Testing Faith

Have you ever walked out on your purpose? Have you ever been so deeply rooted in anger and un-forgiveness that no matter the capacity of knowledge you posses about doing what was right, you chose to do wrong anyway? Have you ever been so angry with God that you became resentful for ever believing in his power? -I have. Have you ever been so disappointed in yourself you stopped believing in the greatness that lives on the inside of you? Has your days seemed short lived and empty, while your nights were long and full of sorrow? Have you ever been so tired of crying and drained by that overwhelming feeling you get when your mind is constantly drowning in emotion? - I have...yes, they have. Has giving up ever worked for you? - Honestly, no. Giving up has never worked for me in any aspect of my life. Today I write to tell you how great it is to have faith. I've gone from not knowing what faith is, learning faith, having faith, losing faith, and now I'm on the journey toward picking up the pieces and becoming so deeply rooted in faith I'll never walk away from it again. Walking out from faith and into the flesh is based on the conscious decision to rebel. Rebel -to resist authority, control, or convention (verb). Convention -a behavior that is considered acceptable and polite to most members of a society (mass noun). I was rebelling against living for Christ. Why? Because I was upset. I'm human. I feel. I was upset. Was I right? Absolutely not! Was I upset with the right person? I sure was not! At my lowest point I realized the person I was truly upset with wasn't God...it was me. I became so upset with myself and so enthralled with anger that all logic escaped me. Nothing made sense anymore. I looked for someone and something to blame, so I put everything on God. I mean, he's responsible for what happens to me, right? Wrong! In order to activate your faith you must first take action. My bishop said today during his exhortation " There is something YOU have to do to bring the Will Of God to pass. It is not automatic." God desires for us all to be saved, but it takes our action to save ourselves. We have to confess that we believe that Jesus Christ is our lord and savior and that he died and rose again. So who am I to place the blame for what happens to me on God? "But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed."(‭Romans‬ ‭10‬:‭8-11‬ KJV) I knew better. You know how people say " if you knew better you'd do better", I had to tell myself this. I'm like Chels, NOW YOU KNOW the way you're living isn't right. You know that the way you're choosing to live your life is having a negative affect on your witness. You know everything you need to do in order to make things right. So the only person to blame here is you. Why are you continually doing wrong when God intended for you to live right for him? I became ashamed. Ashamed for every wrong decision I made during this time period. I knew what was right, I felt the conviction to do right, and still I chose to do wrong. I shut down. Mentally I had a breakdown. I went to war with myself. No longer did I respect my self image. No longer did I believe in my purpose. I started to feel as though I didn't matter anymore. The devil monitored my moment of weakness and before I knew it, he crept into my thought life tormenting me with the image of me killing myself and ending all of it. I entertained the thought so much I started to believe that what he was saying was true. Just kill yourself and it will all be over. No one will ever hurt you again. You won't have to worry about trusting people because you'll be dead. No one cares about what's really going on with you because if they did they would be here with you. Life is too hard so just end it. These were the reminders of my pain that the enemy put in place to persuade me to commit the worse sin I could ever commit; but no matter how convincing they would get, I still had something deep down on the inside of me tugging at my heart. I still had the conviction to protect what belonged to God...Me. Honestly, in that moment I wasn't strong enough to win this war with myself. So I contacted a couple of people. See this is why it's important to have genuine connections who are good and are "like" you. Those God fearing men and women of God. That group or person who isn't afraid to tell you your truth when you're too stubborn or messed up to realize it. I thank God for connecting me with those types of people. "Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." (‭Proverbs‬ ‭27‬:‭5-6‬ KJV) "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." (‭Proverbs‬ ‭13‬:‭20‬ KJV) Before I knew it my tears of anguish and disgust turned into tears of joy and gratefulness. Again, His Grace saved my life. Every word my friends said to me took the place of the negative words the devil was trying to embed into my spirit. "I hate you" turned into "God loves you". "You don't matter" turned into "You are here for a purpose". "Just end it" turned into "Let Him use you". The word of God began to flood my mind. Scriptures I've studied, my testimonies, my mentors comments on past situations revived me. It was like I had been suffocated and now I could breathe again. The heat I felt all over my body was extinguished I was now cool and set free. I knew then that what I was saying for years prior to this experience was true..I am not just living for me. I lost sight of my purpose and found out who I really was. I was speaking with my aunt the other day in the car while driving her to her doctors appointment -we got on the topic of fear and losing hope. I remember telling her something that made me reflect on everything I've ever been through that made me appreciate that moment. I said we all go through things and I believe that God has to take certain things away from us. He has to take certain things out of us in order to put what we need back in. I look at it like this... If we were already made whole there would be no room to put anything in -we would be complete. Kind of like a doll on the assembly line. Once everything is together, it's packaged up and ready to go; but what about those dolls with the defects? What about those people who are going through certain things and don't know where they're headed? What about me?

See I know for a fact now that without God I am NOTHING and with God I am made whole. God is the author and finisher of our lives. He holds the blueprint for our lives. He knows every success along with every failure we'll ever encounter and yet he allows us to go through every valley and experience every height in order to get to our set place of where he wants and needs for us to be. Throughout life we will cross paths with people we will never think we'll make it without. We'll lose people and swear we'll never love again. We'll have jobs that promise us promotions and growth that will turn right around and fire you at the blink of an eye. The bigger picture is, we all go through something to get to where we need to be. God may have allowed the person you though to be the love of your life walk out of your life. To reassure you that the love of your life hasn't come yet. To restore you where you need to be restored. So that when your Boaz shows up, you are ready and willing to be his "good thing". God allowed me to shatter my spirit in order to save my soul. He surrounded me with peace and showed favor over my life in ways that people to this day can't even comprehend. He also allowed me to live life without his peace when I was too greedy to be grateful for His Grace. When I got caught up in myself and not my service. He allowed me to see how hard it is to just "do me". I've never been so broken in my life. Sometimes life beats us down so bad we're left feeling broken and shattered. I want to encourage you to continue to pick up the pieces. Your sight of perfection may have shattered but God is always there to fill in the cracks. Yes a few broken pieces may have fallen and are too small to put back in its place, but that's okay. Gods grace is sufficient enough to fill us up when we feel some pieces have gone missing. You may have fallen and fell right on your face...don't allow pride and the fear of taking chances hold you hostage from making life changing decisions. Everything God intended for you to have is already on the inside of you. You may not fit the mold -the good thing about that is, you are the mold. You are everything and more. I pray we all are filled with the courage and the strength to live and fight another day. You are made in His image...let's be more like Him and less of us. He broke my spirit to save my soul. I am not just a pretty face, I am more... Continue to operate in faith and trust in the Lord. He isn't finished with you yet. Everything the devil tried to steal from you will be restored. It's never too late to start again. Walk in love y'all! "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (‭Acts‬ ‭3‬:‭19-21‬ KJV) "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed." (‭Joel‬ ‭2‬:‭25-26‬ KJV) "Instead of your [former] shame you shall have a twofold recompense; instead of dishonor and reproach [your people] shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double [what they had forfeited]; everlasting joy shall be theirs." (‭Isaiah‬ ‭61‬:‭7‬ AMP) Love, ChelCy

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