RESCUED
MORNING THOUGHTS☕️
Mornin’ sunshine’s! Happy Friday!
Well, I’ve exited Joshua and am entering Judges in my “Bible read through in a year.”
I’m clearly not going to get through in one year.
Hey…I’m a slow reader. A studier. A word looker upper kind of girl…I like to hang out in one place for a while. I guess I guess I’ll get through when I get through:).
Anyway. The heading that jumped out at me this morning is from Judges 2:16-23:
“The Lord RESCUED His People”
It goes on to say that He rescued the people who were “burdened by oppression and suffering.”
Some of you who’ve followed my journey may remember this, but in 2008, after being dramatically snatched out of my world as I knew it…I began to complain a bit to the Lord. I’d say things like “Lord! What in the world!?! I was one way a few weeks ago…doing life and work and all the things…and now, everything’s changed. I feel like I’ve been kidnapped!”
Over and over again I’d cry out…trying to understand how it all happened.
One day, as I sat in the backyard of our tiny rental apartment (we’d been snatched out of our dream home as well) with airplane traffic overhead, cars going by and trains off in the distance (we’d left a quiet farm) I began again.
But this time, He answered me.
“You have it all wrong. You’ve not been kidnapped, you’ve been RESCUED.”
He showed me the image of a burning building…each floor collapsing on top of the next one, and us being pulled out just in time.
That building, I believe, represented “our world” and allll that we were building in our own strength and by our own hands. Our own kingdom, if you will. Oh…all while loving God and going to church and teaching Bible studies and doing all the things.
But there was a divide somewhere.
At least, for me.
I was IN the world and OF the world.
Love God. Perform. Perform. Perform. Bust a move. Bust a move. Bust a move. Build. Build. Build. Be the best. Be the best. Be the best. Teach a Bible study. Bust a move again.:) Rinse. Repeat.
Shew…it exhausts me now even writing that sentence.
Talk about oppression and suffering.
When we somehow believe that our whole world is dependent on US keeping it all going…that is high level oppression.
Oppression: the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally, physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, or anxiety.
The whole “doing it all in my own strength” had actually begun to take a toll on my physical health as well.
It took quite a while..heck, I still have to battle it sometimes all these years later…that beast of burden of performance and making stuff happen and being in control of it all and thinking it’s up to me and taking things into my own hands.
But then…I remember.
He rescued me.
He never wants me to go back.
He never intended for us to take on the oppression of this world and all of its demands and expectations and requirements.
He never wanted us to carry the burdens on our shoulders.
He never wanted us to be OF this world.
He rescues us into a different reality. But, just like with kidnapping victims, it can take time to acclimate back. Our true identity has to be held up to us over and over again. We have to RE-member who we were and who he made us to be before the world creeped in and tried to steal it all away.
If you’re still on the hamster wheel of performance and over achieving and over doing and over stressing and over thinking and believing that it all falls on your shoulders…my prayer for you today is that you, too, get RESCUED out of that burning building and brought back into the reality that you’re a daughter, a son, a watched over, cared for, VERY loved and cherished person.
We were never made to do it on our own.
xox.eb