict it. Because of my experiences in 2017, I was compelled to retrace my steps to that point where I had learned ask the voices and that echoed in my head questions, to verify and establish their source by asking this question:
“You, this voice, speaking to me; do you confess Jesus Christ as Lord? do you speak for yourself or for the Lord? It sounds very simplistic but asking these questions took me to the core of the Truth that I sought in each situation, time after time, after time.
And I made it! I was able to make the right decisions for ME, by looking within and not relying on outside voices for direction, but along the way, I learned some lessons, which I will share with you today and which I hope will also point help sensitize you to listen to your own inner voice:
1.Things are not always the way they seem:
Situations will present themselves to us, for good or for bad, but if we cannot move past what is seen, because of the emotions like hurt, anger, disappointment, or betrayal to name a few, we may never be able to ‘see’ beyond the ‘seen’ to the unseen, and we end up getting caught in a cycle of futility that becomes a never ending loop that leaves its imprint on everything we experience, to taint it or mar it.
Because everything we see is subject to the passage of time, we have to step out from time into the eternal to be able to ‘see’, that which is truth and that, which is is lie. And the Truth is this:
Things are not always the way they seem.
◄ 2 Corinthians 4:18 ► So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal
2.You are not the only one going through stuff, so stuff it!
This year I came to the realization that everyone is going through something or the other and that I am not unique in my ability to go through suffering, hurt or any other traumatizing emotion. This realization liberated me from the ‘woe is me’ and the ‘why me?’ mentality, because newsflash – everyone is going through stuff, so stuff it! Quit drama ’queening’ or ‘princing’ and get down to the business of pushing through, but with the realization that God is always on your side and that He will never leave you nor forsake you.
◄ 1 Corinthians 10:13 ►
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
3.Nothing changes by just venting/talking about it:
For many years, if anything went wrong in my life my first impulse was to pick up the phone and call a friend, or my mother or anyone who would give me their ear, but this year, The Lord re-cemented this truth in my mind: no matter how much you vent or talk about something it does not bring about an ounce of change, or even a soupçon of transformation. We all know that old song – prayer is the key, prayer is the key, prayer is the master key… that is exactly it! Prayer is the master key!!!
The Lord had told me in the past, “When something happens to you, reach for the throne and not the phone.” and I had forgotten that truth, but The Spirit again brought it to my remembrance that PRAYER is the only way change happens!
◄ Philippians 4:6–7 ► “ . . . do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
4.Seeing IS believing:
I was watching television one night, and I heard a preacher say, “Faith is believing that which you see… immediately he said those words, I heard The Spirit counter his statement: “Faith is believing what you ‘SEE’”. I was puzzled by this statement because of the scripture that I had known for many years that said faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen, but the Holy Spirit explained to me that the ‘not yet seen’ does not apply to me but rather to the ones who could not see what I could see! And this He corroborated by pointing me to the scripture that says in the book of first Corinthians chapter 2: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love him, BUT God hath revealed them unto US by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.”
So the lesson learned is: seeing IS believing that, which The SPIRIT shows us to be TRUTH! You can take that right to the bank… and believe me, I did!
◄ Hebrews 11:1 ►
… Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen
5.Calling the things which be not are though they are, is not a suggestion it’s a necessity:
One day I asked the Lord “ why do I have to pray?” He answered me and said “you need to pray because even I, God, had to verbalize my Word before it became flesh, I said, “let there be” when there was nothing, and there was! So if you want anything to happen in your life you will have to say “Let there be”, and there was, on earth as it is in heaven!”
I then realized that if God had not spoken and called those things that were not, as though they were, He would have created ‘nothing’, and so we must also speak our dreams, our thoughts in prayer so that they can ‘BE’. This we must do, because we were created to be like Him and act like Him!
◄ Genesis 1:3 ►
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
- No more eating from the garden of good and evil:
This was one lesson I had to relearn because as humans, it is so ingrained in us to judge things based on whether they are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and if I had followed that premise in 2017, I would have totally missed God’s plan for me.
Let me explain: we all as human beings, and most especially Christians have the tendency to judge things based on whether they are good or evil. It is not our fault. We inherited this intrinsic character flaw from Adam when they sinned and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rather than from the Tree of Life, which is truncated their ability to create, experience, relate and reproduce to the level of that which can be sensed and not by revelation. Consider this, a girl who has been searching for God walks into a Church sanctuary just as she was, in stiletto heels and a miniskirt, and she is immediately judged. If she is judged based on perceptions gleaned from eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she would be approached and asked to dress properly before coming into the sanctuary, rather than be welcomed with open arms as the Prodigal coming home, if operating from the spirit of eating from the Tree of Life, which provides a revelation of situations and people not as they are seen, but as they ARE in the spirit. The latter would have drawn a sinner to Christ and the former may have driven her away forever! This example may be an extreme scenario but I believe that it is so important for us to realize that we cannot live our lives as Christians evaluating situations through lenses of the flesh rather than the spirit because doing so WILL cause us to crash-land rather than lifting us to soar.
So the final of the lessons I learned this year is this:
No more eating from the garden of good and evil!
I would love to say that I am now a perfect example of one who has learned all the lessons above, but like another lesson I have learned this year, Life is a journey and we must continue to learn and relearn, Live and relive, know and reknow, as we continue on to know… Have a happy and prosperous 2019!
Compliments of the season.🎄
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