Hope Without Limits

Saturday morning I awoke from a dream that held so much revelation for me I just knew I was to share it with you.  “To protect the innocent” 🙂 I’ve removed names of friends and co-workers because I do not have their permission to share about them on my blog.  If you recognize yourself, know that God has used you to bless me and release more freedom into my life.  Thank you.

I want to preface what you are about to read from my personal journal with this important point:  what caused me to be so out of balance and stuck for the past 4 months so that my “teeter was tottered”  was not the people, demands or problems I was facing.  It was my reactions and choices to each of those things.  I am blessed to work with wonderful people at a company that truly values their employees and pays them well to be there.

With that in mind, I invite you, once again, into my personal journal:

Dream “Shredded tires”.  I know there was more to this dream but the scene I remember is standing next to my friend and looking at the tires on her vehicle.  The rubber is literally shredded and barely on the rim of the wheel, especially the back driver’s side tire – the tire that has been doing all the pushing.  She is saying that she has had to do a lot of “running”, i.e., trips back and forth.  I guess between her home in the mountains and where I live.  I tell her she is going to have to rest and get new tires.  I remember the feeling of being amazed/ stunned that she could drive the vehicle at all with the tires in that shape.

The revelation that immediately comes to me are my words to my husband when I got home Friday night.   “I am shredded, spent.  I have nothing left.”  The demands at work have been growing and growing and no matter how hard and how many hours I work, my to do list just keeps getting longer.  On Friday I had a headache that turned into a mushroom cloud migraine.  It got to be 5 PM and I realized I hadn’t even started my boss’ monthly reports because of other demands that day.  I just wanted to cry.  But I told myself it will be quicker to just run them than try and figure out a way to come in early Monday.  Honestly I’m not sure how I did it, other than I believed I didn’t have any other choice.

You’re probably wondering how this ties to my dream.  

My friend in the dream has been part of my life for several decades.  She is a noble and  true friend.  However, she also “runs to the rescue” for many and a lot of times to her own detriment.  She sometimes has trouble seeing that her responses actually add to her problems.  Bingo!!  The pictures You give me are so amazing Lord.  My tires are literally shredded.  My responses are adding to my problems.  It is dangerous for me to keep going they way I have been.

I was just thinking I don’t know how to be any different.  What Holy Spirit showed me was my friend from the dream when I first met her many years ago who believed “that’s just the way it is, I can’t to do anything about it.  I just have to suck it up, suffer and live with it.”  Then Holy Spirit showed me my friend now.  You have sent her a finance to care for her; provide for all her needs and give more her more than she has ever imagined possible.  She just has to allow herself to receive his gifts.  

O Lord, You have given me the exact same thing in Jeshua!

I have felt assaulted with no protection at work from the demands.  As I typed that You showed me this big shield drop down where people walk up to my desk and I realized that is Your faithfulness (Ps 91:4).  I thought OK that stops people from “getting to me” but what about my computer and the requests that come through it?  I saw the picture of the mountains which is above my computer.  Then I saw Psalm 91:1-4 – me up against You, Father in the shadow of Your wings with Your presence on my one side and Your faithfulness on my other.  You remind me of Psalm 36 – “Your righteousness is as the mighty mountains” – it is nothing I can mess up.  I think of Jared Black’s teachings on righteousness and the definition of righteousness being right standing with God, creation and man.  Father show me where I have not aligned myself with Your righteousness which is mine through Jeshua.  I see that not being aligned with Your righteousness has caused me to be so out of balance, i.e., not in right standing with You, Your creation and man.

So many tears –  I am so sorry heart you have been carrying so much pain since my coaching review in June.  I was totally caught off guard and have been completely at a loss to know how to deal with his only negative comment which was I need to work on being at work more.  It triggered all my insecurities. (Aside: I work 45-50 hours/week but a few days I have had to work from home because of the FMS/migraines).

