Have You Heard The Good News?

Many people have events in life that are so traumatizing they become permanent markers.

Memories are divided into “before the accident or after the accident,”  “before the cancer or after the cancer,” “before he died or since he died.”

The trauma becomes a part of us, reminding us of times when life was completely out of control and nothing we did could fix it.

We move on.  We tell ourselves we are healed.  We got through it.  We are grateful not to be in the worst of those places now.

Is being very thankful for God bringing us through the same as freedom?

Are whatever valuable lessons we learned enough to claim total victory?

Sadly no.  When we remember the trauma and how it has affected our lives, we may become subconscious “cutters.”  We pick up the sharp pieces that are left over and we cut ourselves.

Satan is happy to turn a prayer of thanksgiving into a time of replaying the whole ordeal.

As we remember, satan tries to reinforce the thought God let us suffer.  He whispers, “Hey, what took God so long to get to you?”

While we are being tempted to wonder about that, he is setting us up for his next move.  After saturating us with unpleasant memories and doubts about the past, he is ready to get us to contemplate our present and our future.

If we have the smallest doubts about how God handled our past, we may not trust Him completely now.  We may feel we need a backup plan.

Satan will completely agree.  He will tell you that you need to be better prepared this time.  You need knowledge.  You need to know more about what you might have to deal with.

Satan’s playbook never changes.  Go back to the beginning of The Bible.

God created the world and pronounced it good.  Before Adam and Eve decided they wanted just a little taste of the knowledge of evil, they only knew good.  They were content to receive The Blessings of all the good things God had given them.

But once they had knowledge of evil, things changed.  Then they felt worry, anxiety and fear.  They did not know what to do with their new knowledge.  And they could not “unknow” what they then knew.

Many of us have a driving need to know things.  How many ways have you tried to find out more about the current virus that is affecting the world?

Today’s mass media and varied ways to communicate give us an easy way to satisfy that “need to know.”  When a question comes to mind, we simply google or ask Siri.

When we watch the news, sometimes we are given answers to questions we have not even thought of yet.

We are drowning in TMI … too much information.

The more we know, the more we worry.  The more we worry, the more we fear.  The more we fear, the more we are driven into making wrong decisions.  The more bad decisions we make, the more confused we become.

As we tie ourselves in knots, we begin to doubt God and we begin to doubt ourselves.  Is He really there and if so, what are we doing wrong that we cannot hear Him?

Satan laughs.

So how do we escape this pit of Hell?

Refuse to replay your past.  The lessons you learned are already inside you.  Thank God for what He has given you for today.

Be still.  Know He is God.  Whatever missteps you may have taken in the past, know He was with you.  He saved you for this moment.  He wanted you to be here right now.  Praise Him and thank Him that you are together always.

Be still.  Know He is God.  Know He is willing to talk directly to you and give you all the answers you need.

One of my favorite scripture verses is Jeremiah 33:3.

“Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

God will tell you things that are unsearchable anywhere else.  Call to Him!

Rest.  Be still.  Be confident He is with you.

God said,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;

In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”

Isaiah 30:15

What do we need to know?  God said it simply.

“Be still, and know that I am God;  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Psalm 46:10

What else is there to know?  Know that God knows.  He knows everything.  And this is what He says about what He knows.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares The Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, Plans to give you hope and a future!”

Jeremiah 29:11

And that is the best news of today, tomorrow and always!