I used to know this woman, who had a talent for snapping me out of my pity party on the days when the weight of the struggles became too much. She would always give me a minute to vent, and then bring me back to the word of God, or share a personal testimony that would encourage and uplift me.
This person had such a bold faith that as she shared of her past life, I would struggle to see this new creation before me, the person I had gotten to know as the person she was before Christ, but unless you’ve been through The Refiner’s Fire, you can never truly comprehend how God changes us.
Over the years this typically private and reserved woman told tales of a very painful life full of loss, heartbreak, and betrayals. She told me of her insecurities, and her failures and how trusting Jesus had healed her life, her marriage, now He was working on her children.
Her openness with me about who she was and where God found her, along with her willingness to always bring me back to God and hold me accountable to His word, were instrumental in getting me here, to Him, but also in teaching me, not just the importance of Godly accountability, but also how to hold myself accountable.
Through the pregnancy with Ezekiel, the metaphorical years of drought and famine, through the pain, the fear, the doubt, and the uncertainty, this woman held Jesus like a mirror to my face. Even when she could not understand or relate to our challenges, she clung to Jesus, on our behalf, and always, ALWAYS, pointed, reminded, encouraged and flat out called me out, as the situation required. She always led me back to Him, never encouraged me to give up hope, nor did she validated my feelings of fear, anger or hopelessness.
This was not a rainbows and butterflies kind of friendship, I can be a lot to handle, so we butted heads more than once, but my short temper and sharp tongue did not scare her, which for me, was a fairly new experience. I had always been able to scare people into compliance, so to speak.
The first time I read the book of Titus she came to mind. I remember texting afterwards, as we had not spoken in some time only to receive an automated message that the number had changed or been disconnected. I did not even know those were a thing.
I cried so hard. I felt abandoned.
In the years since then, God has allowed me to learn how to have that accountability, just me and Him.
His Holy Spirit has filled in her spot in my life. Sometimes Michael provides the spiritual smack upside the head I need, when I can’t or wont, hear what The Lord is saying, or when, I simply just need that reminder that my life is not my own, and I need to bring it back to God.
Too often, because of life, or how we were raised, or simply because we are humans that forget, we lack accountability to God and His word.
In my experience, some people do not believe we should hold each other accountable, they view it as judgement.
Others feel like we must live as we as best we can because if we are not living right, The Holy Spirit will hold us accountable, which is true, but I have also found the it can be fairly easy to ignore Him when we dont like what He is saying, or frankly, He sounds crazy to our human ears and limited understanding, which can be quite often.
This humble woman with a heart for Jesus, created a habit in me to take all things back to The Lord, which in her abscense as a spiritual big sister of sorts, became a habit of me reminding myself to take things back to The Lord to the point that now, I have become the equivalent of a 5 yr old, constantly asking God about everything from my actions and reactions, to His meaning, His opinion, His dirrection and everything in between.
I have learned that God is meticulous. He is a God of order and purpose. He created all things to work symbiotically.
The world has changed a million times over, but God never has, and I have learned to learn Him and not always expect Him to bend to my views, ideas or believes simply because it’s what I know or “life is different now.”
I’ve learned He did not create me to be at the mercy of a fallen world, but to live with in it in peace and freedom, fully dependent on Him.
Only Him.
There is a time and a place, of course, for the biblical relationships. Having the right people around us to help hold us accountable, to point us back to Jesus, to pray with us, for us, and come into agreement with us, is important. There are days in which I can hear her voice reminding me to take it back to God because without Him I’ll get myself in trouble, which I have done, make a mess of things, I mean.
But I would say the most important thing God has taught me is the importance of being able to do all of that, hold myself accountable, take things back to The Lord, seek Him for answers, guidance, use Jesus Christ as a mirror so that we can be more like Him, without depending on a person, not because they’re not important but because we have a habit of allowing people to matter more than Jesus does, because we trust or even fear, what we see and hear in the physical more than we trust and fear Him.
If a person hurts us, we get mad at God because “His people…”
as if fallible humans could ever be a full, complete and honest representation of Jesus Christ.
We must seek to know Him for ourselves.
When I found myself alone, with not a soul in the world, I had a choice to make, to either fall back into old habits that opened the door to anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies or I could seek to recreate, for lack of a better explanation, that relationship with the one who was there:
Jesus Christ.
When I lost my entire life, as I knew it, and found myself alone, in a new place with not a soul responding to messages or calls, the one who never left me, the only one, was Jesus.
