People ask me how my Christmas break was. My easy answer is, “I got to sleep in a
lot.” That was one of the few positives
I could think of. Now, nothing really
major happened in those two weeks (except for not having a water heater or
washer machine for 4 days)… so why was it so crappy? Short answer:
because of my attitude!
Fruit of Death:
Apathetic: Having or showing little or no emotion; not
interested or concerned; indifferent or unresponsive.
This pretty much explained my attitude for Christmas break. I didn’t care about hardly anything. I wasn’t motivated AT ALL. The problem with this attitude is it also
left me feeling hopeless. I knew the
enemy was attacking me, and I knew that he was stealing my joy and inhibiting
me from blessing others, but the problem with apathy is the lack of caring… I didn’t
have any strength or desire to try to fight.
So how do you fight the enemy when you don’t even care that he’s
attacking you?
Reflection:
I realized, in reflecting on 2012, that it was one of the
most emotionally intense years I’ve ever had (and I’ve had A LOT). God had purposely removed me from intentional
community (for a time) in to a deeper, more intimate season with Him. I was to rely on only Him this year (not Him
through His body). The summary of this
season for me was to cut all unhealthy dependencies I still had on people for
my identity and get them only from the True source. The difficulty with this is it also meant
that every “safe place” I had in people were stripped down, chewed up, burned
in the fire, refined (pick any metaphor)… they all fit. By the end of the year, I was tired. On the other hand, I have never felt more
intimate and close with the Lord, but I had stopped spending time with Him
towards the end, so I was only aware of my tiredness. This obviously gave Satan’s minions the
perfect opportunity to attack me with apathy.
I hate giving credit to the enemy, but I have to say it was quite a
clever move. Apathy is a close sister to
depression, in which your mood is down, sad, hopeless, yet apathy goes a step
further in adding the lack of desire to even TRY to do anything about it. It sucks!
My Plan:
I didn’t have one… remember, I didn’t care?!
God’s Plan:
Thankfully He ALWAYS has a plan. In going back to work and being back on my
routine, I started listening to sermons again while getting ready for
work. A few days back in to this I was
listening to a sermon on Proverbs 18:21”Death and life are in the power of the
tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or
life]”—Amplified. Basically, I might
spend 5 minutes speaking life (the promises of God) while praying, but then the
rest of my day I’m thinking and speaking negative things, which produces fruit
of death, which then I speak about how that’s the fruit I’m bearing which then
produces more fruit of death and it becomes a vicious cycle. The Lord brought conviction to me on this, so
I decided to try and only speak Truth (even though I didn’t feel one shred of
it) to see what would happen. Well, it
only took ONE DAY for me to feel something other than apathy. The desire that came back to me was not to
fight or even to change, but a desire to sit with God again. I desired so much to be in His presence…
something that had left me in my apathy.
I had joy in just having this desire back. So Wednesday morning I sat with Him. I didn’t say anything to Him and He didn’t
say anything to me. We just sat
together. An hour later I was at
Simpson’s first chapel service of the semester.
In singing worship songs to Him I felt something I had missed: my Lord’s heart, gratitude for Him, joy,
repentance! We took communion. Before I could eat my juice soaked bread I
cried tears of repentance, sorry that I had given so much time to the enemy’s
kingdom and not His, sorry that I hadn’t cared about not building His kingdom,
and extremely grateful at the same time that Jesus was NEVER apathetic… not
even for a second. My mind rushed with
possibilities of what life would be like had He been apathetic even for five
minutes while He walked this earth… and I shuttered at those thoughts… which
then brought me back to overwhelming gratitude.
Fruit of Life:
I feel free, full of joy, and full of hope for the
future. I am once again excited to
impact this world by bringing the kingdom of God to it. Even more astounding than this, I came home
and cooked dinner!!! I enjoyed it too!!!
(There should be many of you laughing at this right now).
Steps in a Nutshell:
1.
I stopped speaking negative words and speaking the
promises of God (even though I didn’t feel them).
2.
The fruit of life started to spring up—with one
desire.
3.
I acted on this desire and God’s presence is
what changed me even further.
4.
This led to me feeling again—feeling repentance,
gratitude and joy!
5.
Now I’m back to bearing the fruit of life!
Thank you Jesus for knowing just what I need!
