Hope Without Limits

I have a question for you – what is your reaction to the word endurance?

Take a moment.  Think about it.  Got your answer?

Did you know endurance is a gift?  Are you surprised as I was?

For His divine power has bestowed upon us
all things that are requisite and suited to life and godliness,
through the full, personal knowledge of Him Who called us
by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue).
2 Peter 1:3

Did you catch it?  Past tense we have received “all things” we need for life.  Hmmmm so if I need endurance for life and godliness, that would mean it’s already mine.

To say my perspective of endurance was skewed, is to put it mildly.  Because of that distortion, endurance had become this huge club that I have used to beat-up myself, very effectively I might add 😉 .

I’ve been given the gift to see what I’ve been carrying around.  Whew!  No wonder it has felt so burdensome.

I mentioned recently what I am learning about meditating, intentionally focusing and connecting with Father God, Jesus and Holy Spirit with connection being the sole purpose.  Not praying for anyone or anything, strictly connecting to the Father of Light (James 1:17), His son – the river of life (John 4:14) and Holy Spirit who creates and holds the space in me (1 Cor 6:19) to receive every blessing of Abraham (Genesis 18:18), all the promises that are yes and Amen in Jesus (2 Cor. 1:20), and every gift (1 Cor. 12:24) and fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) as the starting place.

During one of these times of connection it felt like I was looking into a place of great darkness within me.  I didn’t like it.  It frightened me.  I sought counsel from my acupuncturist who told me what he perceived was a lot of frustration and anger moving to the surface and the reason it felt dangerous is because anger and frustration kept within that is suppressed is dangerous.  Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but I could not deny the resonance within me to what he said.

OK my Heavenly Father had my attention.  I knew I was once again at the edge of all the light I knew and must look again into that dark place to see what my Heavenly Father wanted to reveal to me.  Below is my journaling of that revelation.

You showed me that frustration and anger was generational.  Generation upon generation, upon generation, upon generation – I don’t know how far back – of sucking it up; of the stiff-upper lip and of endurance being handed down as a curse rather than a gift and a blessing.  Handed down as a burden that had to be self-made rather than God-provided. 

You might be wondering with whom was I angry?  Everyone … including God.  My answer only served to outline the massiveness of the burden I’d been carrying.  Just being transparent here.

My perspective was that God and everyone else expected me to come up with the intestinal fortitude to endure whatever life handed to me.  That put me into a huge double bind – damned if I do, damned if I don’t because if I achieved that expectation, sucked it up and endured, then I wasn’t being real with and true to myself.

Enter the blood of Jesus.  Hallelujah 🙂  More from my journal.

I applied the blood of Jesus to cut-off all ungodly inheritance of sucking it up and where endurance had been twisted by the enemy.  That opened up for me to be able to receive from my Heavenly Father frankness to replace frustration and friendliness to replace anger.  What does that look like?  There is no more reason to hide and be angry because it is OK to be me.  I don’t have to “suck it up” which allows me to be frank with Father God, myself and those around me.  I am safe as the blood of Jesus is now the filter for what I inherit from the generations before me.  That safety opens freedom to be the genuine me which allows me to be friendly rather than angry with myself, God and those around me.  With the blood of Jesus as my inheritance filter, what I receive are the godly gifts Father God intended, created and purposed for both my ancestors and for me.  Free to receive endurance as a gift of being able to be at peace in whatever state of limbo in which I may find myself rather than a club with which to beat myself.

Pretty picture don’t you think?  But what does it look like to live it?

Exercising my choice as to whether I am willing:

• to see my Heavenly Father in ways that I’ve never seen Him before
• to embrace that He is more god than I can ever imagine and I am safe with this God that I cannot control, do not understand, but revel in His love and His mercy
• to step or look into the darkness of the unknown and let His light that cannot be quenched (John 1:4-5) shatter the darkness 

Why would I exercise these choices … the apostle Peter explains it best:

Hmmmm … exercising every choice builds towards the full personal knowledge of Jesus … much better than club with which I started … and what a reason to hope!