My pastor has been preaching some sermons lately from the book of Job. They haven't been verse by verse, line by line expository messages. I think that is a good thing and personally believe that solely expository preaching is over-rated! They have been messages more on thoughts and topics found in the book of Job. Yesterday's sermons and especially the evening message helped me in many ways.
I have been struggling for months and possibly even years mentally and now I know spiritually with what I believe or what I thought I believed about God and His attributes and what His Word says and how it is applicable to my life. This is forcing me to read and study and work on my walk with the Lord. I am still currently working through some of those things but yesterday's messages helped me in some important ways.
I have never, as far as I know, struggled with the concept that God is Sovereign. I have long beat the drum and insisted that God created the game of life and that He makes the rules. He is owner, manager, coach and even referee! It's His ball game!
I have for many years also believed and shouted that God can do anything except lie or be unjust. This means ANYTHING! He can work miracles and often does. NOTHING is out of His capability. However, just because God can, doesn't mean He will. The Bible says that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. Exodus 33:19, Romans 9:15 and Romans 9:18. I fully believe that my God is big enough to do anything and handle anything in my life.
What I realized last night was that I have struggled with Him being enough for me. Pastor posed the questions, "Is God enough if He takes everything from you? If He takes your health, wealth, spouse, parents or children, is God enough? If friends and family are not supportive or turn their backs on you, is God still enough? Is He enough to sustain you? Is He enough to cling to and keep going?" At that moment I felt God tugging at my heart and whispering in my mind, "Tammy, am I enough?" It was a scary question for me. If I answered, "Yes. You are enough, God", would He test me to see if I meant it? Would He begin taking more from me and my life than He already had? I quickly realized that God HAD to be enough. I must resolve in my heart and mind that yes, He is enough! I cannot hold so tightly to my loved ones that I put them above God in my heart. I think everyone struggles with that at times because our loved ones are right here and can be seen and touched in person. To me that is just understandable whether right or wrong, it is just easy to have happen.
Here is a bit of back story about me...
I grew up believing that I was plain and ordinary and without many talents. I was someone who was not too impressive. I believed I was not important except to my parents and grandparents and that I didn't matter much in this world. This carried over into adulthood. As a young adult I even struggled with suicidal thoughts and believing that everyone would be better off if I were gone from this world and that it would not even matter that I was ever here. God in His mercy and grace and in a very personal way helped me through all that.
Because of these wrong beliefs I sought my worth, even until very recently, in doing for others. I believed if I just did enough to help others and made them feel special that it would prove that I had a right to exist. Unconsciously, I also sought praise and accolades in my talent of cooking, in my creative ability for event planning and in Bible teaching to other women. I also sought that in my writing both in my blog and in my books. I just kept searching for those praises to make me feel worthy of my very life.
When you hold on tightly to finding your worth in doing for others and in praises of men (even if it's family and friends) instead of KNOWING your worth is in Christ who loved you enough to be tortured and die for your soul, then your heart is often doomed to ache. I know much about this because I have been struggling with deep hurt for months. I have longed for support and praise from people rather than resting in the knowing that God loves me and I DO matter and I am important. He has a purpose for me and I must rest and find peace in Him alone.
Frankly, I have been having a months long pity party and someone helped me to see it. They helped me realize that I may not be as talented as I think in some areas and that was a hard pill to swallow. They also helped me see that I wasn't seeing the support that I was being given just because I was too focused on the non support of a few. They were right even if those realizations were painful to accept. The sermon last night spoke to me when feeling abandoned and or unsupported was mentioned because I had felt that way for a year or more and was allowing myself to dwell on it. The sermon helped me realize that God's love and care should be enough because He is trustworthy. My new outlook is that God must be enough for me.
This is not meant to be a passive aggressive blog post in order to have people praise me. It is just a sharing of my heart about realizations and things that God spoke to me about through sermons and someone close to me being brave enough to hurt me. Maybe someone reading this will relate to what I have been going through and be helped. As I have said over and over, my blog is my therapy and is much cheaper than paying for it! It only costs possible critical comments.
