Fighting the Right Way

Confession.

I struggle with perfection. 

So much so that I spent most of last year hiding my mess from God. I found it hard to go to God with my struggles. My (inner) battles. I was convinced He didn't want to see nor  know about them; that He wanted me to have it all together. I thought I had to fight alone, which I tried a couple of times and every time I lost miserably; even if I started on a good note, it was never long before I failed. It didn't matter how determined I was or how much preparation I had, the result was always the same. Failure. My continuous failure took away whatever willpower I had to continue fighting and so I gave up.

 But now I realise that I was believing a series of lies. 

First, I was convinced that God didn't want me to share my mess with Him but I realise now that with intimacy comes vulnerability. If I was in close fellowship with God, which I wasn't, I would have known that He wanted me to tell Him about my mess and ask Him for help. Just as we tend to open up more, the more we know a person, so it is with God. The deeper our relationship with Him is, the more likely that we'll share our very hearts with Him. 

Secondly, I thought I could conceal my struggles but now I realise that there is no point in hiding anything from God because He knows and sees it all (Hebrews 4:13, Psalm 139). Inside of hiding things from God, we should be taking these things to Him and asking Him for power to overcome them. Praying for conviction also otherwise our hearts become hardened.   

Thirdly, I assumed that God didn't understand me nor my struggles but now I realise that He knows my frame. After all He made me. God knows both our strengths and weaknesses. I know that I need His help and for me to think that He doesn't want to help me is very wrong; after all Christ came at a time when we were utterly helpless (Romans 5:6). Without His strength, if we don't rely on the Holy Spirit, we will eventually fail. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to overcome the power of sin through Christ (Romans 8:2).

Finally, although I knew that God's love for me was unconditional, I believed that He surely couldn't love the mess that I was. But God loves us so so much. I found and still find this the hardest truth to grasp fully. God's love for the individual is so vast! When I lost my battles, I somehow thought that I had let God down and that He probably didn't want anything to do with me. I was a failure after all. However, He loves me despite my faults. He loved me when I was His enemy and His love for us all was revealed in Jesus' death on the cross (Romans 5:8). If He loved me so then, what more now that I am His child? God's love for me isn't a blank cheque to sin as much as I want, it's actually the contrary. His love for me should motivate me to love Him back, and that means keeping His commandments (Romans 6, John 14:15-26; 15:10-17; 1John 2:5).

So to make a long story a bit short, God is teaching me to fight the right way. With Him. We are not meant to fight our battles on our own, don't make the mistake I made. Invite Him in. You can only kill a Goliath with a stone when you know whose you are and Who is on  your side!

This song by Steffany Gretzinger: Out of Hiding (Father's Song) summarizes what I just wrote perfectly. I also love this song by Positive on a similar theme: Two Man Army. Last but not least this beautiful sermon by Kim Walker Smith (I didn't even know that she preached??!!): The Art of Vulnerability. Check them out!

What lies have you believed about battles? What truths has God shown you? Leave a comment below!

Blessings 💜

Guest Post: Walking in Obedience to His Way by Wadzanai Kaziboni

Obeying the voice of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit is an important aspect in our daily walk with Christ. We need this continuous and unwavering communication to navigate every aspect in our lives, especially when making decisions that affect us, such as whether or not to do that degree, whether or not to take that job offer and so on. Many a time we find ourselves in situations that would not have occurred had we chosen to obey. We pay that price by making a sacrifice of another element in our life such as our joy, time and perhaps happiness. There are instances also where the voice of God in our hearts is as clear as day and yet we choose to do what we want regardless of the unconcealed guidance and direction of God. This brings me to Saul and his disobedience which he paid a dear price for. In 1 Samuel 15- God clearly instructed Saul to attack Amalek and utterly destroy it. Saul chose to use his discretion, blatantly ignoring the voice of God, by sparing the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings and the lambs and all that was good even though God had set out a clear directive which was to destroy everything.

God then said“I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.”  1 Samuel 15:11.

Does God speak the same of you?

1 Samuel 15:22

“So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.”

In response to Samuel, Saul said 1 Samuel 15:24“I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.”

We need to learn to hear more of God and less of people around us and to do things out of the fear of God as opposed to doing things because we are scared of people and their opinions no matter how important these people may be to us. It is also important to be able to discern when God is speaking to you through another person. That is why we need to pray for God to teach us to obey and help us to know when it is Him talking, to be able to recognize His voice.

2 Timothy 1:7 “For He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and of a sound mind”

This should be one of the guiding principles when discerning the voice of God.

Hebrews 5:8 “though He was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things he suffered.” 

This is a clear illustration of one of the ways on which obedience is learned. Sometimes choosing the path of disobedience seems like a more appealing and less rocky-route in the terrains of life. However even though it seems easier and takes less of our time and effort at first glance it costs more in the long run. The path of obedience on the other hand is not an easy one, because it is not that we follow in our own strength therefore we need to ask God to teach us to obey Him and enable us to obey Him. This path is worthwhile because God is our Father and He loves us and has our best interests at heart.

Matthew 7:11 ‘If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

“But when we position ourselves under the headship of Christ and learn to do what He requires of us, there is a flow of the Holy Spirit that will carry us wherever we need to go.” (Stormie Omartian- The Power of a Praying Woman).

Head Over Heels

I love shoes and I don't know exactly why but there is just something about shoes that I can't wrap my mind around. Through my love for shoes, God recently taught me a lesson which I will now share with you.

Last week Saturday, I went to Antwerp to buy some things for my family back in Zambia and also to collect some items for my mother from an aunt. So I went to the shopping street but unfortunately, I didn't find anything for the family (I eventually got some things from Leuven) but I found these lovely shoes in Zara. I didn't plan on buying anything for myself and since I didn't want to buy them spontaneously, I took a picture sent it to some friends to get their opinion on them. Sadly since no one was online, I decided to leave them and I got my mum's items and headed back to Leuven.

Hours later, my sister and a good friend replied to my picture, they said the shoes were gorgeous! But I was now in Leuven, so I decided to check for the shoes online...however they didn't have my size online but the shops in Brussels did. Guess what I did? I went to Brussels despite the fact that I had organized a dinner in two hours, the trip to and from Brussels would take the same amount of time. That meant that I would be late. So I postponed my dinner to 8pm and off I went to Brussels. I eventually got the shoes with the help of a friend I met in the shopping street.

Now what is the lesson I learnt? When I was on the train to Brussels, I realized how big a leap of faith I was taking. The website said the shoes were available in Brussels but it was sales and the chances of finding them were slim and on top of that I had changed my schedule for a pair of shoes.

I realized that that's what God wants from us too. Those leaps of faith. The Bible makes a lot of promises but the difference between the website and the Bible is that the promises in the Word of God are true. What He says, we will find sales or no sales. Remember that "it is impossible to please God without faith" (Hebrews 11:6b). Faith "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1) is one of the major necessities of Christian living. It is by grace through faith that we have been saved (Ephesians 2:8) and we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Faith, faith and more faith.

God wants us to make time for Him, and to go to great lengths for Him. I made time to get those shoes, I changed my schedule and I even had to get on a train for 30mins ONE WAY plus the walk to the shop. Faith needs time, it needs to be worked out, it's an investment. For faith without works is dead (James  2:17). This is not a work OR faith issue but a faith AND works.

Yes I am crazy for shoes but I should be even more crazy for God. My prayer for you and I is that we will take those leaps of faith according to His promises and make time for Him and go to greatest length to find Him. I promise, we will not leap to disaster but to a greater reality!

God bless!