Rehoboth: God Is Making Room For you!And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So, he called its name Rehoboth, because he said For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land." Genesis 26:22 In this particular text before we get to this point, we find that Isaac's men have already dug two wells. Each time, they were met with resistance by local herdsmen. Isaac named both wells to represent the challenges that he faced. The first well he named Esek (Well of Contention) and the second he named Sitnah (Well of Seperation). Despite all the challenges that he encountered, he continued to dig and the third well brought no dispute. And because of that, he named this third well Rehoboth which means "broad place" or "room." And, I am here to tell you that like Isaac, God is making room for you! Isaac found favor because he was willing to move only as instructed by God. Genesis 26:2 says that the Lord appeared to Isaac and said "Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in the land for a while and I will be with you and bless you." God had already made covenant with Abraham and the promise was being fulfilled through Isaac. But, I can imagine that Isaac may have had some weary days considering that his every attempt was met with opposition. But no matter what the challenge, Isaac obeyed God, stayed planted, and kept digging. If you know that you have clearly heard the voice of the Lord concerning your situation, keep digging, no matter what kind of opposition you find yourself up against. Many times, we have not possesed all that God has for us because we stop at Esek and Sitnah but God is saying keep digging!! He wants to enlarge your territory but you've got to keep being faithful in your hard place and He will make room for you right where you are! But if we are willing to tell the truth, we will admit that it's not just outside opposition that's holding us back. Sometimes it's our own fears and insecurities that are stunting our growth because we are trying to measure ourselves against other people. But, you have to understand that there is a unique calling on your life. What God has put in you has only been purposed to come through YOU. So if God has called you to do something, it doesn't matter how many other people are doing it...God will make room for your gift! There are people who have been assigned to your life and they need what you have to give. You don't have to do it like anyone else. Do it like God gives it to you. So if God has placed a burden on you to write a book, it doesn't matter how many people are writing books...keep digging! If God has given you a voice to sing, it doesn't matter how many people are recording albums...keep digging! WHATEVER it is that God has given you to do, just know that He is about to make room for you...keep digging!! Rehoboth: God Is Making Room For You!
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Welcome to 2020! If you are reading this...we made it!! I am excited about what God is doing in this season of my life. But, if I am completely honest, in the past a new year really brought about mixed emotions for me. Being excited about a fresh start coupled with the fear that I wasn't sure what that year would hold. I had been living with these emotions since the passing of my mother 18 years ago. I could vividly remember how happy she was to have crossed over into a new year not knowing that 31 days into that year, she would be called to eternal rest. So with each passing year, I would be secretly gripped with fear. But this year, I decided that fear no longer had authority over my mind. That I would no longer allow the enemy to cause me to be bound. This year I am walking in Kingdom Authority! Believing God that this is the year of my Harvest. Not because this is a "new year new me," but because I have a seed in the ground. I have prayed and labored over it so I can declare in agreement with God's Word that every tear that feel in 2019 will manifest back to me in joy (Psalm 126:5). And that every promise concerning me is YES and AMEN (2 Corinthians 1:20). This is our winning season. After reading Isiah 40:31 in my devotional time, I heard in the spirit "A Fresh Wind For A Fresh Win." Because we have waited in expectation, God is about to renew our strenghth and cause us to win!! We are about to reap the manifested blessings of God because of our labor. God is about to cause us to triumph because everytime we had a right to quit, we still refused to give up. This is our season of uncommon, unconventional, unbelievable harvest...and it is so! I don't know what God is gracing you to do on this year, but whatever it is go after it! Pursue the call of God on your life like never before. Commit yourself to being intentional about walking out your purpose and refuse to allow the enemy to cause you to accept mediocrity. Your are the child of a King. Walk in that authority! #WeWin
I read something once that said "God, I'm frustrated but I trust you." Those words have been extremely true in my life recently! I know all of the "churchy" responses. But there are times that we are simply frustrated or when we are feeling broken and politically correct responses just won't get it. Not long ago; I pulled up at home, turned my engine off, and tears just quietly began to stream down my cheeks. I sat in that car in this Arkansas heat for what seemed like an eternity. I just began to pour my heart out to God right there. Not just the emotion of the current moment, but the sum of my present frustrations.
