He Knows My Name

What a week! So many things can change in a week! Last week I was still struggling through slowly fading out the lies that were being fed to me and moving forward to listening to God's soft quiet whisper. It was definitely a struggle at first, but by taking a step at a time God lead me down the right path once again.

It all started Saturday night when someone from church invited me to a prayer meeting. As I headed over there I felt like I was being attacked by the enemy. My head began to hurt and I was really dizzy on my way there. I still managed to make it despite the inconvenience. It was a very powerful prayer meeting just praying about many things that God is doing here in Korea. Then we sang songs called "He Knows my Name" right then and there I just felt God's love for me like never before. I began to start seeing myself the way He saw me, as His child, His Princess. When we got to the chorus I cried as I realized how He's been with me this whole time, He knew my every thought, He saw each tear that fell, and heard me when I called. I don't know why it didn't hit me before, He was leading my ways and I wasn't letting Him take control of my life. No wonder the enemy didn't want me to go; he knew my heart was going to be changed when I went.

Then on Sunday when I went to church we talked about being a "Dead-Again Christian" which I thought was a little weird at first cuz it's not common (in my mind anyways) to talk about being dead again when Jesus already died for us and rose again so that we may live. Our Pastor focused on the passage from Luke 9:23-25 "Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" He talked about how we have an inner battle inside us that occurs daily, and we are the ones that can make that choice to either allow the Holy Spirit to fill us through the day or let the enemy control our thoughts. Each and every day is a new challenge and that although there will be sufferings now, there is a reward at the end of the war. That sermon spoke directly to my heart and broke right into me. I knew that God was calling me to greater things, but I constantly was allowing the enemy to feed me lies! No wonder I've been so depressed lately, it's cuz I didn't deny myself to give up the things I want and need in order for Christ to reign in my life. If I have realized that sooner I would have been able to save a lot of tears and pain. When I think of this a verse comes to mind, in John it talks about how in order for God to increase we must decrease. So I have to let myself go and not live for myself, instead allow Christ to dominate everything and anything I do. I had to die to myself and let Christ live in me.

Through the rest of the week God continued to reveal Himself to me in ways I didn't see before. He spoke through my Christian friends saying how much He loves me and that He wanted me to share that love with others around me, or tell me that He will provide for me no matter what the circumstance. Just affirming things like that that encouraged my walk with Him daily. It was so uplifting finally being able to think clearly through the week and not having my emotions cloud my judgment. It was great to finally see me singing from my heart again. By the end of the week at one of the Bible studies I went to, we talked about Spiritual Warfare. I knew that God was showing me what has been going on in my life for the past month. I was able to understand why I started feeling or acting the way I did. It wasn't because I was necessarily being rebellious towards God in anyway, but I wasn't surrendering my life to Him each day, so He couldn't exactly mold me to be more like Him when I wasn't surrender full control over my life to Him.

I know that each and every day will be challenging, but it is a daily battle in where we have to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Christ. He never promised it would be easy, but He promised He would always be there for us. :)