FAITH HICCUPS...

I, myself, am overcome with the burden to help someone when they are hurting. I pray to say and do the right thing that might uplift them in some small way...I quote comforting and strengthening verses from the Bible, lend a listening ear, give pep talks...but what happens when the shoe is on the other foot and it's myself that needs the pep talk? I somehow develop spiritual amnesia! For about an Hollywood hour, I forget every comforting and strengthening truth I know! Crying and inconsolable...jumping to every fearful conclusion that my silly mind can muster up, I develop a case of the faith hiccups! "really, It's all good...hiccup, oh no, I can't do this, hiccup, well, something good will come, hiccup, ummm, yea, this must be cause of my past..." blah blah blah... fears -HICCUP! doubts -HICCUP! and confusion -HICCUP, all ensue until... The God of all truth and light calls to my heart all those wonderful scriptures that He has been hiding within my soul...ahhh, water...LIVING Water! The cure for my hiccups of doubt, fear and anxiety... be strong and of GOOD courage... He is an ever present help in time of trouble... Weary not in well doing, for in due season... He never leaves nor forsakes... Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord... be not afraid...be not afraid....DO NOT FEAR!!!... Brethren count it ALL joy... I can do ALL things through Christ... Be anxious for nothing... So, why did I almost lose it today when faced with potentially scary news. As one of my new favorite preachers, Eric Ludy, says...LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION... I almost stepped outside the fortress! I, for a moment, cracked the door, looked out and saw the fiery darts begin to assail...and, had it not been for my fellow warriors pulling me back in, I might have been quenched by them. I tend to make things waaaay more complicated than they are, dream up the worst case scenario; but when I am walking IN Christ and living out His Word, there is nothing I have to fear...IN Him, I am given the power to hold captive all those scary thoughts and cast them down back to their owner where they belong! I am instructed to do so ... "Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exaltheth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity very thought to the obedience of Christ" We are to submit ourselves unto God...not just our fleshly bodies, but our minds as well...when someone is in prison, they are not at leisure to do as they will...there is no freedom to just do as they please...consider that for just a second...step back behind that inpenatrable wall that is covered by the blood of our Savior...when we take our thoughts captive and place them unto the obedience of Jesus, they no longer hold any sway over us. When our thoughts and lives are truly given to HIS will, fears and doubts that would otherwise bring confusion, only bring us closer to Him and strengthen us because they make us realize just how big our God is to deliver us from ANY thing that comes our way!! It isn't that we won't ever have fears or doubts...it's a fact that we will "In this world ye SHALL have tribulation, (hiccup)... relax, take a deep breath... ...be of good cheer for I (Christ) have overcome the world!!!"... Now what happens to those old hiccups of faith when ya guzzle that Living Water of truth? Why, gone of course! :)