marquitabp

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?" Isaiah 58:6 NIV

Over the last 12 months, God has done a mighty work in my life. This has been the most difficult year of my life, but it has also been the most rewarding. For the first time in my life, I feel like I accomplished something of value. And I owe it all to God and His hand on my life. I trusted God to defeat my past and break the chains that kept me bound to it. I was in prison to all of the things that had happened to me and I kept going in circles. Finally after I began my forgiveness journey, I was able to start recognizing things about myself and actually let go. Then I got to this place towards the end of 2011.

This recap is so worth it…so here goes. Last year, today to be exact, I went to WalMart and in the course of that trip got the book "Fasting" by Jentezen Franklin. I had already decided that I would fast for the last few days of the year and the first few of 2012 to see what would happen. I felt a push to get closer to God in every way I could and I realized I needed to fast for real. Not just abstaining from Facebook (that and anything like it is consecration) but abstain from eating, and put my body in subjection to the Word of God for a more intimate touch from Him. My life has never been the same since. I have experienced so many breakthroughs and revelations and I attribute it to fasting and seeking God’s will for my life. For the first time ever, I had to completely trust someone. And this was difficult but relieving because the more I trusted God, the more in control of things I felt.

There is this song, "I’ll Trust You" by Donnie McClurkin. In the beginning, God via Donnie McClurkin says, "Will you trust me? What if you call me and don’t feel me near you, will you still trust me? What if I tell you to let go of the very thing you think you have to hold, will you trust me?" What if it costs my life? What if I lose the very thing I love so dear? These are questions he also asked. And in this year, I have done those very things. I have died to self in many areas, exposing my innermost thoughts and insecurities via my devotions and also via the juicing diaries I did on my YouTube channel, I have been vulnerable in ways I could not imagine, and it was freeing. I can say through all of this, God has defeated my past, and it no longer has a hold on me. No longer will I have the nightmares of loneliness and people finding out things about me that I tried so hard to hide and overlook, because I have been healed, delivered and made whole from them and especially the shame.

The key to all of this for me has been in trusting God and being obedient to what He put in my heart to do. I am sure you have things that have created ‘invisible wounds’ as I like to say (that’s my book title, to be released soon!) within you. These things have kept you anchored to the past, whether its through generational curses of lust and sex, perversion, cheating, alcoholism and drug addiction, insecurity, illnesses and diseases, or sexual abuse or if its through unexpected illnesses and deaths, these wounds are like sinkholes created by the roots of these issues in your life. It was only God to expose these things to me within my own life, and I am so humbled to know God loved me enough to uproot those issues and deliver me from my past.

This was not a passive process. I had to want to be healed, I had to want to be whole, and I had to believe and trust that God would do it. I had to leave family and friends and loved ones behind so that God could a work within me. I had to be honest with myself so that He could open my eyes to show me the real me. Not the one I have seen all these years or the one that others told me I was, but who He called me to be. I am not the same Marquita as I was at the beginning of 2012 or at any point of you knowing me. I am different–yes, I still struggle with things and have some rough corners that need to be sanded down, but I am different.

The key to defeating your past is trusting God. That means trusting God when He shows you the ugliness about yourself, about the decisions you have made and the things that have happened to you. It requires allowing the scab to be peeled off of those wounds and looking at them for what they are. If there is infection and it has spread to other parts of your life, you have to trust God’s process for resolving those issues. You can defeat your past, and it does not have to make sense to others (because if I told y’all what God has had me do…you would think I’m strange lol). God is a healer, a provider, and a deliverer among other things. He can help you get to the next level, free from the wounds and baggage of the past. Trust Him!!

Take the challenge for 2013 and see your life change! I’ll begin fasting on the 28th by abstaining from fried foods again and possibly sweets, and then I will begin my full 40-day Daniel fast on January 1. You DON’T have to do what I’m doing, but try fasting from something and when you would normally be eating that thing, pray more and watch God move mountains in your life! Trust Him in this and watch things start happening! Let go and let God! It is time for you to defeat your past and break those chains!

Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and truly you shall be fed. Delight yourself also in the LORD: and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. Psalm 3:2-5 AKJV

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to test you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. 1 Peter 4:12-13 KJV

I have had these scriptures posted on my door for several years now. But I did not truly understand what was being said in them until last year. Having gone through my ‘wilderness’ experience while living in Charleston, being tested in every area of my life, I honestly was mad and angry with God for allowing me to suffer so greatly. I simply could not understand why I had to go through all of those things that happened while I was in Charleston–in the midst of them. But since I have been gone, it has all been making sense.

My one desire was to finish college and grad school on time. I pushed myself so hard, working full-time at my co-op the summer of 2007 and writing two papers while applying for scholarships and the like. I was not going to allow my kidney disease to keep me from meeting that deadline. The following summer after graduation, it was all worth it. The long hours at school, the loans I took out to live alone…it was all worth it. But immediately after graduation, at my 23rd birthday celebration I was in severe pain all the while smiling through it. It was this that initiated my entering my wilderness experience. By now it should be common knowledge that my kidneys began to rapidly decline in function, which resulted in my kidney transplant. And all the while I was trying to get my finances in order to buy a townhouse and live normally…or so I thought.

2009, 2010, and 2011 brought trials of every area, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what I had done to bring about God’s mighty hand against me, or why He allowed me to go through those things. I was angry with God. Why was I born, why into this family, why I had to suffer with these issues, with no one to talk to about it, with no one to help me, to suffer through some of the worst things–ALONE. All the while, I had these scriptures posted on my door, and I did not understand what they were saying to me. I was angry, but I kept praying for understanding. Of course, as God always does, after the tests and trials were over, I began to see and understand what He was doing.

In life, the one thing we can be assured of is that we will endure tests or ‘trials’ as referred to here. I felt so much like Job, like God what had I done to go through these things. It was after being delivered from a victim mentality and spirit of self-pity that I could see my own faults clearly and then I understood what was the purpose behind the trials. Be careful what you pray for…gosh that is the TRUTH! I prayed for God to use me and to make me more like Jesus, to fix me so that He could use me to help others and walk in my life’s calling–and as a result I had a whole lot of junk that needed to be removed from Him to be able to do those things.

I know now that it was the trials that helped to refine me (although lets be real here, I need more fixing lol). Trials expose you to God’s fire…and His fire will not burn you; instead fiery trials purify and prune you. They cause you to die to self so that everything in your life brings God the glory. It is the fire that purges you from old habits, attitudes, and behaviors. Think about it, most people can’t understand your transformation knowing you used to do this, that, and some other questionable things. It is only God’s power that can bring about a transformation in the midst of struggle and strife. It is only God that can fill those voids and make you whole.

I ask today is your faith fireproof for the following reasons:
1. Can you endure what seems like the lowest point of your life and still trust God?
2. Can you suffer through test after test after test without having any confirmation that God is speaking to you or working in your life?
3. Can you trust God enough to allow the process to be completed??? This means allowing His transformation of your life to come to completion, even if it means severing relationships, moving, and isolation.

I would like to think my faith is fireproof, but I know with every level of elevation, there are new trials and ‘new devils.’ I am trusting God to keep the temperature turned up so that I can be made more and more like Christ. So that may mean that some day I won’t do something I did everyday prior to that or I may not talk to a lifelong friend. But as long as it is a part of God’s tests and purification of me, it is worth it, knowing that I can rejoice at God’s revelation of His glory upon my life. Besides, I know my earthly parents dished out many a fiery ‘spanking’ to make me a better person…wouldn’t our Heavenly Father light the fire underneath us to make us better?

Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:17-18 NIV

Author: marquitabp

Defeating Your Past

Is Your Faith Fireproof?