There’s been an ongoing theme going on inside of me for a few years now.    God has been speaking to me about trusting Him no matter what.  I’ve been thankful for His healing in my life in this area because I lived most of my life with fear.  Not just the “I’m scared of the dark” kind (but believe me, when I was a kid I WAS scared of the dark).  I’m talking about ears ringing, heart pounding, on the verge of fainting kind of fear.  Hopefully, none of you know what I’m talking about……I hope none of you can relate to this paralyzing kind of fear.

So needless to say, I was afraid of the future.  I was afraid to be alone in the house by myself at night.  I certainly didn’t subject myself to scary movies very often…that was just fodder for the enemy to use against me at the most inopportune times.  I remember my parents being out of town when I was 16 or 17 years old and Greg and I had gone out on a date.  We probably saw a movie at the drive in.  All I remember for sure is he was taking me back home around midnight to a completely dark and empty house.  There was NO way I was going into that house alone and I certainly couldn’t go to sleep by myself.  And take a shower?…you saw Psycho didn’t you?  I never took showers in an empty house….you know what happens in the shower scene, right???  So Greg drove me to the house, and I made him come inside (not caring what the neighbors thought) and stay there all night long.  We sat and talked until almost dawn when I finally was comfortable enough for him to go home so I could grab a couple of hours of sleep before I had to be at work.

Well, some years later, Greg and I were married, and low and behold the worst thing in the world happened.  Greg got moved to third shift!!  It was only Holly and I alone in the house all night long.  Having a 1 year old (even though she was a warm body) didn’t make me feel secure.  Besides, I’d grown up having nightmares ever since I was 4 or 5 years old.  Night time wasn’t necessarily a peaceful time for me.  I knew I had to get over this paralyzing fear.  I began to pray as the sobering reality came that I would indeed be alone.

Interestingly enough, I began to have a series of dreams.  In the first dream someone broke into my house, came into my bedroom and stood over me with a knife raised above their head.  In the dream I rebuked them in the name of Jesus and they turned around and left.  That was the first time I had ever had a bad dream with a good outcome.  I remember thinking about it the next morning and realized that with God I was not powerless.

The next dream I had, men broke into the house and came down the hall, but before they got to my bedroom I rebuked them in the name of Jesus and they turned around and left.  The next dream another night I heard them in the living room and rebuked them in the name of Jesus and they left.  You get the point.  Finally on the last dream (some weeks later) I heard them outside the house and rebuked them in the name of Jesus and they never broke in.  These dreams all happened a couple of times a week over a period of a month or so.  Not every night but each dream being progressively safer as the Lord showed me I could rely on him AND pray with power.

Even though I was still wary at night, I began to pray every night for angels to stand guard at each window and door and all around my property.  I prayed that prayer every night for years and then would go to sleep.

The next step the Lord took me through was realizing how important it was to be set free from fear.  I was out running errands and listening to James Dobson on the radio.  His guest for the day was a woman who had been kidnapped by a man at gun point.  She was held captive by him for 2-3 days before she was free and she was the only person he had kidnapped that he had not killed.  She told the story of having a gun pointed at her head while she was driving her car and hearing the Holy Spirit tell her what to say and when to say it.  Over the few days that he held her captive she ended up leading him to Christ and he told her to drop him off at a train station, which she did.  When she got home to her husband and family they called the police, and when they got to the station, he was sitting there, right where she’d left him.

After hearing that story, I heard the Lord say to me, “If that had been you what would have happened”?  I knew the answer right away.  Fear would have been screaming so loud inside my head that my ears would have been ringing, my heart would have been pounding and there would have been no way that I could have heard the Holy Spirit tell me anything.  It would not have gone well for me.  I knew then that I needed to complete my journey for healing, but it wasn’t a journey I could move forward.  The Lord was going to have to take me at His speed, addressing situations in His timing.  I just had to trust Him.  I prayed that day and asked Him to take me all the way to deliverance from fear because I knew it hindered me from being led by the Holy Spirit.

Some months after that incident Holly and I were going to the laundry mat.  This was back before the days of cell phones.  Greg and I had argued before he left to go to his parent’s house to spend a few hours visiting with them.  After he left I decided to go to the laundry mat, so still feeling mad I chose to not leave a note….yes I know….that was stupid, I gathered up the laundry, my 18 month old daughter and drove to the facility.  They were busy, so I had to park on the side, in the dark, away from street lights….sounds like a horror movie, right?  Well, it was!

I got all the clothes and my toddler inside, got the machines going with laundry then started noticing my surroundings.  I’m not good at assessing my circumstances in advance like my husband is.  People started leaving and the only person remaining was a creepy middle aged guy who decides he wants to strike up a conversation with me.  He starts asking me if I’d heard about this crime that had happened in the area, and then another, all the while striking his hand with a stick the laundry mat had provided to stir bleach into the water.  My ears started ringing and my heart started pounding and I KNEW I was in danger.  Greg didn’t know where I was, my car was parked in the dark, far away from the door and I couldn’t make a quick get away with a toddler in tow.  I did have the thought that I should pray that God would send Greg to the laundry mat before I had the foreboding realization that he didn’t know I had gone there.  I felt sick to my stomach with fear and grief while this creepy guy keeps talking and looking at me with weird looks.

