Tuesday’s Trench Lesson

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Welcome to Tuesday’s Trench Lesson @ Trench Classes United and Chicklit Power! Grab your coffee and your strand of faith and let’s get back to these five things we tend to put our hope in…which actually send us jumping into the pit of despair!

So far we’ve talked about what happens when we put our hope in others…and how that leads to unreasonable expectations from them and often leads to a breakdown in that relationship instead of a breakthrough; and we’ve talked about putting our hope in money.

Now let’s talk about the third thing we often put our hope in…ourselves! Now before you disagree with me, hang in there with me for a few minutes because this is often a subconscious or unconscious hope and I see it over and over again in so many people and those people represent homes, and those homes represent relationships. Do you see how the cycle can perpetuate? Okay, back on track here!

We put our hope in ourselves when we consistently and persistently leave the spiritual piece of us untouched, un-consulted and covered up! This feeds the “I am rock; I am an island” mentality! We fall into a self-reliant attitude and that attitude will also prevent us from reaching out to others for help and/or guidance. No one was meant to do life alone; that’s the truth! A burden twice shared is half the load! (Galatians 6:2)

God uses relationships to heal relationships. We’ve all heard and seen how hurt people hurt people but if when we were hurt we went to Whom we hope in before relying on ourselves to either “fix” the situation or make it worse, which is what usually happens when we rely on self, wouldn’t there be fewer broken people, less hurt and pain?  We’ve got to make HIM our first stop of the day!

We could go on for hours about this one, but let’s move on in this list of seven things we put our hope in. The next one is our hurt, habit or hang-up! I know, that seems really weird, especially since many of us yearn to be free from that which torments us emotionally, but let me try and make this clearer than mud: Our hope in our habit or hang-up is that it will make us “feel” better, help us forget about what keeps sending us back to it, over and over again! It’s a monetary fix providing a feeling of euphoria; it’s that “feeling” that keeps us coming back to it!

There’s hope, an actual prescription found in Galatians 5:16-17: “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish.”

Whew, for those of us with clogs in our spiritual pipes leading to our hearts, that may seem a bit “holy-roly” but let me re-write it for you and I pray you will be able to put whatever hurt or habit that prevents His love from becoming your hope into this God-breathed scripture:

Evinda, walk in/with His spirit and you shall recognize the wounds of the past that wage against My Spirit inside of you, for My Spirit and those things which were done to hurt you are contrary to one another and they prevent you from doing what your heart truly desires, which is My will.

Go ahead, try it. Fill in the blanks with whatever is preventing you from putting your complete HOPE in HIM, and put your name in His words to you: ______________, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill ______________________________________, for this goes against the Spirit and the Spirit against this; and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish!

Love and hope to you,

Evinda