Betrayal

It is highly likely that at some stage during your life you have experienced betrayal, maybe even more than once or twice. I have experienced three different kinds of betrayal and I’ll give simple random examples to explain each one. The first is when someone has betrayed your trust by doing something, which you won’t approve of, behind your back. For example cheating on you or abusing your finances. The second is when you feel betrayed because someone did something which you did not expect or even approve of. This does not mean that the other person actually did something wrong, but only that their actions left you feeling betrayed. For example when two of your friends go out and don’t invite you. What they did is not wrong, but you might feel betrayed because they did not invite you. The third one happens really often but many people don’t even recognise it as betrayal. This is when you betray yourself. Betrayal can be when you have an expectation of someone and they let you down and this person can even be yourself. For example a friend of yours is being mocked in a conversation, you expect yourself to stand up for the person, but instead you just keep quiet. You have betrayed yourself. Afterwards you will probably even feel the need to justify why you did not stand up for the friend.

In all the above mentioned examples the feeling of betrayal will be present. Feeling betrayed can be one of the hardest emotions to process and almost always results in anger. When we do not deal with an underlying emotion (betrayal), another emotion (mostly anger) rises to the occasion depending on your personality. We often display anger when we feel hurt, vulnerable and experience emotional pain.

If betrayal is not dealt with, it can grow into an ugly emotion called bitterness or resentment. This is so dangerous, because it will damage your heart and other relationships even if the person is not in the picture anymore. Someone with bitterness or resentment in their heart will struggle to experience joy and love fully and might start believing that the world is “out to get them”. Thus it is definitely in your own interest to deal with the emotion properly.

The key to dealing with betrayal is forgiveness, but you might need a few steps before you get there and the time frame will be different depending on the type of betrayal. So how do we start the healing process? Validating the emotion of betrayal is a good start, admit to yourself that you feel betrayed and hurt. Talk about the situation, if you cannot speak with the other person involved then speak to a trusted friend. The most important thing is that you start dealing with the emotion.

If the person is still in your life, it is important to start building the trust that was broken again. It is definitely not impossible, but it is a journey and forgiveness is crucial. You cannot have a healthy relationship with someone if there is unforgiveness in your heart. Forgiveness is often a decision and you have to act on it even if you don’t feel like it. Ask God to help you forgive, even if you feel like you can’t. He can open your heart again and heal the wound. Your emotions will eventually catch on and follow your heart and mind’s decision to forgive. During betrayal the wall of a relationship cracks and it needs to be rebuild in places. Keep your focus on rebuilding the wall with forgiveness and this will stop the wall from cracking through to the foundations.

Forgiveness is so worth it! Not just for you, but also to free the person on the other end, especially if that person is you! We so often forget to forgive ourselves and show ourselves the kindness and grace that we deserve. Even if you think that you do not deserve forgiveness, it’s a lie. You deserve it because you have the righteousness of Christ and Jesus has already paid the price for anything that you will ever do wrong. Beating yourself up would nullify the price that He’s already paid and steal your joy.

Free yourself today by forgiving and if you struggle, just ask God for help. You do not deserve to walk around with a wounded heart. Rather choose the path of healing and growth and fill your heart with all that is good. The bible says that whom the Son has set free, is free indeed! Don’t let anything take that freedom from you!

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Dealing with disappointment

We all experience disappointment some time or another. Maybe you are having a worse day than anticipated, maybe someone didn't meet your expectations, maybe a friend let you down or a promise was broken, it might be a huge disappointment or a small disappointment, but it still tries to steal our joy and cramp our style. Your heart feels like it's bleeding and you don't understand why people are so thoughtless, careless or selfish. You feel bad, because you are not sure if you are just overreacting or if it really is something that needs to be addressed. Point is, you just feel hurt and discouraged.

When we live in the Spirit, we can always be in a place of peace and joy. Once in my disappointment God gave me the following picture: my heart is made of clay and as disappointment comes it leaves imprints like footprints on my heart. Holes where it has trampled. At that moment we have a choice, we can allow the holes to harden and dry by harbouring the disappointment or we can choose to let the Spirit work through us, give it to Him and let the disappointment go before it even leaves an imprint on our day. God fills and moulds our hearts until there is no trace of disappointment left.

