Hope Deferred

Hope Realized

There’s nothing more hopeful than knowing the true love of God. But to understand God’s love we must love others as we love ourselves, yes, ourselves. It’s not easy to love that reflection in the mirror. We remember the past or the fear of the unknown future as we gaze into our own pain-filled eyes. Our eyes may lie, so we must also know the Word of God which is Jesus.

God’s Word can and will change any attitude we may harbor. We can read the Word. We can be persistent in our search for healing and wholeness. We can believe God loves us because His Word says so, and we can have faith that He wants the best for us no matter how we suffer.

I can say without a doubt that through my suffering I’ve discovered joy, and I hang onto hope every day; every time I take medication, every time I faint in public, or fall in the kitchen and break bones. The Lord sees how we persevere and rejoice in our sufferings. And somewhere, somehow, in the middle of it all, we mature. Reality, true reality, finds our hearts and minds. We come to know we can count on God’s promises in His Word.

God, Jesus, loves us more than the drops in the ocean or sands of the sea. He forgives us as far as the East is from the West. We are God’s children, and He wants the very best for us.

Within all the lessons we learn the Lord takes us to higher and higher levels of glory. So, we can hope for a future that is good and an eternity that is better.

January 11, 2023 0

Lies We Believe

Twisting the Truth

Satan is the father of lies. John 8:44, TPT reads, “You are the offspring of your father, the devil, and you serve your father very well, passionately carrying out his desires. He’s been a murderer right from the start! He never stood with the One who is the true Prince, for he’s full of nothing but lies — lying is his native tongue. He is a master of deception and the father of lies!” A lie is defined as “an intentionally false statement.” One of the most substantial deceptions the devil pulls is to use the truth to embed his lies. He buries lies inside of truths, so we miss them. Some say he uses a 90/10 tactic, where 90 percent of what is said is truth and 10 percent is a lie. Satan is far more deceitful than we can imagine.

Satan works to twist the truth about God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit in order to keep us away from salvation and intimate relationship with them. He has been doing this for generations going back to Adam and Eve. He attacks us spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. To take it a step further, he teaches us to attack ourselves. We have become proficient at various forms of self-sabotage thanks to his efforts.

Satan with our permission, consciously or unconsciously, has infiltrated a multitude of areas in our lives. We have agreed with him in twisting the truth, and we are suffering the consequences. Jesus said in John 8:32, TPT, “For if you embrace the truth, it will release more freedom into your lives.” We usually know this verse as, “The truth shall set you free” from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. This verse is huge. When we seek out the truth, the lies fall away without manifesting in our lives.

We must focus on truth. The verse above doesn’t say “embrace the lies” it says to “embrace the truth.” If we concentrate on the lies, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We are giving ourselves thoughts that are negative seeds that will grow. Scripture says we reap what we sow, so it’s important to sow positivity in the present moment. Being positive in the now moment creates a positive future. Fixate on truth. Read Scripture to understand what the truth really is and seek the freedom it promises.

Freedom is only necessary when there’s bondage in our lives through sin and death. And it’s safe to say that we all need more freedom. Why sin and death? Because sin is anything that is disobedient, malevolent, evil, unjust, unrighteous, unholy, etc. And the Bible is clear about sin leading only to death. Death is the last thing that Jesus conquered by His own death and resurrection (Romans 8:34).

There are many ways that we are enslaved emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Emotionally refers to feelings that are fleeting and not who we are, and mentally refers to our thoughts and thinking processes. Physically we are captive through illness, disease, stress, anxiety, and the like.

Spiritual bondage refers to our spirit, and its interaction with the Spirit of God, and with other spiritual beings in the spiritual realm.

Below is a tiny list of the ways we can be in bondage to sin and death in our lives. They can refer to lack in all things, not just with finances, self-image, relationships, or other areas of our lives. They can attract negativity and abuse in one or more ways. They can be inflicted upon us by the devil, ourselves, or others. They can be our personality and/or character flaws or shortcomings. Wherever they originate, they are destructive and dangerous, rather than lifegiving and wholesome. Spend some time researching these issues for a better understanding of what they mean to our salvation.

Poverty Mentality
Victim Mentality
Rejection
Abandonment
Fear of Intimacy
Worthiness
Illness & Disease
Prideful/Egotistic
Envy/Jealousy
Lack of Identity
Low Self-Esteem/Image
Vengeful
Generational Sin/Curses
Dishonesty
Abuse of Any Kind
Disobedience
Ambivalence
Fear of Man

A few of the greatest sin symptoms are fear, pain, shame, and guilt. It doesn’t matter whether the attack is coming from someone or something else, or it’s coming from self, these are detrimental to living life to the fullest. When we sin, and we have a conscience, we begin to feel emotional pain, shame, and guilt. We know all too well how to shame ourselves and feel guilty for what we’ve done. This causes emotional pain that can become physical pain. This is how we contribute to making ourselves sick. And it all starts with fear.

