Today's Negativity Fast Tip. Find peace with 3 insightful tips to live unoffended at God—nurture your spiritual harmony and resilience!
Trevor Lund has helped over 10,000 people fast from negativity since 2006. Check out all the tips and tools to fast from negativity https://revtrev.link/tips Join the negativity fast at https://revtrev.link/fast and find out how to Live LIGHT Above the Negativity https://revtrev.link/bless
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You were created to walk with God in the garden in the cool of the day. Sin came into the world, and you bore the consequences. Jesus came and took your place and reversed the curse, and offered you his yoke that is easy and his burden that is light. You're a child of God. Creation longs to be revealed. You are a living light. Don't conform but be transformed so you can have peace and joy and hope at all times and in every situation.
Here are three tips, and really quickly.
Negativity Fast Tip 1 to live unoffended at God
Tip number one is to know that you can live offended at God. If you don't think you can live offended at God, and I tell you you're living offended at God, and you're put your arms up like this and say, "God wants to take my husband. You can take my husband." Yeah, your emotions betray you. Your emotions tell you what you really believe.
Listen, if you are not able to spend that quiet time alone with God and rest in his presence, if you are not in the word and letting the word read you, and you're standoffish, then you're probably living offended at God. For me, when I get ticked off at people... Generally, it's people in my city that don't drive the way I think they should. When that happens, I ask myself if I have been spending time alone with God and what's keeping me from it. I realize I might be upset because I expected to be doing something that I thought God wanted me to do, but that door got slammed in my face, or it never came about, or I did everything I needed to do, and nothing good came out of it.
My Story of living offended at God
I learned this when I left a church that I loved to move to New Zealand because I felt that's what God wanted me to do. We made the announcement to our church that we were leaving, and about two months later, my dad was diagnosed with Bulbar ALS. Bulbar ALS starts in the back of your brain and moves through your body. Essentially, it stops your ability to speak, swallow, and then breathe. It's a disease from the pit of hell, and usually, people have about 18 months to live after being diagnosed. Though some live longer, which is awesome because God is so good. After all of this, God didn't heal my dad. I went through what people call a dark night of the soul for a few years.
And part of that was not having the language to describe what I was feeling towards God. Because he's God, I'm not; he's the potter, I'm the clay. Yay me.
Negativity Fast Tip 2 to live unoffended at God
Tip number two is to recognize the signs that you might be living offended at God. The signs for me include not being able to be in His presence or in His Word or avoiding getting close to Him. When that happens, it's time to check: Am I living offended at You?
And tip number three: Know the tools to stop living offended at God. What are those tools? They are confession and repentance. I've made three choices in my life:
I will...
- ...not give God credit for the works of the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
- ...treat all hardship as discipline, knowing He will work it together for good.
- ...worry about nothing; pray about everything; and thank Him in all things, knowing that this is His will for me in Christ Jesus.
Negativity Fast Tip 3 to live unoffended at God
It's not about painting a rosy picture of things or avoiding the reality of life. It's about taking the crap of life to God and reading the Psalms and saying, "God, why have you forsaken me? How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?"
Most of the Psalms are Psalms of Lament. These Psalms pour out the heartache and then turn to praise. We need to learn the power of lament—the power of personal lament.
Really, if you're feeling offended at God, it's tough but say, "Okay, I confess I'm living offended at You. Help me not to live offended at You." Then what? You go to the Psalms and read until you find one that resonates with how you feel. Camp out there for a while until you see that God can handle that pouring out of emotion.
God can handle your honesty about how you feel because our emotions tell us what we truly believe. They are excellent tools but terrible masters. We let our emotions rule us when we ignore them or push them aside or claim it's not theologically correct to feel a certain way.
Remember:
Know you can live offended at God.
Know the signs that you're living offended at God.
And know the tools—confession and repentance—and learn how to lament.
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Carpe Vitae!
