Just Confessing

I was convicted after not spending much time to think through a lesson I had just finished in the Fearless study today. I opened this study up following a pretty emotional day the day before. To give you just a brief snap shot of what yesterday looked like—my husband and I got back into town from an out of town wedding. We had driven separately, so I spent the two hour drive in silence and I can’t even remember what I thought about, but there was no intentionality in my thinking that’s for sure. I got home and had expectations to do something fun with my husband even though I had no ideas to offer to him as to what we could do. And since he had actual work to get done, we did nothing, and I pouted. I was in a terrible mood—nothing was going my way. I looked on social media and was judging my looks on how many likes and comments I had gotten on a photo and I continued to listen to the lie that I am ugly now and people will not look at me the same anymore. As the day went on I felt worse and worse about myself, not only because I felt ugly but because I was allowing myself to listen to the lies and find my identity in social media comments over what the Lord says. I felt such guilt and shame that that much weight was placed on something that was a “weak and worthless elementary principle of this world” (Gal. 4:9), but I couldn’t change my mindset. I became more and more frustrated.

Later in the evening the Lord gave me grace to confess to my husband this stupid, but very real struggle I had been battling in my head all day. I didn’t try and explain to him all the reasons why I was feeling the way I was or try to explain to him that I knew how I should be responding, I just confessed the sin and asked him to pray. In the Lord’s sweetness and grace He allowed us to have a very sweet night together without my feeling all these lies in my head.

I fear that God gets annoyed with me, that because I know how I should be responding to a certain feeling, when I don’t do that as I know I should that God gets so frustrated. Because of this fear, I get bound and determined to not feel certain things in my pride so as to please the Lord. I went all day yesterday trying in my own prideful strength to not feel the feeling of wanting to look beautiful and wanting others to think I was beautiful instead of just coming before Him and telling Him what was going on.

I read today in Matthew 14:23-25 about Jesus going up on the mountain to pray. I’m sure in many instances we see where Jesus retreats to be with His Father for long stretches of time and this was definitely one of those instances. He didn’t come walking on the water to the disciples until the fourth watch of the night, which was in the middle of the night to early morning. The study prompted me to think through how much time I spend with my Heavenly Father. I love what this paragraph from the Fearless study said,

We need to get away from “the earthly” on a daily basis in order to live with “the heavenly” in view….How can you make sure that you set time apart with Him so that you are able to hear Him and see things from His perspective rather than the way things appear from a worldly, human perspective? We can do nothing in our own strength, but we are to follow God’s ultimate command to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. As we follow in obedience by faith, He will make this possible.” (Week 4: Day 3)

I have to confess to you that while most mornings I do have a “quiet time” I would say a small fraction of those times are actually spent retreating to my Heavenly Father and most mornings are actually just spent doing something I’m “supposed to do.” I’m not really retreating to the mountain. I want to have that heavenly perspective, I wanted to have it yesterday so badly as I was trying to make myself not feel something, but like the Fearless study reminded me today, I can do nothing in my own strength. So often it seems a lot easier to confess something to my husband, or to my accountability partner, or to my mentor, or to the Lord in the same breath as telling them how I know I should be responding. It doesn’t seem as weak to say THIS SIN is what I’m doing right now, but I know THIS is what I need to be doing instead of just confessing what my weak flesh is doing in the present moment. The Lord is revealing to me that I may in fact still just be seeing things from my weak, human, earthly perspective instead of His heavenly one because I don’t just retreat to Him because I’m scared He’s disappointed.

I think this is where this post ends. I don’t want to tell you what I’m going to try to do or even write out what I think I need to do to “fix” this sin of mine. I’m just going to retreat to be with the Lord and ask Him for His heavenly perspective by His grace. I get so fixed on doing this whole Christianity thing “right” that I totally miss out on the beauty that our God is blooming. Father, help me see from your eyes instead of my own.

Planted for His Glory