Don't get me wrong, I never once doubted that God could bring me through. But in that very moment, I just wanted to express how I felt at this point in my journey. If we are not careful, we'll be walking around with the weight of a burden that doesn't rightfully belong to us. Because those feelings of frustration, fear, and hurt belong at the feet of Jesus. It's only when we leave them there that we can feel completely free. And when we truly desire to develop an intimate relationship with God, there's nothing that we can't share with Him and nothing that He won't shoulder for us. The real problem is that too often, we are sharing our frustrations and fears with people who don't have the capability to fix them. As I began sharing my heart, Psalm 27:14 dropped in my spirit. "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." That's amazing to me because if the text admonishes that if we wait, He will strengthen our hearts. That infers to me that the Lord knew that there would be times in our waiting that we would need His strength to get through. I hope that this post serves as a reminder that we all have our moments of weakness. Even the people who look like they have it all together have moments of helplessness. But what we have to remember is that while it's ok to have those feelings, we as believers don't have to stay there. Because our hope is in Christ Jesus, we know that everything that we are currently experiencing has been divinely orchestrated to work for our good. Where you are in your journey today is not your final destination. God desires to bring you to an expected end. So although those times will come; deal with the emotion, shake it off, and encourage yourself in the word! I never want you to think that I was desperate for just ANY man. I hope you understand that it was for you that I prayed. I ask God that as time began to close in and He prepared our paths to cross that He would reveal my heart to you in a way that no other man would ever understand. Although I never actively searched for you, I have been actively preparing myself. Seeking after the heart of God so that I will better understand how to protect yours. I have given myself completely to prayer so that I will know how to cover you and call down the promises of God over your life.
While I have prayed for you often, I have never been consumed with WHERE you were because I knew that you needed this time to allow God to make you WHO you needed to be for me. Know that every heartache and disappointment that you've experienced has only been a channel to direct you in my direction. God knew that everything that you went through would make you the man that you are today. Waiting was not always easy but I knew that it was necessary. It was in my waiting that I started to fully love who I was. I knew that if I didn't love me, I wouldn't know how to allow you to love me. I spent time embracing my singleness and learned to appreciate my time alone. I wanted to make sure that when you entered my life my answer wouldn't be yes just because I didn't want to be alone. I wanted my yes to be "YES" simply because you are the fulfillment of God's promise to me. In this time, I have learned to love my life and all of the people who have been placed in it. I have traveled, enjoyed new things, and cherished many of the old things. So know that when you found me I wasn't thirsty because I had lived a full satisfying life. The only desperation I felt was to fulfill the purpose of God for my life through our lives together. After reading this quote, I decided that it completely embodies where I am in my life. "I'd rather be by myself than to be with someone who doesn't value and appreciate my presence." This realization has brought me to explore the dichotomy of love. It is the desire to fully give myself to love versus my need to protect my heart from the hurt, disappointment, and rejection that has become such a staple in my life. It could be described as a raging internal conflict between myself and my desire to surrender and submit to the posibilty of love.
A part of me wants to still believe that love exists and a part of me is pretty sure that love the way I see it is extinct. Love for me is selflessly giving of yourself for the good of the whole. It is an intentional, continual decision to do what it takes to make the other person happy. It is being mature enough to realize that the other person is not perfect but being willing to continue on the journey anyway. To love someone means that you see the best in them and when you don't, you gently encourage them to be better all while creating a safe judgment free zone for them to make those adjustments. It is consistent and not quick to give up. Real love finds a way to love harder even when the other person might be acting unlovable. At the center of this love you will find rooted a desire to please God that won't allow you to wilfully mistreat the other. However in today's society, this kind of love is extremely rare. Even when presented with someone with these qualities, society has conditioned us to keep searching for the newest version or the upgrade. Everyone is constantly looking for the next one and aren't willing to invest the time needed to make this one work. People always say they want love but very few are interested in putting in the work that makes it successful. It is because of this that I have found it hard to allow myself to be vulnerable with anyone. But, I do understand that true love requires one to be willing to be completely open and vulnerable. Love is the greatest of all gifts but it also had the potential to create the greatest amount of pain. So my solution has been to put up a protective wall of resistance. The problem is that the same wall that we use to protect our hearts is the same one that presents us from receiving the kind of love that we deserve. Love should be our safe place; a shelter from our fears and worries. In a moment of transparency, I have to say that the complexity of love is something that I often think about but something that I find myself praying less and less for. But, I do know that God knows even the silent petitions of our heart. If He opens a door that will allow love to flow to my heart again, I will be forever grateful. But even if that is not His plan for my life in this season, I will not trust Him any less. In the end I know that He knows exactly what I need and when I need it so if I allow Him to heal my heart and send love my way, I know it will be worth the wait. January 31, 2001 at 3:05pm my life changed in a way that I couldn't possibly imagine it would. As I looked down on my mother, I watched the life slip from her body. It was a feeling that I can never explain but one that I will certainly never forget. Over the years, I have wondered how my life would have been different with her here with me. There were times when I wasn't sure if I could go on but 15 years later, I am a testament of God's faithfullness. I used to wonder if she would be proud of me. I now know that everything that I am she already knew I would become. It has really just been my journey to discover all of the things that she already knew were planted in me. In 20 years she empowered me with a lifetime full of lessons.