It's a fight, but it's a choice. We choose what gets us down and what drains us. We have the Spirit in us and if we choose to submit every situation to Him, He will restore our hearts. If we seek revenge, complain, scold or attack the other party, we only react on the impulses of the flesh and that can never bring healing to our hearts or give us the ability to forgive. I'm not saying that it's easy, it takes practice, but choosing to submit the situation to God and allow the Spirit to work through us, will always lead us into a place of peace and joy and enable us to respond in love.

God can never disappoint us. He is with us every moment and He catches us every time that we slip or fall. Choose Him and call on Him in every situation and do not allow the imprint to leave a mark on your heart. Allow your heart act like a sponge, every time when life squeezes the water out of you, allow the Spirit to immediately replenish you.

May our days never look the same again. May we live with open hearts, undisturbed by the challenges in our daily lives, untouched by the darts of the enemy. May we be fountains of peace, love and joy! 

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33 ESV)

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What is the condition of your heart?

What is the condition of your heart? If you had to draw a picture of your heart, what would it look like? When I met Jesus years ago, I underwent a radical transformation. I remember seeing my heart depicted as a house, it looked like one of those deserted, wooden houses standing in a field with a big tree next to it. As Jesus invaded my heart it turned into a beautiful glass house. He opened every window, old door, cupboard and spring cleaned so thoroughly that there was no darkness or weed to be found. I felt as if my heart was made out of glass and that there was nothing hidden and that I can stand in front of Him and He can see through me. I was hiding nothing and nothing was holding me back.

It is our responsibility to keep our hearts in that condition. We need to be careful what we allow into our hearts. I can immediately feel when anger, bitterness, resentment, hatred, unforgiveness, offence etc. try and worm its way into my heart. It’s like a rotten egg thrown at my window and I just know that there is something unpleasant going on. If you don’t realise it immediately then it might happen over a few days, you start feeling less peaceful and more irritable and the condition worsens the longer we take to deal with it.

The problem with the emotions mentioned above is that they take up space in our hearts, the space which love used to fill and this makes us feel drained, burdened and irritable. Your glass house now has weeds growing out the window and this is embarrassing, so you just withdraw because of shame and anger towards others. And if the weeds are not dealt with, our hearts close up, the glass turns to wood and we design walls to keep others out, mostly because we are angry at the world, vulnerable and ashamed of our pain. The worst thing is that we don’t just keep people out, but we also keep the love of God out and then our hearts can grow hard.

If you find yourself in this situation, whether there is a small weed growing or whether your house is completely closed with extra barbed wire around the wall and a big “keep out” sign out front, it does not matter to God. Nothing is impossible for Him and there is no heart that He cannot heal. God is more than capable to deal with any issues that you might have. All you need to do is allow Him to enter.

Often we already know what we have allowed into our hearts, especially if it’s something small, but sometimes it can be years of brokenness, hurt and rejection and these things will take time. Remember that He is gentle and kind and that He operates in love. He knows how fast He can clean and what you can and cannot handle. He works at your pace, slowly pulling out weeds and replacing them with love.

I’m not encouraging you to go on a journey of introspection and to find issues in yourself, but rather take the things that you do know of or the things that are bothering you and sit with the Holy Spirit and ask Him to show you how to deal with them and to fill your heart with love. God is taking us from glory to glory on this wonderful journey with Him. Do not be anxious because of where you are at in your journey, but know that if you hold His hand you will always reach your intended destination.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Ps 51:10

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Cor 3:18

“Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139:23-24

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Grow love not war

Picture credit: friendburst

“Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Mark 4:1-9

It is our responsibility to keep our hearts open to God, always ensuring that there is good soil for His words to fall on and take root. The smallest things can hinder us from receiving His words and can make our hearts hard, whether we intend to do it or not. Unforgiveness, resentment, offence, anger, bitterness, anxiousness etc. are examples of seeds which Satan sows and if it takes root in our hearts, can choke the good seeds and steel the good soil. We are the ones who give power to these emotions or weeds as illustrated here and harbouring them is our choice.

