legion

Reminders from Uncle Mikey

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’m laying in bed next to a very sleepy geriatric cat. That’s what I call the good life. It has nothing at all to do with what follows, but I thought I’d throw that little tidbit in for free. You’re welcome.

I’ve been thinking a lot about last night’s Kairos. It started off with a blown generator and a bunch of us sitting in the dark. That always makes for an interesting evening.

It also marked the triumphant return of Mike Glenn to Kairos as guest speaker. It felt like old times again.

He talked about how while each of us have given names at birth, we all have names that either we’ve given ourselves or we’ve been given by others. These names are usually the result of our mistakes and failures. I’m sure many of us have names that involve profanity of some sort.

The prime example is the possessed man among the tombstones who identified himself as Legion. There were so many competing voices in his head that he couldn’t find his own identity anymore.

When Jesus calls someone, He gives that person a new name. Think of Paul becoming Saul, or Simon becoming Peter. He gives us a name that describes not who we are but who we are becoming, our very best self that Jesus is in the process of bringing about.

You are not your worst mistakes. You are not the names people called you before they wrote you off as hopeless. You are not your addictions or your fears.

You are who Jesus says you are. You are Chosen, Beloved, Son or Daughter, Friend.

You have a name that only Jesus knows that one day He will reveal to you. One day, He will write it on a white stone and give it to you. Then and only then will your story make complete sense and you will see how everything in your life has led to you becoming who Jesus always meant you to be.

Thanks, Uncle Mikey, for another good and timely word. Do come back to Kairos soon.

 

All Those Voices and The Truth

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Maybe you’re like me. Sometimes maybe you get so many voices in your head, it’s hard to tell which ones are genuine and which ones are not. It’s hard to discern your own thoughts from the legion running through your mind.

I firmly believe that one of the enemy’s tricks is to plant thoughts in your mind and make you believe that those are your thoughts. He can take a little bit of the truth, just enough to make it plausible, and mix it with a lie. Kinda like a fisherman baits a hook with enough of a tempting lure to make the fish bite.

I’ve been overwhelmed at times and not known what to believe or which voices to trust. But I’ve come to realize that in those times it’s better to not trust what I think or what I feel, but what I know. That is, what God has revealed to me about himself time and time again.

I know he’s good. I know he’s strong. I know he’s for me. I know he won’t give up on me.

Many times, I’ve fallen back on those truths when the lies seem so very easy to believe. When the old fears of abandonment seem to be coming true before my very eyes and I feel more alone than ever, I have to remember that God is with me.

You never know what you believe until it’s a matter of life or death, when your survival and your sanity depend on it. You never know how strong and good God is until you’re lost and he’s the only one who can find you, when you’re sinking in despair and he’s the only one who can rescue you.

Devils and lies die in the light. They can’t survive when confronted with the very truth of God’s word. So name the lies for what they are. Name where they came from. And declare out loud that Jesus has already defeated that enemy and those lies once and for all.

Most of all, let’s hold each other up in prayer and be strong for those when they can’t be strong for themselves, and believe for those when their faith is too weak. It just takes two or three.

Remember that the Truth as personified in Jesus isn’t just another voice in your head. It’s the Voice that bids all other voices be still the way it bidded the waves to be still. It’s the Voice that will always have the last word.