Pulling Up From The Low Places
The devastating point that we have to face if we are in a low place is that we activated the events to get us to the low place. The decisions that we have made in our past orchestrate where we are today. If we are in a good place, it is a result of decisions we either made yesterday or decisions we made as young adults. The same thing took place if we are in a low place. It seems that once we get on the treadmill of mistakes the same scenery keeps passing by us and it finally dawns on us that we have been in this same place many times before.
The absolutely most embarrassing thing about that is each time we execute the same behavior that has given us the same results forever, the same things that brought us back to the same square one, is the same decisions we keep making. If we keep doing what we are doing, we keep getting what we are getting. We just don't get it. Eventually, the treadmill representing our life becomes a thing of dread and we simply feel it is not within our power to change anything about our circumstances. We feel we are stuck in a place and somehow it can't be our fault, surely if someone else had done something else our life would be different.
We begin to develop an image of our self that things that seem to work for others don't seem to work for us because we don't have their looks, talent, or money. We find a reason to justify why it seems that life is passing us by and the fact that we must different than others we see who appear to be strong and successful. We begin to reinforce that image by feeding ourselves, our spirit, our soul, damaging thoughts that are destructive to us. After we fill up our destructive pail, it spills over into our mouth and we begin to confess and speak the things we have filled our destructive pail with. A proverb sums it up with, “as he thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). There are four things (out of many) that warrant our attention when addressing and contemplating these issues.
1. The Image We Have of Ourselves
2. The Image We Have of God
3. The Image We Have of Success
4. The Image We Have of Our Destiny
First to be considered is our own image. Let's break that down to things that have previously been spoken into us by parents, teachers, society, clergy, friends, family, and spouses. As adults we may have "old tapes" running through our head that are on a track that remind us often how our caregivers and or parents shot us down with curses that said we would not amount to anything, we were not wanted, we are going to be like another member of the family who is a drunk, a loser, or a no good. Or then there are teachers that put us into stereotypes and don't take the time needed to help us, we are just a kid that won't make it, or society that says, you are too fat, too thin, too dumb, too ugly, too poor, too handicapped, or too out of luck.
We begin to develop an image of our self that things that seem to work for others don't seem to work for us because we don't have their looks, talent, or money. We find a reason to justify why it seems that life is passing us by and the fact that we must different than others we see who appear to be strong and successful. We begin to reinforce that image by feeding ourselves, our spirit, our soul, damaging thoughts that are destructive to us. After we fill up our destructive pail, it spills over into our mouth and we begin to confess and speak the things we have filled our destructive pail with. A proverb sums it up with, “as he thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). There are four things (out of many) that warrant our attention when addressing and contemplating these issues.
1. The Image We Have of Ourselves
2. The Image We Have of God
3. The Image We Have of Success
4. The Image We Have of Our Destiny
First to be considered is our own image. Let's break that down to things that have previously been spoken into us by parents, teachers, society, clergy, friends, family, and spouses. As adults we may have "old tapes" running through our head that are on a track that remind us often how our caregivers and or parents shot us down with curses that said we would not amount to anything, we were not wanted, we are going to be like another member of the family who is a drunk, a loser, or a no good. Or then there are teachers that put us into stereotypes and don't take the time needed to help us, we are just a kid that won't make it, or society that says, you are too fat, too thin, too dumb, too ugly, too poor, too handicapped, or too out of luck.
Finally, the message that the church has given to us that you have to be a certain way to be loved by them and accepted by God. And in addition to that list of ne'er do wells, are our friends and relatives and spouses that may pour into us that we are not good enough and that we don't have what it takes to be good enough. It is a low place; it is a place where we have allowed our mind and spirit to be filled with destructive frames that mold our life. It is a tough situation.
Secondly, our image of God has been so skewed because of our lack of teachings about His truths, and because in our mind we can't sort things out about God. We question why would He allow so many horrible things like child abuse, hunger, disasters, murders, and a thousand others things that happen globally upon this planet to happen if He is God and could stop it? If God is a good God, why does He allow all of this? And besides, we have found Him to be unattainable, hard to please, hard to understand, not trustworthy, irrelevant, boring, judgmental and harsh, absent and silent. We tried to reach Him and we could not. It is a low place, that place in us that is eternal has been blocked to the real truths and real relationship with the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; a packaged God!
Next, our image of success has been blurred into believing that it comes with a particular standard of physical appearance, living on a certain street or in a certain neighborhood, and a level of income and possessions that announce we have arrived in life. We begin the task of comparisons of our success to the success of others. We can never seem to measure up to the glamour of Hollywood, the body of the fit, nor the money of the rich. It seems we are a dollar short, and a day late, no matter what happens. Sex and good looks become our model of success with a caravan of things and the people we know behind us. We may think,” If I lead this caravan, I have found success”! But we can never seem to get the camels corralled with the goods and we end up feeling left out, unimportant, unrecognized, unpraised, unappreciated and undone! It is a low place, that place that says we are a "wanna be" but we will never be!
