In all of our darkness, our painful places, there is also the hand of God pulling us out. The ultimate goal is to go in search of the hand of God.
We have an innate ability to only see the bad in our lives. In doing so, we find ourselves stuck in transition. Stuck in the trauma, either running away from or blaming our circumstances for where we are. To reclaim our moments, we have to go back into these, "never to visit again" hurting places of our lives and look for God in them. In other words, look for the good.
In the book I talk about the devastation of my miscarriage. For years it had become one of my "never to visit again" hurting places. When I did bum up against it, I remembered being deserted by God, and the cold, calloused face of an uncaring doctor. That scene played out in my mind a million times. That is the innate ability to see the bad, and I was stuck in my trauma. When I wore myself out emotionally and finally chose to obey God and go back in search of God's hand and not his anger or disapproval, I found him. God showed up in the form of a nurse. A nurse who had been in the story all along, but I had failed to notice looking at the bad.
I believe in all of our circumstances, God is there. You can never go where God is not. So whatever you've been through God was there. The question, however, is what do we do when we go back into these places to reclaim your moments? We begin to rebuild our core by replacing the God of our nightmares with the God of truth. For me, I felt in difficult times, God abandoned me (lie), but scriptures says, he'd never leave me or forsake me (truth) so I needed to go in search of the truth. I needed to know that word of God was reliable and trustworthy. Going back and reclaiming my lost moments enabled me to stand again.
You can never go where God is not. So whatever you've been through God was there. Max Lucado
Breaking Your Default Setting
You know how you can get up in the morning so determined get your workout on.
Today I’m choosing healthy. Good eating. Good workout. Time with God.
Then before you know it, you're reading texts, on social media, and eating a big bowl of your favorite sugary cereal? Then to make it worse, you get to the office and the donuts in the staff lounge is calling you personally by name. And like clockwork, you answer the call, telling yourself it's just a little piece, except it's a little piece for the 5th time. That my friend, is called 'your default setting.' We all have one and oh how quickly we can fall into it.
We do the same thing spiritually. We've developed a "way" of handling painful, difficult situations. Some crawl up in ball nursing our wound, some yell and scream at others whether they're responsible for the pain or not. And we continue to deal with our pain the same way, whether we're 5 or 55 until we admit that this is no longer serving me. Old wound or new wound our 'way' doesn't change unless we intentionally change it. How do we intentionally change? We go back and face the giant, that shadow that looms over us like the boogieman under a child's bed, that refuses to go away. But this time we go in with our eyes wide open.
So...
Grab a flashlight and shine it on the word of God. He promises to be in the storm. Our mission is to find Him. Armed with his promises, we can go back in safely.
Take a deep breathe of faith (choosing to believe what you cannot see). Believing that God is a good God. That He is for us not against us.
Once He reveals himself, holding firmly to the truth. No longer giving residence to the lies of Satan.
Deuteronomy 31:6, Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; “He will never leave you nor forsake you.”
