Welcome to the Patchwork Blog! I hope you enjoy reading my random thoughts about life, Jesus and the freedom he offers.

Friday 13 July 2012

Spiritual Battles


My last post was about seeking the healer not the healing. I now realise I need to learn to deal with my emotions differently without bingeing them away like I used to. I know I need to seek God more to help me in my quest for a more healthy emotional life. My question today is if I know that why don't I always do it?

I find I am getting stuck in my difficult emotions and I'm not really allowing God to help me with them. I am not coming to Him and asking my Daddy God for help when I need it. I can ask Him for practical help but asking for spiritual help appears to be a different thing altogether.

Knowing this makes me realise more each day that I am living in a spiritual war zone. It is hard work to change an unhealthy lifestyle that has taken years to build up. There is a battle going on and I feel I am sometimes not on the winning side.

I have been through a lot of stuff recently that would normally make me feel the need to binge. It's been nothing particularly major. It's just lots of stuff all happening at the same time. The kind of things that happen to just about all of us at some point or another. The really excellent news is that I HAVE NOT BINGED!! This is truly a miracle in my opinion. I simply have no desire to consume large amounts of food my body is not hungry for. So the lie I told myself just now - I feel I am sometimes not on the winning side - is simply not true. I am on the winning side but am still having to fight in the battle.

The problem is that I have found it hard to know what to do with the emotions instead of overeating. They sit in my chest not going up and not going down. I find I have never learnt to really deal with my difficult emotions in a healthy way. I don't know what to do with them. I can talk about them in an abstract way, and I can tell myself things I can do but somehow I don't always find a way to actually get them out.

I need to learn from King David. In I Samuel 30:6 we are told "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God."
wholeness, straight, path, God
Abba Father, keep me walking on the path
that leads to wholeness, knowing you are
walking with me all the way

I want to learn to encourage myself in the Lord. I tend to look to other people to find God. Often I find Him there. But at times I have no one to help me find Him. This is due to the fact I live alone, and work from home on my own most of the time. It can't be helped at the moment. But I think God has given me this time to help me learn to go first to Him, not to someone else. God may use another person to be the answer to my prayer for help but the answer also may come directly from God Himself in my times of prayer and Bible reading. I want to keep going on the path to wholeness, and I have Jesus to help me on the way. He is with me all the time, and as I have learnt so well He will never let me go!


If I can learn these things well I will be able to say with David (Psalm 34:4-5 )
"I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame."

"Daddy God, I ask that you would help me to encourage myself in you. Help me learn to come first to you, and then wait for your answer."

4 comments:

  1. I have just finished a book someone lent me, called 'Strengthen yourself in the Lord' by Bill Johnson. It's from Bethel Church, California and it is rather full of Californian sunshine but has some wonderful gems in it too. You might find it helpful if you can get hold of a copy. I had to wade through the strange US charismatic way of expressing himself, but honestly if you do you find some really inspiring words.

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  2. Thanks Sheila. I think it sounds like I should read it! God bless you.

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  3. Thank you Lynda, I found that very encouraging today.

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  4. You are very welcome Fiona! God bless you

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