Fear is an insidious thing that the devil has taught humans to trust ever since Eve took a bite of that fruit. She was tempted by allowing herself to be convinced that she wasn’t good enough or worthy to eat fruit from that tree. She became afraid she wasn’t enough, and that God was keeping something from her. Today, many generations later, that fear is still present in us. The world reminds us of this on a daily basis.

We are affected by fear so much that we have lost our innocence and childlike ability to trust God. We entertain doubt and unbelief as a result, which runs rampant in our societies and cultures. Our movies are more violent, sex is more casual and overt, and language is more disrespectful. These forms of debauchery are only a few examples of life’s current state of debauchery. This is why it’s so much more crucial that we rise above the darkness and become childlike again. Matthew 18:3, AMP reads, “…and said, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless you repent [that is, change your inner self — your old way of thinking, live changed lives] and become like children [trusting, humble, and forgiving], you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

There are many areas of life that are in dire need of restoration to innocence. We as Believers have a responsibility to break through the lies and build a better world for our children.

There’s a school of thought out there called the Seven Mountains, or the Seven Mountain Mandate originally written about in Lance Wallnau and Bill Johnson’s book titled, Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate, 2013. There is some controversy surrounding the topic, and I don’t want to go into why here. You can research that on your own. I only mention it to say that the seven mountains or categories of society and culture make a good list to follow for prayer, blessings, meditation, and finding our purpose.

The Seven Mountains are:

Arts & Entertainment
Education
Family
Government
Business
Media
Religion

Knowing which “mountain” we are called to is important. Yours may be a bit different than what is listed here and over time it will get more specialized. The key is knowing the area of society you are called to influence. And maybe you are called to more than one area.

The bottom line is that the devil’s lies block the truth of who we are, our healing, and our ability to grow, change, and mature. Lies block our blessings, which we already have been given. Many of God’s promises in the Bible are written in a past tense form. God’s promises have already happened in Heaven; they’ve been given to us already. It’s our job to remember to receive His promises here on earth. We are to pray God’s will be done on earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10). Sometimes it can be a struggle to receive from God because we are in need of further healing.

Fighting for Freedom

We have victory with Jesus, so why do we still struggle? Upon salvation, we are born again with Christ in the middle of a raging spiritual war. We must work through battles to find our personal victory and freedom. The battlefield is in the mind. It starts with our thoughts which turn into beliefs and if we believe lies, we lose battles.

One way to win battles is to identify the problem and find solutions by asking ourselves important questions. Try this five-step process to find out how to win battles:

Identify the problem (write as much as you need to).
What is the lie or are the lies in this problem?
What is the truth based on God’s Word?
What are some solutions?
Then get some counsel via Scripture, pastors, counselors, and/or mature friends.

Here’s how it looks in a simple grid I developed with an example:

Excerpt from Jana’s book called, “Hardwired to Trust God: And Exploring Trust in Ourselves & Others.”

September 24, 2022 0

Removing Blocks of Healing

Identify Your Blocks

Knowing what blocks to healing we have in our lives is important. We must know what we need before we can begin healing. It takes introspection and a strong sense of self to discover our fractured parts. Introspection takes courage. We must be brave and honest with ourselves about our character behaviors, shortcomings, and flaws. Knowing ourselves honestly and intimately will lead us into understanding our fractured parts.

We can identify our fractured parts by journaling, talking to a professional therapist, and asking a trusted friend. But our first path is always Jesus. Jesus and Holy Spirit should be our first “go-to” Helpers when it comes to removing blocks to healing that we have in our lives. They know exactly what we are going through and what we need to be healed.

We must be able to hear the Lord and be sensitive and discerning of the Spirit to understand how to move forward. Below are several ways to get started on the process of healing.

Practice Self-Care

Preparing for healing takes self-care. When we care for ourselves, we are honoring the temple that God gave us to steward in this life. Self-care is for the mind, spirit, and soul as much as for the body. We must care for our whole person, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When we are out of balance with our self-care we are out of balance with God. One of the best ways we can practice self-care is with love.

God lives in us when we love, 1 John 4:12–13, TPT reads:

“…But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him, and his love is brought to its full expression in us. And he has given us his Spirit within us so that we can have the assurance that he lives in us and that we live in him.”

With God in us, we are able to heal. We must love ourselves in order to fully love God and others. Loving ourselves takes some work when we’ve been unloved as a child, rejected, abandoned, or otherwise traumatized. Any form of child abuse will leave us unloving as adults. We become unloving because we feel unacceptable and unworthy of love. The truth is that we are worthy of love. God can show us how to love again through trust and patience. We must be willing to leave pain and suffering behind to love again.

