Be Willing to Have a Look

(Katie)

Last Thursday night, I attended my Minnesota church! At the beginning of the service, my pastor prayed over me and said, "Katie, tonight, the Lord wants you to know that you are worthy."

This simple phrase penetrated deep into my heart. As I received the phrase, I realized that my natural tendency was to reject the statement as false. However, something about being worthy resonated in my heart and clicked.

I have a tendency to push through these moments and avoid them. I don't want to go there. I don't want to know what inside of me is refusing to receive the truth that I am worthy. But again, I felt a strong prompting in my heart to be willing to have a look.

I believe that my response of avoidance is quite typical to how most of us deal with our internal life. We sense rumblings beneath the surface, and we don't want to go there or we tell ourselves that we will do it later. In my experience, "later" is an excuse to avoid it and it never happens.

Now is the time. I knew that God was inviting me to receive healing in this area of my heart. Although it can be scary to look at our pain and wounds, I am learning that God deals tenderly with our hearts. As I sat there, God brought me back to a specific experience in which I was really hurt. At the time, the pain was too much for me and so I shoved it down to try to get away from it. In the process, my heart came to the conclusion that I am not worth it. At the time, I was not even aware that I made that agreement. Although this agreement was subtle, it pinned my heart down in this particular area making it difficult for me to feel the love of God.

I found myself praying through this experience in my past and inviting Jesus into it. It was extraordinarily redemptive. I think that God invites us into this process more often than we realize. He'll bring something up that will trigger a memory- we might see a friend, have a dream, visit a particular place, and we are brought back to some period of our life. In those moments, invite Jesus into that period of your life. As painful as it may be, linger there. Allow the Spirit to show you what to pray. It is a powerful thing to redeem the past, inviting Jesus into it, giving it to Him, letting Him heal or affirm or cleanse or redeem an experience.

I believe that God wants us to be whole people. Healed. Restored. Made whole. Be willing to have a look at your past. Invite Jesus in. Now is the time dear friends.