For the Love of Our Country

Today at church our Pastor shared a very important message that had to do with the current state of this country. He quoted the verse in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that says: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

I don't know about you but to me it does not look like the blessing of the Lord is still on this country it is sliding fast into an economic depression and the only vague glimpses of recovery are mere illusions to keep us from doubting the effectiveness of our current government. This is not an issue that can be resolved just by the right government or the right plan though, there is something much deeper, a law that is set even above the laws of our land that is being violated. According to the blueprint that God lay down for us to follow in His Word, prayer alone isn't going to help our nation. We need to repent and turn from our wicked ways before He will even hear us and then He WILL heal our land. The idea that God will still bless us when we are not serving Him but following the ways of the enemy is a dilution that most of us have bought into, including myself, it takes the responsibility off of our shoulders and lets us justify whatever we would like to do. 1 Timothy 1:9 says: Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers.

 I am not trying to hit anyone with the letter of the law but according to this scripture if we participate in any of these sins habitually we by default even just with "a little bit of disobedience," place ourselves back under the letter of the law as opposed to the Spirit of the law which we are called to follow as believers and followers of Jesus Chris which is love. Therefore if we are not walking after love, to receive it from God, to love God and to love others we are placing ourselves under the letter of the law and will be judged accordingly. Luke 10:27 says:

And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

I don't know about you but I don't see love as the law of this land. I see parents killing unborn babies because they are inconvenient to them or because they don't measure up to certain standards. I see us being entertained by things that the Word says should not even so much as be mentioned among us including violence and immorality. I see God being cut out of public programs and schools because His truth isn't convenient anymore or somehow He is outdated. How is it possible that a created being could come up with a better way than the one the All Mighty God has set in place? 

Fellow Christians and believers, we need to wake up for the love of a Country that we call home. Job 33:23-24 says: If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: Then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.

And again in Nehemiah 9:2 And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.

This scripture refers to the time when the Israelites were gathered together in captivity and heard the law and repented to return to God and be loosed from their bondage. 

So as a child of God who cares about my country I personally stand in the gap and repent for the iniquity of my generations: Father I recognize the complacency and passivity of my generations. I recognize our pride in thinking that we knew better than you and our rebellion in trying to follow a way that we thought was right without seeking you're ways. I recognize our hardness of heart and our selfishness where we serve and follow our own desires and lusts rather than yours. I recognize our lack of trust in you in believing what you say is true and turning your truth into a lie. Father please forgive me and my generations and please forgive this nation and have mercy on us. Thank you for your compassion towards us thus far and I pray that for your elects sake, for the sake of your children, that you will turn away the curse of the enemy from this nation. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

We need to rally ourselves as believers to each take a stand together for our country. If you believe in this message, humble yourselves and pray too for God's mercy on this land and pass this message on. He cares for us and He truly does want what's best for us but we need to stand with Him and for Him in order for that to even be possible, otherwise we are asking the enemy to "bless" our land instead of Father God. 

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him [be] glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Epesians 3:14-21

A Lesson on God's Grace

I am completely blown away by God's faithfulness and patience with us in our learning curves. I mean I knew this already but I know it even more now, He really does love us and He really is the best Father we could possibly imagine!

Almost exactly a year ago, after taking a Financial Freedom Seminar course my husband and I decided that although we qualify for Medicaid we wanted to try to pay the doctor's bills by ourselves as I was expecting our second child. We made the decision not knowing for sure wether or not the idea was from God or just our own but we decided that in order to be able to hear God better we had to step out and make some choices and see what the results were so that we could learn from them.

At the time our income just barely covered our living expenses so my husband started maintaining some friend's yards in order to get some spare money each month. Even that wasn't entirely enough to cover the Doctor's bill but each time we needed it, the money became available in some way or another. We were so excited when we paid of the last Doctor's bill when I was about six months pregnant. We knew that God had sustained us to that point.

Then we went to the hospital to set up a payment plan for the actual delivery and hospital bills. We were completely caught off guard when we were told that because we qualified for medicaid they could not set up a payment plan for us, either we had to come up with $10000 before the delivery or we had to apply for medicaid and have them cover our bills. We were so crushed and confused. Up to this point we truly believed that God had provided what we needed to pay our bills but we were pretty sure $10000 wasn't just going to pop up in a few months. This is the point where we really had to stop and look at our motives as to why we had made this decision in the first place as well as evaluate exactly how we had gotten as far as we did. We started to see compromises we had made along the way and things we had started to entertain like pride that were even starting to separate us from our friends. We had even started to allow ourselves to think that we had a higher revelation than everyone else who was in a similar financial situation as us. We prayed through these things for about a week and repented together for how we had allowed a seemingly good idea to consume our lifestyle and take away from our family and fellowship time. We then swallowed our pride and applied for medicaid.

We never did regret paying the Doctor's bill by ourselves even though it was a rather large sum of money because we realized that we never would have been able to overcome some of those things that got exposed without allowing ourselves to try this and learn our lesson, and yes, get a sort of spiritual spanking. We never expected to see that money again.