The last point is our image of never attaining our destiny. Most people believe that they will someday be rich or that some event in their life will catapult them into a different realm of reality. We feel we will be discovered and the world has been waiting for us. But we reach middle age and we realize it is not happening, dreams are gone, promises are not kept, people are not trustworthy, friends leave us, people abandon us, people use us, people manipulate us, and our destiny becomes the reality that we are disillusioned spiritually, down and out financially, and disgusted relationally. It is a low place, that place that says, your destiny is doomed.
How can we pull up from the low places? Is there a formula? Is there a method? Is there a person, a plan, or a miracle? Yes, there is. The miracle, the plan, the method, is in us. We came with a pre-plan to earth. You must first recognize the sovereignty of God. You must exercise that grain of belief in you, that measure of faith in you, that there is a God who is the creator and designer of all of us, not just a few, and that He didn't do it haphazardly, He had plan. You must also realize that God not only had a plan when He created us in general, He had a plan for each individual particularly. "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11. But we must execute the plan! The activation room of the plan is our prayer place. Did you moan? Did you want another answer? Have you tried and failed? If you moaned, there is no other answer. If you tried and failed, try again until you are successful. Perhaps you weren't listening. Here is the plan.
The four things we need to have in our prayer room, prayer chamber, prayer closet, whatever you choose to call it, and however you choose to do it brings us to the pulling up mode of our life. A completion of the imperfections that are in us! You can find this prayer place in a literal dark closet, a spot in the bathroom, a place beside your bed, or an entire house that you walk around in when you pray. The important thing is to rid yourself of distractions, guard the time, guard the place, and make it happen, just like you make going to work daily happen. Make prayer happen without interruptions. It doesn't have to be a certain limit of time, or a certain model of prayer, but it does have to be sincere and earnest and focused talk to Him. There are four things to find in this prayer chamber. These four things have been adapted from a sermon I recently heard by Tommy Bates. They warrant a repeat here.
How to Pull Up From the Low Places
1. Find a Bed Of Rest (meh-noo-chah Strong's Concordance #4496). It is a place of stillness, consolation, peace, quiet, and comfort. When is the last time you found that? Where did you find it?
Isaiah 30:15 "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." We are so prone to make things happen. One of the founding slogans of getting drunks and druggies sober and clean is "Let Go and Let God"! We try to make good things happen, and we try to make bad things happen. If everything is going good we throw a cog in the wheel and stage a crisis. We over react, over dramatize, over compensate in most situations. It makes us feel in control. But when we find that Bed Of Rest in our prayer closet, we can lie down with Him and the quiet waters will soothe our weary soul.
2. Find the Table of Power 2 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind". There are three things here that are powerful, power itself, love, and a sound mind. Power is a sense of beneficial boldness, knowledge, affirmation, and confirmation coupled with activity. That is not a dictionary meaning but one that comes from experience. Couple that with love, which is the most powerful force in the universe, and make a trinity to include a sound mind which is good judgment, disciplined thought patterns, the ability to understand and make good choices and decisions, self control and self discipline and you have the perfect Table of Power.
3. Find the Stool of Praise Hebrews 13:15 "Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." A sacrifice is an offering, it is offering our praise as a living sacrifice. There are many scriptures that give praise to God. We must personally get into our prayer place and offer praise until we can feel Him accepting that offering of praise. Once the praise goes up the Holy Spirit comes down to us. That is when the intimacy between God and our self can be experienced. It is an indescribable closeness with Him.
4. Find the Candlestick of Direction Job 22:28 "You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; so light will shine on your ways." When the Lord shines the light of direction, we are good to go, assuming we will be obedient. The Lord has given us direction in His word, but we don't obey. In that prayer closet, the lights will come on in our head; lights of ideas, plans, how to's, how not to's, what nots, and wherefores, if we hang with it until the candlestick is lit.
Some of us will read this and enlightenment will come; others know this already. Some have known this and executed it and are in a good place, some have known this and not executed it and are in a low place. Others have not known this and have not executed this and have no idea the prayer room is that powerful. Most of us are in a low place at one time or another; or, the low place is ongoing since childhood; but all of us can use the prayer chamber as an empowerment place and pull up from the low places.
Secondly, our image of God has been so skewed because of our lack of teachings about His truths, and because in our mind we can't sort things out about God. We question why would He allow so many horrible things like child abuse, hunger, disasters, murders, and a thousand others things that happen globally upon this planet to happen if He is God and could stop it? If God is a good God, why does He allow all of this? And besides, we have found Him to be unattainable, hard to please, hard to understand, not trustworthy, irrelevant, boring, judgmental and harsh, absent and silent. We tried to reach Him and we could not. It is a low place, that place in us that is eternal has been blocked to the real truths and real relationship with the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; a packaged God!