The “light bulb went on”.  My thoughts and actions the last 4 months reflected what I’d learned from Dad and the way he treated himself:  “I’m doing my best and it is no damn good … because people still die” (he was a surgeon).  Well the only person dying in this scenario is me.

Heavenly Father I know from what You have just revealed to me that You have what I need for me to live in right standing with You, mankind – including my boss – and all your creation.  At this moment I just don’t have a clue what that looks like.

I put my hand on my heart and asked Holy Spirit “What came into my soul in that moment in my review?”  The floodgate of revelation opened:  WHOA … a WHOLE lot:

• Fear that I will lose my job if I don’t live up to his expectation
• Defiance – I’ll show you.  I’m not useless.  I’ll prove you wrong so you can’t find fault with me.  Hmmm … might that be pride?
• Confusion.  How do I both show respect for my boss’ authority and at the same time set a healthy boundary for me?
• Something to do with my will and being driven by will-power that it doesn’t matter if I don’t have anything more to give; I still have to give more or lose it all.  Well that would be a very ugly, ungodly belief right there now wouldn’t it?
• Trapped.  No other choice.  Put on your big girl panties and suck it up.

No wonder “my tires are shredded”.

I just went Bible Gateway to look up truth to replace the lies above and the front page today is Proverbs 19:20-21

Hear counsel, receive instruction, and accept correction,
that you may be wise in the time to come.
Many plans are in a man’s mind,
but it is the Lord’s purpose for him that will stand

 Well that pretty much sums it up.

I looked up in the Blue Letter Bible for the original translations and found another word for plans is devices.  A clearer translation for “Lord’s purpose” is “The Self-Existing One’s counsel and wisdom is what will rise up, become powerful, come on the scene, maintain itself, be established, confirmed, endure, be fixed, valid, proven, fulfilled, and persist.”  YES LORD!!

Forgive me Father where I came into agreement with fear and confusion and turned to my own devices of defiance and will power to cope with fear and confusion.  I confess those agreements and choices as sin.  I forgive myself for those agreements and choices.  I ask You to put the complete work of the cross between me and all consequences of those sins.

I come into agreement with the truth that it is Your counsel and wisdom that has risen up, become powerful, come on the scene, maintaining itself (having the power within it to accomplish Your purposes) and is established, confirmed, enduring, fixed (as is in does not change), is valid, proven, fulfilled and persists.  Your wisdom and counsel that tells me:

Isaiah 41:10

Fear not [there is nothing to fear],
for I am with you;
do not look around you in terror and be dismayed,
for I am your God.
I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties,
yes, I will help you;
yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand
of rightness and justice.

Oh my, I don’t have to know “on this side of the problem” what my answer looks like.  I just have to know that You have the answer and will reveal it to me as I need it.  Hallelujah!

But wait … there’s more truth! 🙂

Matt 6:33

But seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.

More literal translation:

 “Seek, [in order to find out] by thinking, meditating, reasoning,
to enquire into the royal power of Jesus as the triumphant Messiah
of the One True God;
seek to enquire into His acceptableness to God;
and all of which I have just spoken to you will be added to you.”

What had Jesus just spoken earlier in Matthew 6?  Covering me/us with His glory, displayed in the lilies of the field, which is more than the glory that rested on Solomon, himself (and that is A LOT of glory = God’s presence).  How is that achieved?  Not by toiling and worrying, but by allowing our roots to grow deep where God has planted us in Christ.  There we are nourished, supported, nurtured, and fattened.

Fear not.  Trust You.  Inquire of You.  Got it.

Peace wonderful peace.  Thank You, Father for replacing my shredded tires with the gospel of peace!  (Eph 6:15)

Is your teeter totter stuck?  How about your tires?

My prayer for you is wherever in your life your teeter may be tottered and stuck, our Heavenly Father would come with truth to set you free so that you may find the balance you need to stop “shredding your tires” and instead ride safely and securely on the gospel of peace.