Releasing Our Burdens // Letting Go Of Fear And WorrySample

A Good Day

The light shines brightly now. Can you see it? I love how it falls on your face. You tell me you can’t see it, that you can’t imagine seeing it. But I see it. You wonder what it will take for you to see it too. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you right now what it takes.

It takes conviction that there is good for you, right now, this moment. It takes believing there is more than what you can see—more than the dreariness of any weather, more than the perceived staleness of your routine.

I am not routine. I am not stale or dreary or boring. I am for you. And I am in all things. I am in the air. I am in the water falling from sky. I am in sunlight and clouds. I am in the music surrounding you, and I am in the quiet. I am in the quiet now. You don’t have to fear the quiet—when it feels like you are alone, or doing something wrong, or that beauty is not within you.

And there it is—why you struggle to see the light falling on your face, why you question whether I could truly be filling your heart. You doubt you have what it takes to believe I am close. You doubt that I am enough. And this doubt makes you feel alone, convinced you are wasting this day and not entering into the possibility it holds.

Let me tell you something: I will not convince you of what is true unless you want to be convinced. Do you? Do you?

I fill you. I am the gift of this day. Don’t squander it. Don’t squander the opportunity to be with me, to know me more, to abandon insecurity and doubt and choose to believe there is more for you. Just your desire to believe that there is more is a road to saying yes to me.

You have said yes to my Son, yes? You have seen him and loved him and want to believe there is more for you in this life? You believe that here, even here, light can shine so brightly, fall so gently on your face? I fill your heart. I do it right now. There is not a thing you need to do but choose to surrender the belief that your circumstances equal your worth. What you do today, how you feel today, can all be surrendered to me. It is in the surrender of these moments, these details, that you can see what I give you.

So, there, there is light. You are light shining brightly. It is love shining brightly, me in you, mighty one.

Exercise:

It is often beliefs we hold—beliefs we’ve held for a long time—that prevent us from believing what God says to us. These are usually beliefs about ourselves and our worth, and they run counter to what God says is true.

This probably isn’t much of a surprise. You’ve no doubt experienced, at some point, how your doubts and insecurities can color how you see everything—how you view the world, how you make choices in your relationships, your work life, about how you allocate your time. They can definitely affect how we choose to love. So it’s no wonder they can impact how we relate to God.

Knowing ourselves, and how we’ve blown it in the past, it’s just difficult to believe that we are, in fact, chosen and now adored, redeemed and now righteous, mighty and now dangerous. And it’s impossible to fake it. We doubt ourselves, and so we doubt God when He tells us we shouldn’t. And it can get so that we doubt Him now, when He tells us anything.

So, what do we do? Well, the Holy Spirit told us: “I will not convince you of what is true unless you want to be convinced.” He said, “Just your desire to believe that there is more is a road to saying yes to me.”

So, do you want to believe there is more? More of God? More love? More life? For you?

The desire, just the desire, is what’s most important. Because the Holy Spirit can energize us to do the rest —if we want Him to. If we want it, His power will flow into us and will deal with our beliefs, our doubts, our fears, our unbelief—if we ask Him.

Let’s start, right now, with the belief that worldly things determine our worth—that our jobs, our homes, our families, our friends, our finances, our health, our education, that any of that, or anything like that, can determine our worth. Let’s start there: that’s the first belief that needs to go.

So, invite the Holy Spirit to give you a new way to see—a new way to see Him and a new way to see yourself. . . .

Ask Him to show you, in your mind, your heart, your imagination, a picture of Himself . . . a picture of the Kingdom . . . a picture of you and Him together. . . .

Let God speak to your heart. Let your imagination open up to more of Him. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?. . .

Jesus, come. I believe you are here. I believe you love me. I will not give into fears and doubts about my worth. You are my worth. Show me now how much I am worth to you. Amen.