While in pain and/or suffering, we are vulnerable to new traumatic events as well as re-experiencing past events. It’s a catch-22 that being ready to heal makes us vulnerable to more traumatic events and to re-experiencing traumatic memories or flashbacks of trauma. The very same vulnerability can work for us to heal but can also leave us open to new pain. Being vulnerable takes courage and hope that in the process of healing, even when we feel more pain, the hope can bring us through to the other end of it all.

Courage and hope lead us in the process of self-care and healing. The more we love ourselves, the more prepared we will be for our healing. We must find hope in our circumstances. There’s a lot of hope in the Bible. There’s hope in Jesus as the Lord of our lives. Jesus gets started on healing us from the second we believe in Him. And Jesus always finishes what He started. Jesus is the Finisher of our faith.

Use Love & Kindness

Satan and his minions hate to love, so love is what we must do. When we are down, depressed, anxious, or in any other bad place, we must love God, ourselves, and others. When we are not doing well and we are kind to others, love increases and the darkness leaves. There’s instant freedom for us as we practice love for ourselves and one another.

Practicing love for ourselves and others sows love into our whole being. Remember, according to Scripture, we reap what we sow (See Galatians 6:7). If we want more love and kindness in our lives, we must love and be kind. Being loving and positive will prepare us for healing. When we are positive, we are more open to processing painful events and memories. No matter what we sow, we must keep our eyes on the Lord.

Focus on The Lord

We must keep our eyes on Jesus and everything He is teaching us as we prepare to heal. Peter learned above all the apostles to keep his attention on Jesus. Once, Peter courageously walked on water with Jesus. Here’s what happened: Peter took his eyes off the Lord, began thinking on his own, and feeling frightened he sank. In Matthew 14:28–31, TPT, we read:

“Peter shouted out, ‘Lord, if it’s really you, then have me join you on the water!’ ‘Come and join me,’ Jesus replied. So, Peter stepped out onto the water and began to walk toward Jesus. But when he realized how high the waves were, he became frightened and started to sink. ‘Save me, Lord!’ he cried out. Jesus immediately stretched out his hand and lifted him up and said, ‘What little faith you have! Why would you let doubt win?’”

Peter doubted what he was doing and sank. We learn here that doubt is one of the biggest ways we can turn away from the Lord. When we aren’t focusing on Jesus, it focuses us on the world and our flesh. Yet, Jesus is never far away from us. Listen to what Mark 1:15, New King James Version (NKJV) says:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Jesus and the Kingdom of God are never farther away from us than our own hand at arm’s length. We are the ones that keep Jesus away, but He’s always near to us. Jesus is always ready for our repentance and reconciliation. Jesus wants to heal us, but we have to let Him into our lives in order to do so.

Pray & Prepare for Healing

Pray for healing. We can prepare for our healing by continually praying for ourselves. Praying for ourselves readies us for healing by opening up our will to align with God’s will for us to be healed. When we pray for ourselves, we are asking the Lord in intervene on our behalf for healing. It’s advisable to pray as much as possible until the healing has happened, or we’ve been set free. Praying in the Spirit, in our angelic tongues, helps heal us even more.

When we pray in tongues, we are praying in a language unknown to us, unless we are given the interpretation. According to Galatians 5:16, we are to walk in the Spirit, rather than the flesh. In order to walk in Spirit, we must be set free from the enemy of God. Praying in tongues can free us from what we don’t know we need freedom from. Praying in tongues is a proactive approach to healing. Tongues give us a direct connection to God. If you don’t have tongues, just ask Holy Spirit to give them to you and/or get help from a Spirit-filled friend.

Use the prayer model below or pray on your own:

Lord God, I repent for having blocks to healing in my life. In preparation for my healing, I repent for allowing false idols to enter the life that has kept You away from me. I repent for allowing false idols to sit in Your position in my life as the One True God through Christ Jesus. I repent for ____________ (name as many false idols as you feel you have used, such as a person, career, possessions, etc.). God remove these false idols from me. Lord, remove from me all of the ungodly false idol gatekeepers I have put in place. Wash me cleanly in Your blood. Cover me and fill me in the areas I have fallen. My desire is to be healed fully mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

September 10, 2022 0

I Just Published My Creativity Book

Hardwired for Creativity: Art Supplies for the Mind

A Handbook of Godly Wisdom, Strategies & Freedom

Available here at Amazon.com

Hardwired for Creativity is a teaching memoir and educational workbook, focused on encouraging and supporting growing creative students before and beyond the knowledge of formal art principles and techniques. Creativity is expressed in a variety of ways, like painting, writing, performing arts, crafts, woodworking, business management, and employee development.

