Do you ever feel like....
Have you ever had that feeling that God was speaking directly to you through someone else? I just have to share what happened to us yesterday. We have been staying down in South Denver and the whole family decided that they totally wanted to visit our old church Jubilee Fellowship. (This is the part that gets hard for me to tell, because it implicates me quite a bit).
The truth is, I have been struggling with a lot of insecurities about about our current position in life, and I was not handling it very well. I was crabby with Reeta and I was having a tough time dealing with my seeming lack of authority with Reeta and the kids. Honestly, it is just very vulnerable to be pulling up stakes with family in tow to head out to a foreign land, when everyone else seems to be enjoying their lives in one of the best places to live in the United States. I have questioned my sanity and I can tell you that Reeta has questioned it as well. I wanted RESPECT and I wanted it right then. Well, when I get that way, (and of course it's never ever happened before) I can be really hard to live with. I was getting desperate and I was at the point of really letting my insecurities turn into some bad leadership in our home. I knew that I was not in a good place and it was so hard to turn my mind over to Jesus in that moment. Sometimes I just want to fix it myself. I mean if they could all just respect me like they are supposed to do then all of this would be fixed, right?
So, I heard a sermon years ago that has really stuck with me through thick and thin. The basic message was that "because of Jesus, I am free to be at the back of the line or the front of the line". Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set me free. I didn't feel very free in that moment so I knew that I needed to get my head right with the source of my strength. Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on things above... Galatians 5:22,23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness....
One of the things that I prayed for was a direct message from Jesus in the sermon that we would be listening to at Jubilee Fellowship. Well, it happened, and I can say that God directed that message directly at our family and we all knew it. :) Wow!
The message is part of a series called "the sweet life" and this particular message is talking about suffering and what God says through the Bible about it. I don't hear very many people talking about this in the church. If you're interested you can watch the sermon here, and there is another message that Dan Demey spoke on with the same topic back in January. You can access it here. Enjoy!