Finding Freedom

Theres So Much More

Overcoming your struggles won't be easy and trust me I know it can be scary and frustrating. But each of us has to come to a realization that God has already conquered our battles— and by the power of he's spirit we can live completely free. There's so much more to this life, there's so much we can experience and give to others if we break free from the struggles that we are dealing with. If we learn to let God lead us instead of letting our struggles control us. The following bible verse is one of my favorites,

" Show me the right path, O Lord , point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me , for you are the God who saves me. All day I put my hope in you" - Psalm 25:4-5

The world wants to take you on a journey. It wants to tell you how to live your life , what you should think is important, how you should think about your work , how you should handle relationships, the list goes on ! And sometimes that journey looks good. It can be very attractive and satisfying for a while but it is not the journey that will glorify God. Let me encourage you today to let God — not this world or anything the world tries to inspire you to be or do — be the most fascinating thing in you life. That's a challenge but it's a challenge with an amazing reward. Allow him to lead you even if he's leading you in a direction you don't really want to be led. He wants your love, he wants your trust, and He wants to take you on an amazing journey through life that will put to shame everything the world could ever offer. Don't be afraid of God leading your life. It's time to step out and follow, because he wants to take you somewhere amazing!
Going back to my camp experience, I had the opportunity to serve as a Leader along with other Leaders from different church's. As we left the city and headed to the mountains I started to allow fear and doubt to bring me down. I started to get this weird feeling that something bad was going to happen. I thought that feeling was from God and that he was trying to stop me and warn me to not go. I also began to doubt God would use me as a Leader to bring faith back into the lives of the youth. I remember we had a quick stop In Bakersfield, Ca and I called my dad. I told him God was telling me to not go and I started to tell him how I felt and he said "God does not produce feelings of fear or anxiety. In fact , it's the opposite. Gods word tells us over and over again not to worry or fear and is very clear that God doesn't give you a spirit of fear but a spirit of power!"
As I continued to head to the mountains I started to become disgusted with the way fear and doubt and everything it came with was controlling my life. As I started to hate everything that I struggled with I also started to hate the person I was becoming because of it. And that was a big problem. That's when I knew I really had to change. I began to desire more than just four days serving as a leader I wanted to experience God personally. I knew that my greatest need was for him to bring freedom into my life. On my first night I began to pray and decided I no longer wanted to allow my struggles to control me and stop me from allowing God to do what he has created me for. I began to pray to remove everything that tormented me for so long. I began to pray intensely every night. I kept asking God to set me free from my struggles. As I began to give him everything I was struggling with, new levels of confidence and courage came to me every night. It was not a sudden break-through, or a realization that I was no longer feeling fear and doubt. It was something I saturated in ongoing prayer. As I continued to pray each night the Holy Spirit began to show me something. He began to show me I needed to change the way I was praying. Instead of crying out to God for my situation to change , He led me to cry out for my heart to change.
I learned a very important lesson through that experience. When we stop praying to God to change our circumstances and start asking him to change our hearts, that's when we experience the peace that passes understanding! (Philippians 4:7)
God did so much in my heart during camp. I want to tell you the most important lesson I learned about overcoming with anything that controlled me. The first lesson is that no matter how afraid you may be , or how hard you find it to overcome your struggles and anything that torments you. You don't have to stay that way. For me , it took becoming disgusted of who I was becoming and decided I would no longer let it control me. Once you decide to let go of your struggles and anything that is controlling you and start a journey with God. The best thing to do is pray. You'll never overcome it on your own, it's too strong. But by Gods Grace , the Holy Spirit and the Power of Jesus name , you can do it !
Sometimes people ask me how can they overcome those struggle without being a Christian. Honestly , I don't have a answer for that, because I can only speak about the way freedom came to me through the word of God. People can tell me they don't believe God is real, but no one can ever disapprove the freedom I've found through His truth and power.