I know exactly how hard it is to deal with the loss of a mother. But, I want to encourage you that although time does not change the facts, faith in an all powerful God will see you through. I have found strength in sharing my story, and I encourage you to do the same. Many times we feel being strong is equated to being numb. Like that will somehow make it all go away. It won't. I tell people grief is a personal journey and we all have to navigate through it in our own way. Don't feel guilty if you find yourself in tears. If that is how you have to express yourself then allow yourself to feel that emotion but just don't live there. Remember God keeps record of every tear that falls from our eyes and He is concerned about everything that concerns us. I challenge you to spend this Mother's Day loving on the people He has placed in your life. Life is precious and we must learn to cherish every moment of it. Think of your mother. What is her legacy? As you think on that, begin to think on what it is that you will leave behind? What can you contribute to the people who are left in your life? Plant seeds of love and they will forever be rooted in the hearts of the people that you have encountered. I wanted to sit down and pen a thank you letter to you. It is only because of you that I am the woman that I am today. There are really so many facets that I just don’t rightfully know where to begin but I’ll start by saying thank you for the long line of failures, mistakes, hurt, rejection, pain, depression, and struggle. Each of which has increased my wisdom and challenged me to continue to grow emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.
I want to personally take the time to thank the men who have undervalued me and not fully appreciated the love that I have had to offer. It is because of you that I have learned to seek out my first love and desire a deeper connection with Him. Living with the loneliness that accompanies rejection, has taught me to appreciate the time that I have spent getting to know myself. When you learn to live with and embrace the time you spend alone, you won’t be so apt to accept anything for the sake of having something. This time alone has allowed me to differentiate between taking on unhealthy relationships for the sake of filling a void and allowing myself to invest in someone who has the real potential to add value to my life. Ultimately, rejection and loneliness has taught me the significance of the wait and developed in me the importance of honoring the man that God has fashioned for me when He comes. With that being said I want to pause to say thank you to loss…deep unimaginable loss. We are taught that we don’t have to be thankful FOR all things but IN ALL THINGS give thanks. I am grateful even in loss that I have learned to appreciate the people who are yet in my life. If I had never experienced the depth of loss that I have encountered, I might not have developed such a deep and passionate love for the people who are left. Many times I don’t know how to scale back my feelings because I give people all that I have and I am learning to no longer feel bad about that. Although it has opened me up to some very vulnerable situations, in the end it has created a more loving, compassionate heart in me and God certainly honors that. I would be remiss to write this letter and leave out rock bottom. Many people may not be able to relate to this portion because perhaps you have always had an abundance of everything that you wanted, but I can’t say that is my testimony. I thank God for the times that I felt like I was just scraping by. I am grateful for the nights that I laid in my bed and calculated on my two hands how to stretch out the little that I had to make the month. It was in those times that I learned to lean and depend completely on God. I watched Him many days do only what He could do and I am so thankful for the distance that He has brought me. In closing, I am grateful for the peace that I have found in my pain. It really doesn’t matter if your darkness is the same, worse, or less intense than mine. The truth is we all struggle. We all get hurt. We all make mistakes. And all these things deepen our capacity for amazing love, joy, passion, and fulfillment. Marshunda Thomas “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.” Joel 2:25 The other day, I opened my drawer and sitting there I saw my two most prized possessions; a small brown glass bottle with a rusted white cap and a busted little red coin purse with a silver clasp. Tears started to fall down my face as the significance of those two items together began to fill my mind.