I do understand that maybe great injustice has been done to you and forgiving someone for their harsh words or abusive actions might by very difficult, but God does not expect us to do this alone. We can ask Him to help us forgive, even though we struggle, all we need to be is willing to forgive. It is so dangerous to harbour unforgiveness as it breeds hurt, bitterness, contempt and often results in anger.  

When we are angry, the last thing we feel like is being vulnerable or lovable. We put our defences up, harden ourselves and we get ready to fight. Sometimes we just see red and there’s no space for reason. So now you can imagine, God is love. How does He fit into that picture? He doesn’t. When we reach that state, we inadvertently say that I’m here to take revenge and I want justice and someone needs to pay for the way I feel. At that moment we cut God out and our emotions take over and what follows thereafter can only lead to destruction of self and others. Afterwards when our emotions clam down, the last thing we feel is a sense of relief or joy, but rather increased hurt, emptiness and probably remorse.

“Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Eph 4:26-27

When we try and punish someone for the wrong they have done towards us, we end up punishing ourselves more, especially when it involves people close to us. As with all of the lies of the devil, revenge is just another attractive door with a graveyard behind it. Let’s ask God to help us today, to rather choose love and to learn to let go of past things that are dragging us down and keeping our hearts hard. Let’s remove every weed to allow for more space and good soil for God’s words to take root and grow in our hearts and His peace will reign in our hearts.

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Col 1:13-14

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” Col 3:12-15

The world is wide open - Jason Upton - SUCH a powerful song!

Is that a cactus I see?

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Sometimes we reach a place of discouragement, even a little depression or laziness. Often we don’t even have a good reason to feel down, we just have that feeling, that feeling of general averageness. It’s when you know that you can be driving in 5th gear, but you seem to just be stuck in 1st for no apparent reason. I think I hate the feeling of averageness so much, because I know that I wasn’t meant to be average. Every moment of the day I want to overflow with joy and love.

Jesus says: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” That is what I want, life to flow out of me every moment of the day. There is no reason why we have to settle for anything less. Jesus says: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Every day Satan will try and steal from you. It starts off with a small lie which we believe and then snowballs into a negative feeling which can be very destructive. This can really be anything from “you know they don’t appreciate you at work”, “she really doesn't care about you” to "you didn't deserve such treatment, you need justice!". He sows a small seed which, if not stopped, can grow into a really sore topic. Let’s call it the cactus. That issue, even though it originated from a soft place, turns in to a prickly hard outer layer designed to keep people out.

So what does a cactus look like? (you might ask) Well, it can be anger, resentment or bitterness for example. Strong emotions like these will always block peace, love and joy in our lives. The best thing is to deal with the plant as soon as it starts growing, because the longer it grows, the bigger, harder and pricklier it gets.

It might be that you have been hurt, abused, mocked, disrespected or offended by someone and this has resulted in pain, which in turn has evolved into a cactus of an emotion. It might be that the entire rest of your life is in perfect order and that the cactus isn’t even an identifiable feature in your life or maybe it has grown into a centre piece. No matter how big or small the issue is it will drag you down in some or other way if not dealt with properly.

You will have to sit down and be honest with yourself. Listen to your heart and find the root of the emotion. I’m sure that it won’t always be easy, as some roots have grown deeper into our hearts than others, but let’s sit with Jesus and ask Him to help us identify and forgive.

I heard Joyce Meyer once say: “Not forgiving someone is like constantly drinking poison and hoping the other person would die.” (she was physically abused during her entire childhood, so she knows what she’s talking about)

It really just is not worth it. It is a decision. So make a choice today to stop letting past issue or current issues drag you down and dictate who you are today and choose to forgive and move on, even if it takes a while. How cool is it that when you cut open some cacti, you find water inside! Be refreshed! Rid your heart of all unwanted weeds and allow the love, peace and joy that Jesus has for you fill your heart and overflow. What you want is to live in a space of constant freedom. Close the door every time you see a lie walk past, don't invite him in or even entertain him, he is only there to steal, kill and destroy and you were made to have life and have it abundantly!

“and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Cor 3:17)