Lessons

“I want the presence of God Himself, or I don't want anything at all to do with religion... I want all that God has or I don't want any.”
― A.W. Tozer


    The lessons learned through pain are the lessons best remembered.  Just like in the Bible, the Lord often talks to me by asking questions.  He has given us a brain for a reason.  Sometimes when I have a "duh" moment, I can almost hear Him laugh.  He knows I so enjoy figuring things out and I believe that is one of the reasons He teaches me the way He does. Last night was one of those nights.
     I was lying in bed explaining to Him how I feel about a situation I am in. A friend of mine is under a huge attack by the enemy and I know it is the enemy because the Lord has shown me and we have talked about this.  I was telling Him how helpless I feel.  I can talk until I am blue and this person refuses to hear me.  The words I have shared come from the Lord and I only share what He tells me.  Lying there last night in all this frustration and tears, the Lord asked a question He has asked me several times lately.  "Does this feel familiar?  Have we been here before?"  Instantly, I knew what He was talking about.  When I was seven and being sexually abused along with a three year old girl, I always tried to protect her.  I would hide her, but he would find her.  All those feelings came back ten fold because they were the same as what I am feeling now.  No matter how I tried, I could not protect her.  It felt like it was me against the world.  Nobody cared what was happening to her, but me.  At least that's how I felt.  I wanted to protect her more than anything in the world, but I was only seven. 
     The first thing I thought about was how God takes us around the same mountain until we learn the lesson.  Until we see what we are doing wrong and change the behavior.  Right?  That's when He explained that many times He takes us through the same battles to learn how to fight.  If you keep getting punched in the face you learn to cover your face, right?  I was on to something.  What should I have done different when I was seven?  What can I learn by my behavior back then?  I said to the Lord, "I was only seven.  I was helpless.  I had no control."  Then He said, "What's different now?"  DUH!  Nothing.  I still have no control.  The only thing I can do is obey and pray.  I am as helpless as that seven year old. 
     Then He went on to talk about the affect it had on me.  I lived with guilt for many years and the enemy still tries to use it against me.  This time, I will decide not to feel guilty, because I am not in control  I am responsible "to" not "for".  Hind sight is 20/20 and I believe God is using it if we are willing to look back and see it.  He trains us by taking us through the same battles.  For me, learning to let go and give up control is big.  Otherwise the enemy would not attack me in that area with guilt, and the Lord wouldn't use it to teach me. 
     This is all about spiritual warfare and taking the weapons of mass destruction from the enemy.  If He can't make me feel guilty for not being in control, that is power taken from him and given to me.  Guilt can be crippling.  If you find yourself in the same circumstances more than once, it may not be how you got there that He is trying to show you.  It could be how to handle the fight or it maybe how to handle the outcome.  We do have control over how we live.  Because of free will God is not even in control, but He is in charge.

“We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God