When the hospital called me to pick up my dad’s clothes, the only things he had in his pocket were his glasses and a small brown glass bottle. It is important to understand that since having his leg amputated, he had been staying at a rehab center and in his last days there were times when he didn’t even recognize me or my children. But there in his pocket were the items that he still remembered he couldn’t leave without…his glasses and his blessed oil. It was indicative of who he was because even as a child, some of my very first memories of my dad are those of him praying. I can still remember him kneeling beside my bed and reciting the Lord’s Prayer with me and him leading prayer with us every year that we were together on New Year’s Eve. When he came to live with me, I was telling him about someone asking me to pray for them. He looked at me and said “you know that’s the best compliment someone can give you. If they ask you to pray for them, that means that they trust that you can get a prayer through.” That’s why as he became increasingly ill and it became obvious to me that things were beginning to spiral, I turned to the only thing I knew…prayer. One day I got a call from the rehab center saying that they were once again transporting him to the hospital. I left my job to go check on him and when I walked into his room everything seemed so very different but eerily familiar at the same time. I hadn’t seen him like this before. I noticed just how small his frame had become. His face appeared to be sunken in and he barely responded to me when I called his name. Although it was my first time seeing him like that, the feeling that I got being in the room seemed similar to the feeling I had when I realized that my mother might not make it. When he had gone into surgery to have his leg amputated, I held his hand and we prayed the prayer of faith. Although I knew that we had a long road ahead of us, I believed that God could and would heal his body. But when I walked into that room on this day, the feeling was different. It wasn’t that I believed that God didn’t have the power to heal him, but it was the realization that at this point I would have to accept whatever He would allow. I looked down at him, gently placed my hand over his head, and began to pray. I didn’t pray a long drawn out selfish prayer. I simply asked God that He would find favor in His life and honor His faithfulness. It was in that moment that I received peace. It was an oddly familiar feeling. Grief is the most complex, unique emotion that you will ever experience. I always shy away from telling people “I know exactly how you feel” because the truth is while two people may experience the same kind of loss, no two people will ever deal with it the same. The loss of my father was especially hard for me because it was, in my mind, the end of an era. While he was alive, I still had a piece of the life that we lived so many years ago on Raymond Circle Drive but after he passed that seemed to go with him. The memories will always remain but he was the last tangible tie that I had to my childhood. But when I opened that drawer, I saw there my mother’s coin purse with everything exactly the way she left it 15 years ago right down to the change and now my dad’s oil existing together once again. The significance of that was overwhelming to me. It was beautiful in my mind because I watched my father at the end of his life search for a love like the one he shared for 24 years with my mother. Although sometimes I would give him a hard time about it, he explained to me that he longed for a companion who he could share the sunset years of his life with. My heart aches for the loneliness that I now understand that he felt. But I have peace knowing that both of my parents are now resting. Even if I never experience a relationship with the kind of unconditional love that they shared, I am blessed to be able to say that I have witnessed it before. I am so grateful to have grown up in a house where my parents grossed me out at times being affectionate towards each other and where I understood that family was always first. In a time when money was not always plentiful, the one thing that was never scarce was love. I saw my parents go without many days so that I could have the best of everything they could offer. They made sacrifices in their own lives that afforded me the opportunities that I have today and for that I am thankful. Most of all I am I am grateful for the legacy that they left behind for my children and I. How many times have you shared intimate details about yourself only to be left feeling betrayed? When you open up to others, you are leaving yourself open to all of the things that come with that vulnerability. To be naked is to be completely uncovered; leaving nothing hidden. Please understand that I think that it is extremely important that you allow yourself to be transparent and vulnerable when you are in a committed relationship. However, the problem is when you offer too much to people who have no real responsibility to keep it safe. Everyone that you meet or share a conversation over dinner with doesn't need to know the inner workings of your heart. And you wonder why it is that you are continually finding yourself hurt and abused. It's because you are leaving your blindside exposed to the wrong people.
