doubt

The Opportunity Cost of Running and Hiding

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

I wanted John to take me away, to distract me from my wretched selfish self, but there were pesky things like roofers coming, a tow truck on its way to haul the tractor in for a new engine, the windshield man coming to put a new windshield in John’s truck, and I don’t remember what all else. I didn’t get my way, whaaaaaaaaah!

I didn’t get my way,

So it’s come to this–time to pray.

Not getting what I asked for

Life is such a bore.

Artist’s pages reveal

The thief is here to steal.

He’s taught me well to doubt

It’s time to kick him out.

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I hope you will forgive and bear with my rhyming fun. What I meant by “Artist’s pages reveal” was that when I began to journal (Julia Cameron calls it writing “artist’s pages” in The Artist’s Way) I saw what the enemy (John 10:10 says he comes to steal, kill, and destroy) was up to, and where I was giving him access.

I just so happened to have, lying next to me on the couch, I Never Learned to Doubt by Jesse Duplantis. Yes, I realized, I am doubting, and it’s making me miserable and a misery. I did some heavy duty repenting and heart-cleansing, some delving deep into my heart attitudes and among other things I came up with this: I am not to run and hide from the misery of doubt. I am to root it out!

If John would have taken me out for breakfast it would have been quite expensive–the opportunity cost of doing the one thing (often what we think we need and certainly what we want) is what we miss via that choice. I would have missed a heart-cleansing, a joy refreshing, a time with the One who heals me.

Dastardly Doubt, Get Out!

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

It’s time to get back to basics, or, as in the case of so many Christians, to go there for the first time. So here are some basics:

  1. God’s accepted currency is faith; Satan’s is fear.
  2. Faith works via Love.
  3. Love never fails.
  4. Death and life are in the power of the tongue–you will have what you say.
  5. You must receive Jesus’ gift of forgiveness, and pass it on without reservation to others.
  6. Sins ruins everything, and doubting God is sin.
  7. He wants you to receive the victory over sin Jesus bought for you at Calvary–He’s for you!
  8. The prayer of faith avails much!

These basics are all based in Scripture, and to believe otherwise is insanity leading to death, and calling God a liar. Doubting victory is calling God a liar. In fact, it is believing the great deceiver, the father of lifes.

Dress it up any way you like, call it common sense, prudence, or whatever you want–fear is a lie.

Watch yourself-we all have to, all the time, because our enemy is good at his craft. Watch to see what you’re thinking: do you immediately believe and accept the defeat and the negative, and doubt the possibility of victory?

Your experience, education, and opinions do not matter. What your pastor and best friend think is not the issue. The issue is the Word of God Almighty, and if you’re not going to go with that, prepare for devastation in your life.

Once the devastation comes, you can continue in the crud thinking–blame God, refuse responsibility, accept defeat, and do the woe-is-me mantra. Or, you can change your wicked ways.

That’s right. It is wrong, wicked, perverse, and purely evil to call God a liar, and call what the liar Satan puts out, the truth.

If things aren’t going well, and maybe never have, God isn’t the one who missed it. Maybe someone doesn’t want the responsibility required for victory in Jesus. Jesse Duplantis, in I Never Learned to Doubt, says, “Doubt doesn’t want the responsibility of believing–doubt always seems to want to pass the buck or shift the blame–but it’s not OK.”

If we don’t get it, if things haven’t gone for us the way we prayed, hoped, expected–again, God didn’t miss it. Believe it or not, there’s something we missed, or don’t know, or haven’t patiently and persistently and immovably waited on. There is a lie we’re believing.

I told my husband recently, regarding healing in America, “If I’m the last person on earth standing and believing that God is healing our land, I will stand. If I’m the last person on earth who believes He wants to heal and bless His children, that He cannot lie, that Jesus’ blood bought us free-indeed freedom, I will stand.”

The enemy of our souls wants us to think we’re the last and only one, that it’s up to us, that’s it’s too little, too late. Such a stupid liar he is, and certainly no match for the God I serve.

Come along with me. The only choice is faith, the only path is Love–the victory-bringing, blood-bought Love of Jesus.

Pray with me: “Father we repent of doubting You, of misunderstanding You, of being ignorant of Who You are. Help us, Lord, to trust and obey, to hear and heed Your voice. Cleanse us from the unrighteousness of fear and doubt, from the pride that says we can do anything at all apart from You. Amen.”