One of the worst things that can happen when you come face- to- face with an opponent that wants to enslave you, is to have a gun that is not loaded.
I am presently in a series of study sessions in lessons of the bible. The series is called Breaking Free, by Beth Moore. This host equates lies with captivity and truth with freedom. There are several truths. My truth, the host suggests, is a sum of my experiences and my environment. Sometimes hindsight really is 20/20. So as I now see my captivity, I can look back and clearly define my truth.
My TRUTH = born into a family, with parents who believed in Jesus as their bridge to the almighty God; wanting to follow Jesus, as my own choice; being a perfectionist; holding people to high moral standards, and being utterly disappointed when they did not live up to those standards; depreciating myself when I err; avoiding some activities for fear of consequences and sequelae; feeling that the approval of some persons was conditional on my being excellent; being very picky; indecisiveness; nervous to trust; seeing a brother’s marriage (to a women who had recently begun to believe in Jesus) become a tangle of disappointment, betrayal and confusion; seeing my family blame the sequelae of his marriage on the woman he chose, and her not really being a “believer”; seeing one of my parents not be productive (even though they were full of so much potential); not seeing that parent change, despite countless prayers; seeing myself achieve and avoid certain bad choices; progressively acting like past closeness with God would be sufficient in the present and in my future; progressively not communicating with God through prayer; seeing my [past] boyfriend love me, like no man has ever loved me; seeing that my [past] boyfriend matched the promise a few had told me God was sending; seeing that in several key ways he was the kind of man I had been telling God, openly and silently, that I wanted Him to send for me; seeing in one essential way (his initiative in, desire of and faith in all things God), that he was not, presently, what I prayed for; seeing myself wonder what that big question mark on his spirit was finally going to reveal; not seeing my [past] boyfriend when he read the bible (because he wanted to) or prayed on his own; not seeing the boyfriend move forward, quickly; seeing us (he and I) move too fast in physical affection; seeing that he was not formally educated or a professional (like me); seeing that he had made some poor choices in past relationships (and I had not made some of those poor choices, and if I compared myself to most of my peers, in that regard, I was exceptional, and he was not exceptional); not seeing my pride, sense of entitlement and perception of superiority.
PLUS (+)
LIE = the boyfriend could never be someone God wanted for me; he was not smart enough; if everything in his life was not where I thought it should be, then he was not for me; he would never want to be fully committed to God; maybe one day he would stop loving me
= CAPTIVITY
{Self-delusion; confusion; fear; worry; broken-hearted; numbed emotions; isolation; hopelessness; loneliness}
It’s sad to have an unloaded gun when you come up against captivity. As a person that believed in the power of God’s Spirit being with me, I believe I had a gun. I had God’s words (the ones I received personally and the ones I could read in the verses of the bible); I had, Jesus, as my deliverer; I had experiences to confirm my faith, people who prayed for and with me; I went to church BUT, my ammunition was to be an Active and present relationship/communication/trust/partnership with God. This, I did not have. So when I heard the lie, my gun was unloaded, and I was not adequately able to fight off captivity; consequently, I became enslaved. If I had had my gun loaded, maybe I would have recognized the lie when I heard it--because I did hear it. Unfortunately, my [past] boyfriend did not even seem to have a gun.
I almost asked God, “why did you send me a man without a gun?” Even before I finished the question in my mind, I was realizing the answer: so that I could see him/be a witness to the event of (the boyfriend) being connected back to the almighty God (a priceless thing to behold); because God trusted me to be a bridge between him and God; because God believed I could handle it; because God intended to walk with me through the whole thing. The next thought I had was about Canaan, the land promised, by God, to the descendants of Israel. When God brought the Israelites there, during the leadership of Moses, the land was inhabited by other people. It was not empty and just ready for the Israelites to just walk into and occupy. God had intended to walk with them in the gaining of that land (the acquisition of their promise), BUT fear [of the people living there putting up an insurmountable fight; that things would not be easy] and a lie [that something was not right with the circumstances; that they had been lead into a trap; that this was not from God] drove them away from their promise...and it was 40 years of dryness in the desert before the chance to acquire the promise would come before them again.
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