The Bible is clear that you are to guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Queens, it is imperative that when it comes to dating that you allow God to slowly reveal your heart to the right man. Many people don't understand that emotional intimacy can be just as gripping as physical intimacy. When you share your most intimate dreams, failures, aspirations, and desires you create an emotional connection that is often not easily dissolved. When you share those intimate details with the wrong people, instead of them trying to understand them in a way that will allow them to love you more effectively, they will use them as a tool to manipulate you. It's important in dating and in creating any kind of relationship that you seek Godly wisdom on how much of yourself you need to reveal to others. Your prayer should be that God will reveal your heart to the man who has been designed to handle its delicate contents. Stop offering yourself up for a pauper's pay when you're worth a King's ransom! Ephesians 4:23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind
The reason that we are told that we must renew our minds is because an infectious mind leads to infectious behavior. In the natural sense an infection can occur when bacteria enters a break in the skin. My father is diabetic and recently developed a diabetic ulcer on his large toe so we have been seeing a wound care specialist. The doctor explained that because of the severity of the infection the reality is that he may have to lose his toe, and if the infection that is now centered in his toe is not treated properly he could stand to lose his whole foot or possibly his entire leg. So one day as I was spending time in prayer for him, I begin to think about how that same principle can be applied to our lives. Often times, we wonder why our romantic and even family relationships seem to always be unhealthy. The truth is, many times those relationships are unhealthy because of our infectious way of thinking. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that we have these unhealthy thinking patterns and instead of trying to treat the problem properly we are simply placing a Band-Aid over them. In the natural sense even though the cut might be visible on the outside of the skin the real problem is with the infection that might be lying just below the surface. Although you might be treating the outside cut with surface antibiotics, the real issue that could potentially kill you is the nasty infection that can’t be detected with the natural eye. So although we have to address the issue of the outer hurt, it is imperative that we also treat our hurting places on the INSIDE. See that is the problem, many of us have internal hurts and baggage that we are dealing with and we are simply moving on and trying to create new relationships (Band-Aid) without first treating the inner hurt (infection). And now what happens is as we create these new connections we are wondering why we keep seeing the same patterns, why are we seemingly experiencing the same hurt over and over and the answer is because we haven’t dealt with our inner hurts. So from the outside everything appears to be healed…we’re smiling, we have good jobs, we are buying new homes, taking our kids to soccer practice, head of the PTO and all the while INFECTED on the inside. So what began with a little hurt and a little unforgivness has now begun to spread to every area of our life because we left that one thing untreated. In full transparency, this was something that I dealt with and still deal with in developing romantic relationships. For many years I dealt with the issue of abandonment and feeling alone. It is a struggle that many people won’t understand. How can you be surrounded by so many people and have so many people in your life but yet feel ALONE??? For me my issue started after losing my mother at a young age, some of my family members moving away and starting their own lives, my dad remarrying soon after, and then entering into a series of failed relationships…..I was left feeling empty and alone…abandoned! Because I lived with that infectious thinking without properly talking about it and dealing with it, every time someone else would come into my life and desire to add to it, I was never fully open to accepting that love because I was always waiting for them to leave. It was the cycle that I had become accustomed to …people who I loved leaving. So I was never able to be as completely open as I needed to be because perhaps I was always somewhat guarded. Why??? Because I had not allowed my mind to be renewed. I was simply walking around with a Band-Aid on. It is those thought patterns that we MUST deal with if we ever hope to create healthy relationships with other people because if we are not careful and we don’t deal with them not only will we begin to allow that thinking to spread all over every area of our own lives, we will begin to infect those around us. So what is the lesson??? We cannot continue to walk around with deep infectious hurts and unforgiveness and expect to create healthy connections with other people by simply placing a Band-Aid over our issues. We must first be honest about our feelings and when those issues that we are carrying become too heavy for us to shoulder alone, we must begin to lay every hurt, disappointment, seed of unforgiveness and painful experience at the feet of Jesus and allow Him to heal us from the inside out. |
AuthorMarshunda Thomas Archives
January 2020
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