I woke up feeling suffocated. I woke from a dream and in the dream, I began to feel things closing in on me. I jumped out of bed and began to take authority over this familiar feeling. This spirit I’ve been battling for a few years. The one who is such a coward that it largely comes only at night. When I’m sleeping. When I’m most vulnerable. The one who comes to attack the sacred time when I rest in God’s hand.
The world isn’t closing in on me. it’s a lie.
The sky hasn’t come closer. It’s a lie.
I can breathe. Breathlessness is a lie.
Focus.
Take one breath.
Now another.
Repeat.
Take command of those intruding thoughts.
I am safe.
God is here.
Christ comes and breathes into my mouth and I am full of air.
He is teaching me. Am I willing to learn? Yes. Emphatically and resoundingly, I say, “Yes”.
I have authority over all of this, because of Jesus. He gives us authority. I speak to anxiety in the name of Jesus, and it flees.
Such wonder and peace come when we discover that we need nobody but Jesus. We need nothing but Jesus.
This season of my life…all the past 5 or 6 years…has been about establishing this…that truly, all I need is Jesus. He is my wise Counsel. He is my best Friend. He is my first Love. He is my yes and amen. He is my Pastor. My Everything. I don’t need anything that He cannot give me.
Neither do you.
Do you realize this?
You only need God.
Today I encourage you to open to the idea that we truly only need God. Community is lovely, but it’s not necessary…otherwise, what would life have been for those who live in the farthest places? Community is good…but it’s not a replacement for being steeped in His Presence. We desire community because it can add so much, but it was never meant to replace the voice of God.
There are some who walk in wonderful community their whole lives. But others are called to a different path. The trail blazers. The forerunners. Those who press in and are used by God to forge the way forward. Those who experience a far different type of community.
Both types of people are wonderful and valuable, but one is not correct at the expense of the other being wrong.
I’ve never been alone. Not for one moment. Not for a day. Or even a breath. I am surrounded. God with us, Emmanuel. My tribe is heavenly.
Whether you have a tribe you can see with earthly eyes, or a tribe in the heavens…both are valuable.
It was only when God separated our family from the fold that we realized how many surrounded us, in the heavenly places.
Now breathe in and breathe out.
Be still and know that I am God. There is nothing to fear.
*Note: For quite some time now God has been strongly speaking to me that EVERY believer must establish an individual dependance upon Him. There will come a time, though we know not when, that we will only have God. We won’t be able to rely on another’s faith or wisdom. If you were completely alone, would you survive? Would you know His voice and be able to respond to His instruction? In this season of grace, we must reach in and establish our individual walk with Him…so that in the end we will not turn away. There is nothing to fear.
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us. ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’ Acts 17:27-28
365 Days in the Presence 