Healing hurts.

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I don’t claim to have all the answers.   Heck, I’m still learning so much that sometimes my head just spins. Not like Exorcist spins, but spins.   You know.   But there are a few things that I am most sure of when it comes to walking out your freedom and victory over strongholds, ungodly beliefs and just straight up stinkin’ thinkin’.   Yeah.   That sounds as cheesy as it was to type.   You’re welcome.

I must admit that I have succumbed to the “givemethequickfix” craze that has swept the western world.   Everything is instant.   Everything is so “27 seconds ago.” But there is one key element in your walk with God that will never be instant.

Relationships take time.

You don’t just wake up one morning and have a fully functioning, deep, intimate relationship with God.   You may know Him.   He may be your Savior.   But relationships are to be cultivated.   And anything to do with those relationships takes time.

Including breaking up a heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh.

God is just gracious like that.   He won’t just rip something out of you to give you the quick fix.

That would be incredibly, incredibly painful.

Instead He wiggles it out a bit at a time and allows you the opportunity to address the smaller things so that you can even begin to process the bigger things.   And yes, my friends, there are bigger things.   I am learning that no matter how good of a person I am – no matter how great my parents are – no matter how wonderful my friendships are – the enemy will always use some seemingly insignificant thing, some small thing that happened to me, to start building a lifetime of ungodly beliefs, inner vows, judgements. I could go on.   Seriously.

It’s scary really, when you think about his cunning abilities and the patience he exudes to just watch for those moments in your life to use against you and hinder your relationship with God and others.

Because of this:

He knows we mere humans need relationship.   We were designed for it.   We were never meant to be isolated from one another.   We need relationship.

And he hates that.

The enemy doesn’t want us to enter our rightful place as sons and daughters with Abba.   He doesn’t want us to get it.   He doesn’t want us to get that we are loved unconditionally by a Father who will never, ever, leave us.

He doesn’t want us to walk in the freedom and liberty that God designed for us to walk in.

God, on the other hand, longs for us to walk with Him – just as Adam did every day in the Garden of Eden.   He wants that kind of relationship with us.   And we can.   I believe it with all my heart.

No, we aren’t physically walking through a garden every day with God (although that would be pretty darn cool!).   What I’m talking about is getting to a place that we are constantly aware of His presence with us.

I definitely believe that can happen.

And I want that.

A lot.

So to get there, I’m trying to unlock the keys to my freedom in Him.

I’m finding the stoney places of my heart and allowing Him in there to till it all up – no matter how painful it is.

I’m learning to still myself daily and just allow Him to do whatever He wants in my life – soaking in His presence.

I’m meeting with a prayer ministry leader to talk and pray through things that pop up that hinder me from drawing closer to Him.

And most of all, I’m learning to love

and be loved.

That’s the best part of all.