If the dark cloud you’re under doesn’t move, then you move.” And that’s something I’m encouraging you to do today. Move! Albert Einstein says it like this: “Nothing Happens Until Something Moves”.
There are real monsters that a lot of people have locked in a closet somewhere in their heart: the secret pain, the secret sin, the secret darkness of that unforgiving heart. They're like vampires. They live in the darkness. But as you become older, you discover that they start to lose their power when you drag them into the light.
In my experience counseling people, when it comes to life’s experiences with pain, many people have found that getting rid of ‘monsters’ isn’t as easy or as simple as turning on a flashlight. The monsters of molestation, rape, domestic violence, health battles, homelessness, and the like didn’t exactly go away as quickly as the flip of a light switch for many. Nor did they for my friend Linda.
Linda, was abandoned, often physically abused by a drunken father, and cocaine addicted mother. Then she was horribly betrayed by her sister’s boyfriend. She trusted him so much as the brother she never had, and yet he sexually violated her. It was the final chapter in a story that told her a cruel lie, "Linda, you're worthless." A story line that brought her to the brink of suicide not once but three times. She took pills the first time, slit her wrists the second, and the third time she held a gun to her own head literally.
Thank God, Linda came across some wonderful people who led her to Jesus who did what no one and nothing else could do, He saved her. However, there was a few monsters left living in her closet; bitterness, anger, mistrust, fear of rejection, not to mention, hatred that she harbored in her heart. Now, all of her feelings and emotions were understandable. But unforgiveness never hurts the person we refuse to forgive.
No, instead it eats us alive and, strangely, it ties us to the very person we can't stand.
Like so many who have had to endure mistreatment in whatever form, many did like Linda and stuffed it in the closet. But it's there where it grows into a monster of ungrieved grief, unrepented sin, and unforgiven hurt; a monster that morphs into all kinds of anger, rage, depression and self-loathing.
John 8:12, “Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows Me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.” (MSG)
Once You Start Living in the Light, You’ll Stop Letting Darkness Visit! Jesus provides plenty of light to live in, what better motivation than that to move out of darkness? Why live in that darkness a moment longer than you have to.
Listen, truth is, sometimes you can move IT, and sometimes you simply have to move YOU. Which may require a great deal of separation; like moving from those old contacts, connections, phone calls, text messages, pictures and emails. Move from that place, from that thing, from that person. Move from re-imagining memories in a prettier light than they actually were. Move from those feelings, that conversation, move from repetitive bad decisions and choices. Move your dark into His light.
Today: Take all of your monsters out of your past closet, and into your prayer closet.
Take the regret, the remorse, the bitterness, the anger, the hatred, the revenge, the unforgiveness. Take the broken heart and the broken spirit. Take the fractured mind and the bruised ego. Take what they said and what they did. Even take the part you played in your own self-inflicted painful drama. Take it all to Him. There is no greater Light than the Lord!
Stop allowing hurt to hang around in your closet! Packed it up and put it out! God Himself Called You Out of Darkness, So Why Are You Still Trying to Live There? Don’t you see that in spite of where you’ve been, what you’ve done and what was done to you, He yet calls you chosen; a royal priesthood; a consecrated nation; a special people; His own possession. As dark as you were, He still called you out of darkness!
He Called You OUT…So Why Are You Allowing Your Past to Keep You IN?! Despite the Mess, you have since received Mercy, so why not live in it?
Listen, you’ve been under that dark cloud long enough. You’ve been scared of those monsters in that dark closet long enough. Today is a new day, and one in which you need not give old days the opportunity to rob you of. Whatever happened, happened.
You can’t undo it; you can’t change it; you can’t go back and alter some of the details of it. But you can decide today, that I’m not going to give another moment to those monsters. My body, soul, spirit, heart, mind and emotions all deserve to live in light. I deserve peace, joy, laughter, unconditional love and complete healing and wholeness, and I’ve decided it will start today.
Now, sometimes that will require you to delete the photos, messages and contact information. It may require you to stop talking to that person, or going back to that place. Listen: You can’t ask God to bring you into the light while you bring darkness with you, still clutched tightly in your hands. You have to make the deliberate decision to let darkness go and leave it in the hands of God.
2 Corinthians 6:14-18, “…How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?...” (MSG) The answer, NO! So you cannot ask God to bring you out of darkness, when you refuse to let darkness go. Know today that you can’t take that darkness with you into a bright future!
Whatever your ‘monsters’ are, bring them out of your past closet of darkness and into your present prayer closet of light. You’ve dealt with enough torment, torture, self-doubt and self-pity. You’ve been under that dark cloud far too long. You’ve cried enough; been depressed and discouraged enough; you’ve been lonely, angry and bitter enough you’ve replayed their role in your drama enough; you’ve renewed the issues to your past publications of pain long enough. You’ve complained and talked about it enough.
Use this Winter to do some Spring cleaning in advance! Clean all that old junk out of your closet! All of it! The lies, the truth, the rumors, gossip, fornication, adultery, substance abuses, stealing, back-stabbing, rejection, abandonment...All Of It, Whatever Your IT Is! Stop allowing hurt to hang around in your closet! Pack it up and put it out!
Today, Bring Your Monsters From Your Past Closet to Your Prayer Closet and Meet God There! You'll Go in Dark, But You'll Come Out Light and Lighter!
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