Then all of a sudden Greg comes into the laundry mat.  I said loudly, “Greg!  I’m glad you have come”.  Creepy guy turned around quickly and looked at Greg, put down the stick and walked out.  When I heard the story from Greg’s side, he said he was driving home from his parent’s house when the Lord said to him, “Go to the laundry mat, your wife’s in trouble.”  Oh my gosh!!!  You can’t imagine my relief, and another realization of how important it was to begin to learn how to be led by the Spirit……and leave your husband a note  😉

I wish I could tell you that I was set free in a short amount of time…..that didn’t happen.  But what I can tell you was over time, fear lessened it’s grip over me.  Different events with people praying for me, when God would reveal something that needed prayer set healing in motion, a piece at a time.  I can’t say that I’m 100% set free, but I think Greg would have to agree, knowing what I used to be, that I’m at least 90% free.  I’ve had dreams, even in the last year, that I will be in dangerous situations and I pray in those moments.  When I awaken I think about how I want to be that way in my daily life.  Asking for His perspective instead of trying to figure it out on my own.

I know this has been a long introduction to what God has been showing me in the last couple of years, but I wanted you to understand where I’ve come from.

All of us, over the last 5 years or so, have seen posts on how bad our nation is becoming and doom and gloom reports of things that could be happening in the future.  None of us know for sure what our future holds, but I know for sure we need to rely on wisdom that is greater than our own.  Whether it’s a natural disaster, or end times, or who knows what, we need His leading.  That is what He’s been showing me.  I can trust in Him….He is not surprised about our future and He has it in control.

The first verse He showed me was Psalms 27:5.  Starting in verse 1 it says:

The Lord is my light and my salvation.  Whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the defense of my life.  Whom shall I dread?  When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.  Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear.  Though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident.  One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek.  That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.  Then verse 5 jumped out at me.  It says, “For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle.  In the secret place of His tent He will hide me”. 

I learned in a sermon once, from a pastor who studies Hebrew, that the day of trouble was used by the Hebrews interchangeably with the great tribulation or Jacob’s trouble.  They meant the same thing.  I remember thinking to myself, either I’m going to believe the Word of God or I’m not.  I choose to believe.  I don’t know if His hiding is physical, spiritual or what, but I know His word is true and I can trust in Him.

The Lord kept bringing that back to mind over the next few months, and a new measure of freedom came from fear.  That’s when I had the dreams about turbulent times and praying for His wisdom and direction.  I knew He was showing me to begin developing that behavior now and learn how to walk in His ways and not my own.

Then I was reminded of Elisha and his servant from 2 Kings 6:15-18.  Basically, Elisha and his servant were surrounded by the enemy’s army and horses.  The servant was saying “Alas my master!  What shall we do?”  Elisha said “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”  Then Elisha prayed that his servant’s eyes would be opened to see what he saw; which was a mountain full of horses and chariots of fire that surrounded Elisha and his servant.  Then Elisha prayed to the Lord that their enemies would be struck with blindness and then they led them captive to Samaria…..God moved in His way.  That was the second step in Him showing me that He also has a plan.  We just have to ask Him for it.

It’s so easy for us to see what the enemy is doing.  In our flesh we see his workings all around us.  I believe God wants us to also see His plan and what He is doing all around us so we can partner with Him as He leads.

Isaiah 55:8-9 says “For My thoughts are not your thoughts.  Neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”  I take comfort in this verse.  Now I know if you read above it, it’s referring to seeking the Lord while He may be found and how if we return to Him He will have compassion on us and pardon us, but I also believe that this is a truth we can apply to this topic.  He is all wisdom….His ways are NOT our ways…thank goodness.  We can rely on His wisdom when we don’t know how to respond.  And this takes me to Genesis 2 and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God never intended for us to walk in our own understanding.  He gave Adam and Eve the command to eat from every other tree in the garden but of the tree of knowledge they were  not to eat.  When Adam and Eve sinned by partaking of that tree, scripture says in chapter 3 that their eyes were opened and when God came walking through the garden they hid from Him.

If I understand this correctly, God never intended for us to walk apart from Him.  Part of our sin nature is that struggle between His plans for us and our own willfulness, wanting to decide for ourselves what is best.  We are all so good at making our own plans and deciding for ourselves what we want to do, but learning to be led by the Spirit takes us back into His wisdom and into His presence as we hear from Him about how to live our lives His way.

Lastly, I will share from Proverbs 3:5-7.  It says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.  Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil”.  This pretty much says it all  🙂

Now none of us will ever do this perfectly.  We are human and will miss it.  But we are all on a journey to know Him more, hear Him better, trust Him more often.  And as we grow up in Him we will get better at hearing Him and then learning to respond to Him sooner.  So yes, the enemy has a plan, BUT God has a plan too.  I want to see His plan, follow His ways and no matter what the future holds, and what the days ahead may look like, I want to obey Him and walk with Him, in the good times and the bad.

So what are the issues that hold you back from hearing Him and trusting Him?  If you ask Him He will show you. What He has done for me He can and will do for you.  His desire for each one of us is to walk in freedom from the issues that bind us.  He wants us to act on his leading….sometimes it might be in tense moments, other times it may be speaking something to someone as He leads.  I want to be free to do that and not be held back by all of the what-ifs.  He has a plan and I want to be a part.