Thought Marathons!

Do your thoughts run marathons sometimes?

As I began to pray this morning some past hurts from years ago, that I thought had been long forgiven and forgotten resurfaced and my mind kept going over the pain, wanting them to know just how much they had hurt me.

I kept trying to push these thoughts away but I couldn’t focus and they kept resurfacing, I just couldn’t stop the thoughts of wanting them to feel my hurt.

‘But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.’

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Rom 7:23-24

Friends, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:’ Jer 12:9

As I began to pour out my hurt to the Lord I prayed for help to live 2 Cor 10:4-5

‘For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.’

The answer was immediate but instead of taking away the thoughts and giving me peace as I expected, God brought conviction.

He took me right back to my early childhood and all the times over the years that I have said or done hurtful things, things to hurt my parents or friends. God showed me sin after sin and I realised how often I had hurt my God and others.

All the angry thoughts and hurt disappeared and my heart was melted with love for my Saviour, to the One who loved me unconditionally, who saw me in all my mess and brokenness and still choose to die for me.

Oh the wonder of redeeming love!

‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ 1 John 4:19

‘But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved.’ Eph 2:4-5

I’ve found that the more I’m kept from outward sin, the more I’m shown the thought and heart sins.

This stripping away of self, this revealing of just how much sin there is in me is hard to the flesh but O the wonder because as God reveals more and more to me of what a broken mess I am the more I know of the depth of His love and what it is to depend only on Him. The more I know of what it is to walk….

‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.’ Zech 4:6

What a blessed thought, in Christ we have all we will ever need to fight against our sinful nature and the enemy of our souls. Through Christ in us the victory will be sure.

“No more ME, just all Christ IN me.”

“Don’t try harder, lean harder.”

My heart was so filled with joy and peace as I was given the grace to take those thoughts captive, to give them in all their sinfulness to my Saviour to cast into the depths of the sea and in return give me more grace.

‘For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.’

The battle may be fierce at times friends but grace will conquer, through Christ Jesus we will have the victory if we throw ourselves in all our brokenness into the arms of a loving Jesus and stop trying to fight alone and lean only on Him.

‘BUT HE GIVETH MORE GRACE.’

Sharon x