Broken. It’s easy to love broken people when we realize that we, too, are broken. When there’s chaos, we must extend consideration. Compassion. When we realize how broken we are, don’t mind broken places so much. We feel for them. Compassion. Empathy. Desire to help as there were those that helped us. But, how do we help? Certainly there are tangible and practical things we can do, like simply “being there” for a friend or loved one ..
Whole. I’ll tell a real-life story for you for the purpose of giving life to this. As a child, I learned that the world was not a safe place. (Easy to see). I also learned that those closest to me could not be trusted. I built a tangible protective barrier to keep me from being hurt again from the world and those around me. I learned, even, as I grew older, that if I let the wall down a little bit, that it came to bite me in the rear and I got hurt – deeply hurt. Reconstruction began time and again and the barricade became higher and stronger, more insurmountable and less able to be taken down again.
Until one day. One day in talking with the Lord about this very issue, seeing situations around me that I desperately wanted to involve myself in but having a very real fear of the outcome of such a dangerous act of letting the walls down, He walked me through something not short of miraculous and life-healing.
For a long time now, I have been one to want to do whatever God wants in my life. I’ve spent hours, weeks, even years, fretting over if I was in His will or not. The fear was not a healthy regard for Him, but a crazy twitch of a fear that I developed that kept me imprisoned, deathly afraid to make a wrong move, maybe akin to walking across a tight rope across Niagra Falls, or something to that caliber. Now, not only did I have a prison cell that was robbing me of my life, my time, my freedom, and my joy, I had my walls up outside of it, and maybe possibly a moat, just in case anyone dare scale the walls and rescue me out of my madness.
I am looking at this with a sense of hilarity today, because God has always had His sovereign hand over my life. I have still always been protected, and if He is indeed all-knowing (and I believe He is), He must have seen every action, thought, and reaction of mine coming, anyway.
These walls were also erected to protect me from those that I came to believe could not be trusted with the deepest parts of me, mainly, those closest to me.
So, I revisited this wall today. (See my post titled, “Prison” for more insight on my “prison break”). I’m not sure how high it was originally, but today it was maybe only 4 1/2 feet tall. And truly, only about 10 feet wide. God has certainly been doing a work in me. I was on one side, and standing with me on the same side was Jesus. On the other side, my Heavenly Father stood, watching, waiting, looking at me with a gentle gaze that sparked my wonder, curiosity, and heart.
I suppose with ease either of us could have simply walked around this wall to connect with one another. The thought did not come to my mind at the time. All I knew at the time was that there was this dinky little wall between God and I.
You see, my wall was a protective barrier. It served me well at a point in time when I did not know God as my Father and did not communicate with Him on the regular. It also served me in dealing with those circumstantially closest to me when they hurt me deeply. But today, this wall was a hindrance, a blockade between myself and what I truly wanted. I felt no joy, no peace, no anything except for a mess of negative emotion: fear, running, hiding, unhappiness, anxiousness; I was trying to keep it all together. The wall had walled me in and apart from everything and everyone I cared about.
I asked Jesus if it was safe to knock the wall down. He was incredibly funny about it, He exclaimed, “Yes! It’s the safest thing you could possibly do!!” (I was waiting for a “silly,” or, “you idiot,” after His exclamation, but it was not there. I suppose He doesn’t think I’m so silly or stupid for doing what I found to be natural in my life up to this point. I suppose only I and a few choice others had thought that about me).
Alright, so I asked Jesus if He had any tools I could use to knock down this wall. He said, rather matter-of-factly, “No.” Then He continued, “You have the tool within yourself.”
It became obvious to me that I had the power to push the little wall over.
So, I did.
What followed thereafter was markedly quite honestly the best experience I’ll never forget with my Heavenly Father. I slowly walked over to Him and He hugged me with the best hug I could ever imagine. Joy came into my heart, along with deep peace, happiness, and stillness. Nothing mattered except for this moment. Fear was gone. Anxiousness was gone.
I felt completely and entirely safe.
Walls are not needed around a city in peacetime. I no longer need my self-erected barricades to protect myself.
I can trust again. I trust Him to guide me in the directions I should go. I know I can walk with God and I know that He is my protection. I know that I am His kid, and I know that He won’t allow anything to happen to destroy His deeply loved children.
So, how about you? Do you think God is safe? Do you think He is to be trusted? Is there anything holding you back from having this kind of relationship with Him? I’m sure He would love to converse with you about it, if you’ll only ask!
Be very blessed!
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