Through this experience we were so grateful for the tender way God dealt with us that He worked with us the whole way and protected us and we never felt accused or abandoned. He even blessed us and provided in unexpected ways. After we repented He opened the floodgates of blessings even wider, our house sold after being on the market almost four months with no viewings, the first people to look at it were the ones to make the offer. Our house was under contract the day after our daughter was born. Everyone was amazed because of how terrible the market is right now in our town.

That wasn't the only blessing, our babies birth went so well that from the start of my first contraction to the time when she was born was exactly one hour. I was also able to walk from the delivery room to the recovery room without assistance which I was told almost never happens. The baby even beat the Doctor who came just after she was born. The whole experience was just so amazing and blessed I can't even put it into words.

We named our daughter Kaitlyn Grace. Kaitlyn meaning pure and Grace, according to the Greek translation of the New Testament scriptures, means God's diving influence on Man's heart. So her name together means the pure, divine influence of God on man's heart. How fitting to sum up our journey through that past year. Her name even now is a constant reminder of God's faithfulness to us even when we make wrong decisions.

Now here is the fireworks display at the end of this story and the reason why I am writing this now, so long after this whole ordeal. Today, we found a check in the mail from the Doctors office for the full amount of what we paid in. As far as we understood medicaid wasn't going to cover that because we had paid it too far ahead of the time we were accepted. I still don't know why we got it but I was so amazed that I burst into tears when I saw it. I was just so overwhelmed by God's grace and love and all the memories of His faithfulness flooded back.

Another amazing part of this testimony actually refers to a different part of our journey based on 2Corinthians 9:6 that says if you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly and if you sow bountifully you will also reap bountifully. This convicted us a while ago because we were so concerned about our finances for so long that we were generally not willing to help others in need even if we were able to. We have really been working on this and trusting and believing God that if He was able to provide for another's needs through us, He would be able to provide for our needs when they arose. So we actually have been excited and thanking God when He provided what we needed to help someone else and we've really been enjoying the opportunities He's been giving us lately. So this check in the mail not only reminded us of His faithfulness and grace in our past season but also solidified the truth of this scripture stronger in our hearts. Our God is a good God and He means what He says, don't ever forget that Breanna! 

My Pregnancy So Far

These past eight months have certainly been an amazing journey. I've learned and grown in areas I'd never even noticed before. I have been and still am walking out of some interesting generational issues. God sure has been faithful this whole way as I know he will always be.

You can ask questions and read books or listen to teachings all you want about pregnancy and how it's going to be, but I have realized that you can never fully comprehend the entirety of it until you are in it yourself.

I started out following only what I had heard other people say about their experiences and, not surprisingly, started experiencing all of the symptoms they had warned me about. The first few months especially were the hardest for me. I encountered nausea and an intense repulsion to foods that I normally liked. I took on self pity big time thinking that the whole nine months was going to be that way. I couldn't imagine why anyone would ever want to get pregnant for a second time.

Then almost exactly at the three month mark, Pastor Henry did a teaching on Self Pity. I suddenly realized how much of that I had been participating with and I immediately repented to God for my participation with that way of thinking and came out of agreement with it. It was like someone took a switch from misery to freedom. All of the worst symptoms I had been enduring were gone overnight especially the cloud of oppression that had me tied down. There were still a few of the minor symptoms but those I could definitely handle.

I was finally able to get my joy and my peace back and be excited about the new life that was forming within me. Since then, any time I catch that stinking mindset trying to come back on me I remind myself that God intended this to be a blessing, not a curse. What's happening inside of me is such a miracle. I am not saying that all of the symptoms have gone away, a few are to be expected with our constantly changing bodies physically and chemically as the baby is developing. The enemy really has been trying to rob me of the incredible joy that this time truly is supposed to be.

Another one of these battles was with sleep. I had been told and had read that often times in the last few months of your pregnancy it becomes difficult to sleep because of discomfort of the growing baby among other things. At first I actually took this on without even having a reason to. I would actually lay in bed awake, afraid that if I went to sleep I'd encounter all these discomforts that I had heard about. So for about a week, I barely slept at all! Finally I recognized how fear was robbing me of my sleep and was able to overcome that with God's help and lately I have been sleeping super soundly with hardly and interruption except for potty visits. Praise the Lord.

It's funny this last trimester of the pregnancy was the one I dreaded most and actually it has been the best part so far. I just love laying on my bed and watching my belly squirm around. At one point I was in my glider chair watching TV with my cockatiel, Jazzy, sitting on my belly. She was peacefully preening herself when all of a sudden she started freaking out. I couldn't figure out what on earth was her problem until I realized that she was glaring intently at my belly. Tamahra had been kicking her from the inside. Finally the bird had enough she squealed and poked my belly with her beak then jumped off onto my pant leg. Ever since she has been a little wary of my belly. I'm going to have to teach those two how to get along once Tamahra's out.

I suppose that my whole point in this post is to encourage you that we are all on our own journey and there is no point in taking on other people experiences. I've learned that as I rested in the Lord and trusted Him in this particular area that He met me and gave me peace and joy beyond my expectations. It really is amazing to me how unique every person's pregnancy is, it's like each one of us has our own special time just between us, our baby our God and, of course, our husbands. What a gift!

PS. The "Self Pity" Teaching and another teaching that has been super helpful to me called "God's Plan for Childbearing" are available in the bookstore section of www.beinhealth.com