It was He who dried my tears, He who comforted me, corrected me, taught me and held me accountable, it was He who taught me that I was looking to people for things that were never meant for others to do for me or fill in me, only He could do that.
You see, this woman was important because through her I was able to hear what The Lord and my husband had been trying to get me to understand for many years, so God being God brought her and me, together at a place where through her faith and boldness, I would be able to hear Him.
In those days, Michael had been the cause of much pain, and his faith in Christ in the face of my suffering bothered me more than I realized. I did not want to hear about God, not from him, not when God had given me my husband and I had not gotten my fairytale because he wasn’t perfect. None of us are, but I expected him to be.
I got so much more than that, of course, but it would take me some time with The Lord and some new and some hard experiences to come face to face with the truth, a truth God had told me many years ago that I simply refused to accept:
My husband’s issues had nothing to do with me and I was making it personal. I tend to make a lot of things personal.
As is often the case with me, I spent some time angry and feeling sorry for myself because I missed my people, but they were never mine, and it wasn’t really them I missed as much as how Jesus showed up in my life, more than once, through them.
Her walk, her pain, her suffering, brought her to the life changing experience that is Jesus, and her bold faith and willingness to both share and be a teacher or sorts, was truly instrumental in helping me realize I was doing and seeing things wrong. She will forever be a huge part of my story, my testimony, and I took her for granted. I assumed she would always be a part of my life, so I never said thank you as I should have, but as my loving husband loves to remind me, this walk is individual. People come and go, but God never leaves us.
There is a time and a place for us to help, love, encourage, support and even push each other, yes, and there is also a time and a place for accountability and correction, but at the end of the day, when it is all said and done and my life is no more, it is God who I will answer to, and so I must learn to go to Him first, always, so that I may walk as He intended for me to, so that I may one day hear, well done good and faithful servant.
God created me, with a plan and for a purpose. My gifts, my talents, my purpose, and most importantly, my ministry, are all part of His plans, and I have to seek Him and only Him in order to discover what they are and how to best utilize them for His glory.
As people, we tend to take too much for granted, there are things that we do not question simply because it’s what we have always known.
Biblical friendships, relationships in general really, are important, but not so important that we allow them to derail us.
Job’s friends are a shinning example that I have been thinking about a lot recently, because in my own experiences, I have found more of them along the way, than I have of her.
Job had done nothing wrong, yet his wife told him to curse God and die, and his friends were adamant that he must have done something wrong to deserve his pain and suffering, when in reality the closer we seek to walk with The Lord, the bigger the target the enemy puts on us.
More than once I have asked myself, what if Hosea would’ve taken God’s command to marry a prostitute and double checked with His friends? I believe they would’ve talked him out of obeying God because marrying a prostitute just was not done.
Where would we be if Jesus had allowed Peter’s unwillingness or maybe inability, to understand God’s plan derail Him?
Jesus attempted to prepare His disciples for the day that He would be here no more, so that they would carry on as He taught them, without Him, but Peter, well meaning as he may have been, was a discouraging voice, he couldn’t understand, he had expectations for the Messiah that just did not align with God’s plan.
Jesus dying was not their plan, it was God’s and in obedience Jesus rebuked Peter.
Jesus told Mary Magdalene at the tomb not to cling to Him, but He meant His physical form specifically, Jesus had to die and resurrect and go home to The Father for our benefit, but just like the disciples and the rest of His followers were lost without Jesus being physically present after his death, we too often cling to people, places or things, that helped us in our walk with Jesus, when we must learn to allow others in, to receive them and their help or correction while still remembering that Jesus has to be the center of it all.
He must matter to us more than anything or anyone else.
We must learn to walk with Him and only Him, while also being bold in our faith, transparent in our transgression, and willing to serve one another, so that those who have yet to meet Him, may learn about Him.
It’s not about making others believe we are perfect, it’s not about others at all, it is about the life and death of The Son of God for our heavenly benefits and being so closed to Him that when life changes, we are able to carry on without missing a step, because we are following Him and not others.
I will forever love and pray for that woman, and for the others who have also played a role in my walk, but I am thankful for the abandonment that had to take place in order for me to learn that He is all I need, He is more than enough, He is able and willing and He is faithful and present, and I don’t truly need anyone but Him.
It is not a rejection of His people but the acceptance that He alone is all I need, and I must seek to know Him, walk with Him and talk to Him as Abraham and David did.
“Then Peter began to speak up. “We’ve given up everything to follow you,” he said. “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News, will receive now in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property—along with persecution. And in the world to come that person will have eternal life.”
Mark 10:28-30 NLT
Psalms 73 