Next, our image of success has been blurred into believing that it comes with a particular standard of physical appearance, living on a certain street or in a certain neighborhood, and a level of income and possessions that announce we have arrived in life. We begin the task of comparisons of our success to the success of others. We can never seem to measure up to the glamour of Hollywood, the body of the fit, nor the money of the rich. It seems we are a dollar short, and a day late, no matter what happens. Sex and good looks become our model of success with a caravan of things and the people we know behind us. We may think,” If I lead this caravan, I have found success”! But we can never seem to get the camels corralled with the goods and we end up feeling left out, unimportant, unrecognized, unpraised, unappreciated and undone! It is a low place, that place that says we are a "wanna be" but we will never be!
The last point is our image of never attaining our destiny. Most people believe that they will someday be rich or that some event in their life will catapult them into a different realm of reality. We feel we will be discovered and the world has been waiting for us. But we reach middle age and we realize it is not happening, dreams are gone, promises are not kept, people are not trustworthy, friends leave us, people abandon us, people use us, people manipulate us, and our destiny becomes the reality that we are disillusioned spiritually, down and out financially, and disgusted relationally. It is a low place, that place that says, your destiny is doomed.
How can we pull up from the low places? Is there a formula? Is there a method? Is there a person, a plan, or a miracle? Yes, there is. The miracle, the plan, the method, is in us. We came with a pre-plan to earth. You must first recognize the sovereignty of God. You must exercise that grain of belief in you, that measure of faith in you, that there is a God who is the creator and designer of all of us, not just a few, and that He didn't do it haphazardly, He had plan. You must also realize that God not only had a plan when He created us in general, He had a plan for each individual particularly. "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11. But we must execute the plan! The activation room of the plan is our prayer place. Did you moan? Did you want another answer? Have you tried and failed? If you moaned, there is no other answer. If you tried and failed, try again until you are successful. Perhaps you weren't listening. Here is the plan.
The four things we need to have in our prayer room, prayer chamber, prayer closet, whatever you choose to call it, and however you choose to do it brings us to the pulling up mode of our life. A completion of the imperfections that are in us! You can find this prayer place in a literal dark closet, a spot in the bathroom, a place beside your bed, or an entire house that you walk around in when you pray. The important thing is to rid yourself of distractions, guard the time, guard the place, and make it happen, just like you make going to work daily happen. Make prayer happen without interruptions. It doesn't have to be a certain limit of time, or a certain model of prayer, but it does have to be sincere and earnest and focused talk to Him. There are four things to find in this prayer chamber. These four things have been adapted from a sermon I recently heard by Tommy Bates. They warrant a repeat here.
How to Pull Up From the Low Places
1. Find a Bed Of Rest (meh-noo-chah Strong's Concordance #4496). It is a place of stillness, consolation, peace, quiet, and comfort. When is the last time you found that? Where did you find it?
Isaiah 30:15 "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." We are so prone to make things happen. One of the founding slogans of getting drunks and druggies sober and clean is "Let Go and Let God"! We try to make good things happen, and we try to make bad things happen. If everything is going good we throw a cog in the wheel and stage a crisis. We over react, over dramatize, over compensate in most situations. It makes us feel in control. But when we find that Bed Of Rest in our prayer closet, we can lie down with Him and the quiet waters will soothe our weary soul.
2. Find the Table of Power 2 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind". There are three things here that are powerful, power itself, love, and a sound mind. Power is a sense of beneficial boldness, knowledge, affirmation, and confirmation coupled with activity. That is not a dictionary meaning but one that comes from experience. Couple that with love, which is the most powerful force in the universe, and make a trinity to include a sound mind which is good judgment, disciplined thought patterns, the ability to understand and make good choices and decisions, self control and self discipline and you have the perfect Table of Power.
3. Find the Stool of Praise Hebrews 13:15 "Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." A sacrifice is an offering, it is offering our praise as a living sacrifice. There are many scriptures that give praise to God. We must personally get into our prayer place and offer praise until we can feel Him accepting that offering of praise. Once the praise goes up the Holy Spirit comes down to us. That is when the intimacy between God and our self can be experienced. It is an indescribable closeness with Him.
4. Find the Candlestick of Direction Job 22:28 "You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; so light will shine on your ways." When the Lord shines the light of direction, we are good to go, assuming we will be obedient. The Lord has given us direction in His word, but we don't obey. In that prayer closet, the lights will come on in our head; lights of ideas, plans, how to's, how not to's, what nots, and wherefores, if we hang with it until the candlestick is lit.
Some of us will read this and enlightenment will come; others know this already. Some have known this and executed it and are in a good place, some have known this and not executed it and are in a low place. Others have not known this and have not executed this and have no idea the prayer room is that powerful. Most of us are in a low place at one time or another; or, the low place is ongoing since childhood; but all of us can use the prayer chamber as an empowerment place and pull up from the low places.
Which end of the spectrum are you on today?
ReplyDeleteGreat essay, Paula. I have been thinking much about prayer during Lent.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Crystal! Yes, it is quite a time of reflection now.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to meeting you one on one!