For the past 12 hours, I’ve been asking God exactly what he wants to say to you through me today. I’ve been seeking his promptings for this devotional, praying it would meet you where you are and be precisely what you need to hear for your next step. And I believe what you hear next is the divine answer to my prayer over you. Listen closely to see what God is revealing to you.
You have been afraid of something. You have been stuck in indecision because you don’t want to make the wrong choice, so you haven’t been making a choice at all. But did you know not making a choice is a choice? When you chose to do nothing, you’re choosing to do nothing. And choosing to do nothing just kicks the can down the same road where things don’t magically get better, they often grow worse until we deal with them.
DEAL WITH THIS.
Yes, face down the thing you’ve been too afraid to do anything about. God doesn’t want his girl stuck here in this indecision for one more day. You know what’s worse than actually doing what needs to be done … Overthinking what needs to be done. Have you been piling the regret of another day where you didn’t do what needed to be done onto the weight of what you’re already carrying, and then you wonder why you can’t move forward. Girl, you can’t carry another day of regret. Those shoulders weren’t made to carry the weight of all this indecision building up.
GOD HAS ALREADY TAKEN CARE OF THE THING YOU’RE SO AFRAID OF.
Did you hear that? This thing that you’ve been going back and forth on, dizzied with your circles of fear and what if’s, has already been taken care of by your great big, all-knowing, all-powerful, relentlessly loving God. And he’s done it for you, personally. But you will never know just how perfectly he’s already taken care of it if you keep running from it and refuse to deal with it.
I mentor a precious woman who has been in a continual battle of indecision for a long time. She wanted change, but she was afraid of change. The fear of rejection and the fear of failure had kept her stuck in a situation that was sucking the life out of her. This weekend she shared with me an encounter she had with a snake, and although she didn’t fully understand what God was showing her, she knew she was supposed to share it with me and others.
Oh yes, you see, she was supposed to share it with me so I could tell YOU too. This encounter with the snake was for each of us.
A snake was at this woman’s doorstep. A large snake. Fearful of the snake, she grabbed a hatchet and threw it at the snake. She missed. The snake didn’t move. It only raised it’s head and looked at her, shaking its head from side to side. She threw the hatchet again and cut off a piece of its tail. Again, the snake didn’t move. Two more times, she threw the hatchet, each time the snake only looking at her and shaking its head, not trying to get away, until finally the blow that killed it.
Then she noticed, absolutely no blood coming from the snake. None at all. Completely dry. How could this be?
The snake was clearly alive, yet it did not strike, it didn’t even move. And now when cut in half, it didn’t bleed.
I asked God to reveal to me what this could mean, and immediately, the Spirit showed me this: The thing you’ve been afraid of has already been taken care of by God. It has no life in it. You have been offering the fullness of your life because of your fear over something that has no life. You haven’t been living up to your potential because you’ve been stuck in indecision, anxiety and fear, but God is showing you he’s already taken care of this.
You fear your step of faith will cause attack, but God has already paralyzed the attack to allow you to overcome this. Make your move! Take the next step. Follow God’s prompting with confidence. You will see what you feared has no life left in it.
Isaiah 35:4 “Say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”
The original Hebrew text of this scripture would translate more appropriately to address those with a racing heart. Not just fearful, but anxious, unsure, uncertain, overwhelmed. Is that you? Has your heart been racing with indecision over what to do? Have you been playing all the stories of “what if”, and somehow they’re all negative stories? It’s all the ways this could be the wrong decision, making things worse, ending badly.
So, what do you do? You do nothing. You stay stuck. You grow miserable. You become bitter. And you assign yourself to a position of continued misery in a place you don’t want to be, doing what you don’t want to do, while piece by piece you become less and less of who you were created to be.
But God says, “My girl with the racing heart, my girl stuck in indecision, my girl afraid to take the next step, my girl unsure of what to do here, BE STRONG, DO NOT FEAR, I AM HERE FOR YOU! I have already taken care of this. I have gone before you. I have made a way. I have removed the life from the threats you fear. You are not stuck here.”
If you just keep running from the snake, you will never understand God has already removed the life from the threat. There’s no blood in this. There’s no fight in this. You already stand in victory!
But you never see the victory if you keep running from the assumed threat. You never see how God has divinely made a way if you refuse to take your first unsteady step toward what is available to you. And yes, sometimes that first step toward what is available to you takes your right by the snake you most fear. Take that step anyway, Sis. Why? Because God says to the one with the racing heart, “Be strong and do not fear!”
One more amazing thing God revealed in the story of the snake in the backyard. How long does it take for ants and flies and other scavengers to show up on the scene to something dead? Not long. Within minutes there’s all kinds of scavengers coming to capitalize on a feast. In fact, flies have a keen sense of smell that detects the very first signs of decomposition, making them the first to arrive on the scene of a fresh kill. It’s just what flies do. But this snake, the one that didn’t flee when struck at, the one that didn’t bleed when cut in half, continued to lay in the yard with absolutely nothing attracted to it. Hours pass and still no ants, no flies, no birds, nothing.
Asking God what this meant, he revealed another promise to his girls with the racing hearts. He showed me that this threat to you will not spread, it will not continue. You fear what others will think and say, but God will not allow others to gather around this former threat. It will be done. It will be over. There will be no continued talk to hurt you. No further threats to follow you. Nothing and no one will want to pick up the pieces of what God defeated and try to carry them on as reminders.
The negative talk will end here. The attacks will end here. The haters will move on to their next prey, and you will be left in peace.
So, to the one with a racing heart. The one who went to bed worried last night. The one who woke up this morning still so totally confused about what to do next. The one who just doesn’t want to screw this next step up, so you have become stuck. The one who is filled with anxiety over things you can’t even quite put your finger on. To you, sweet girl, God has personally show up for you today to tell you, HE HAS ALREADY TAKEN CARE OF THIS. THERE IS NO LIFE LEFT IN THIS THREAT. DEAL WITH IT. MOVE FORWARD.
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