Tag: spirituality

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Crutches

It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. Psalm 11:8 AKJV

Growing up I had the strange desire to have to use crutches. When my dad broke his ankle, my brothers and I took turns playing with the crutches. Strange things we want as kids…I wanted to have to wear a cast haha, I wanted glasses (overrated, as my brief experience resulted in a lost pair of glasses I paid for myself grrr), and I wanted braces (yet another experience I don’t miss but I often consider to further perfect my smile haha). But now as an adult and having had to use them myself after a foot injury and the ugly boot that ensued…crutches are a blessing and a curse all at once.

I guess I’m not meant to find that devotion I wrote…bummer. Anyway, I have had the tendency in life to seek guidance from others. As a consequence, I tend to get dependent and reliant that those people will always be a resource for me. God ALWAYS has a way of snatching the crutches back from me. You see the downside to using crutches for too long is that you become dependent on them, so much that you get comfortable and complacent where you are. You stop challenging and pushing yourself to do better, until you get into a position where you feel stuck. Ah yes, in the past, I got to that place quite often. It was like finally one day God got tired of me and told me enough was enough and started snatching the crutches away–the people I went to in order to seek Him, instead of praying and going to Him for myself. Isn’t that why Jesus died, so that we are no longer separated from the Father? There is no longer a need for sacrifices–well maybe sacrificing time here and there to truly spend that time with God.

And it would happen that either that person who had become my crutch would say something I didn’t agree with, hurt my feelings, or offend me in some way. Then I would go back to God for myself. Now I recognize it is the same thing happening again, some people had become my crutches in Charleston or over the years. Now that I have left, so have the crutches, and I am learning to walk on my own again, except this time hand in hand with God.

Maybe a valued friend or mentor has recently left their coveted position in your life and like me, it has left you confounded, confused, and in disbelief. Rest assured, God’s hand is stretched out to you in order for you to get through, but this time He wants you to come to Him for yourself, beyond the veil. I realize crutches are only supposed to support you in a time of weakness. But how do you know that your legs are strong enough until you try to walk without them?

“Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”” Matthew 28:20 NLT

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Itchy

The LORD will smite you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. Deuteronomy 28:27 NASB

Itching in almost all cases is an indicator that there is something wrong. Whether you start itching immediately after a mosquito bite, you start itching during the summer from the heat and the resultant eczema patches, or you are suffering from allergy and sinus-induced itching and scratching of the throat and ears as often used to happen to me, itching is an indication that further investigation should be done to identify the root of the issue.

Likewise, when we itch spiritually, that is a clear and key indication that something is going wrong in our lives. And more often than not, we all seek natural ways to calm the itch.

Testimony Time! Okay, sigh, inhale and exhale here it goes…

So…when I had my transplant, I decided to give my life to God fully, meaning I would date whoever He had for me–thus resulting in me breaking up with my high school sweetheart, I would do whatever He wanted me to do with my life–including pursuing ministry if that is what He had for me, and just live life for Him and leave everything that was hindering from true growth and development behind. Sure enough…I started in the area of love, seeking to learn to love whoever He put my life how He loved me. So I tried, I mean I tried, taking every kind of mental blow and honestly lowering my standards to be the best girlfriend I could be. But something within me just felt the relationship was so wrong. On the surface, everything seemed okay. I thought my apprehension was a defense mechanism I had acquired from life and life experiences. Instead of letting God love me and thus teach me how to love others with His agape kind of love, I stayed in an unhealthy relationship that took a toll on me and scarred me. I was so afraid to be in a relationship after that one that I just kind of ‘floating’ in a quasi-relationship status, from one guy to the next, all the while harboring the anger and bitterness that my ex sparked within me. I had the realization at my dad’s funeral that I had a perfect example of His love all along in my parent’s relationship…and I had been seeking to satisfy that need to love and be in a relationship for validation in the wrong person, through the wrong means.

I now know that it is no truer a statement that if you try to appease an itch with a mediocre balm–lust, human conditional love, work, etc.–IT WON’T HELP! In fact, it can make the itch worse. It can and will leave you broken, battered, bruised and still itching!

I find comfort now that as long as the thing I desire is in God’s will, He will provide it. I can go to Him and get my fill of ‘antihistamines’ and ‘histamine-blockers’ for any situation or circumstance. Stop scratching those itches with poor imitations of the real thing! You can’t get a knockoff generic when Benadryl is proven to provide you relief! God is the relief you seek!

And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 NLT