This book is divided into two Sections. The first Section is divided into four parts: cultivating creativity, developing creative work, thinking differently, and acknowledging others. Section two is full of creativity-related topics, such as brainstorming, project management, critiques, research, intuition, and procrastination. All these topics are important to developing creative work and a creative lifestyle.

Emergent students, artists, and creatives need tools of everyday understanding to successfully sustain balanced lives of creative structure and freedom. This book is dedicated to the exploration of these everyday topics through a variety of pedagogy, like qualitative research, and the creatives’ life experiences.

September 6, 2022 0

My Secret Place

Entering Holy Ground

Our Secret Place exists in the innermost depths of our being and the outermost heights of our existence. It’s a place that begins and ends in the battlefield of the mind in our soul, the flesh of our body, and the essence of our spirit. The Secret Place exists in us where we meet Jesus, Father God, and Holy Spirit, and is sacred and holy ground.

Holy ground occurs in the very heart of God’s presence. There are only two places in Scripture that mention holy ground, and both are about Moses. The first verse refers to when Moses was in the presence of God in the form of a burning bush. The second reference was in Acts 7:33 talking about Moses’ experience. Listen to Exodus 3:5, NKJV, “Then He said, ‘Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.’”

If you’ve supernaturally encountered God’s presence in any form, you know that you know that you were with Him. And if you’ve had that experience of being in His holy presence, you’ve touched your Secret Place.

Every Believer in Christ walks with differing abilities to access God and their Secret Place. The Secret Place is easily sensed and accessed by some Believers in Christ Jesus. Other people struggle because their Secret Place lies more dormant and inaccessible. Recognizing and accessing our Secret Place is pivotal to our walks of salvation because we must mature by intimacy and relationship with God.

We are called to mature as Believers in Christ as we walk out our salvation story. Our salvation story is our testimony to living life with the Lord. Our testimonies never go away, always improve by increasing our relationship with God, and are to be celebrated no matter how hard they may have been.

Many of us have had difficult lives and we want the future to be different. We want to change to become the person we know we were meant to be. The beauty is that we can change when we enter our Secret Place with Jesus. We change because we are blessed in God’s presence with healing, wisdom, strategies, knowledge, understanding, and love.

Enter your Secret Place with Jesus to change, heal, grow and find freedom. By entering the Secret Place, we can get rid of many of the negative challenges we face in life because we will mature. In our Secret Place, we can increase positivity and learn about employing constructive actions and activities available to us for living an abundantly full life.

September 5, 2022 1

In Christ One Day at a Time

Keep Your Eyes on Jesus

In 12-step programs, there’s a saying, “one day at a time.” To stick with something one day at a time is doable: it’s an attainable goal — though for some it’s one hour at a time or one minute. Looking at an unknown and frightening future can just be too much. In our walk of salvation, we too may only be able to commit to one day at a time — one hour, one minute. Keeping our eyes on the Lord helps us to get through our day when we are overwhelmed, tired, and stressed. Keeping our eyes on Jesus pulls us back into alignment with God. When we are aligned with God our burden is light. The Passion Translation Bible says, “Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me. For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.”

We cannot bear the weight of our burdens alone. We need the Lord; we need our brothers and sisters in Christ. We need to experience God’s presence, His promises, and His glory. God wants to help us battle. If we are overwhelmed and blocked by stress and worry, we have a harder time accepting help. We are required to pick up our cross every day; we are to choose Jesus every single day. We read in Matthew 16:24, Amplified Bible, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].”

The enemy of God only wants us to focus on what we can’t do and who we are not made to be. It’s imperative in this hour to stay focused on God and what He is doing in our lives and in His Kingdom. We have a responsibility to keep God’s Word in our hearts. We must work on our relationship with God daily. We can do that by surrendering all our lives and self to Jesus. We can work on our relationship with the Lord by worshipping Him and praising His holy name. We can align with God by intentionally seeking Him in every area of our lives. Living in this way everything that is not of God or doesn’t align with His will for our lives will fade away. Sometimes it’s challenging to stay connected and present with God, but we must try — one hour, one minute at a time.

Tips for One Day at a Time

Pray and sing in tongues.
Pray and bless your life and the lives of those around you.
Be thankful for your life and all that God has already given you.
Worship with music and the life-giving Words of God.
Read your Bible and press into its meaning for you.
Ask Holy Spirit to fill you and remove everything, not of God.
Find an anointing oil that you enjoy breathing in and focus on your breathing and the sweet fragrance of the Lord.
Call a pastor or positive and uplifting friend.
Journal without holding back.
Be ready to receive God and His presence and Word.
Set your heart on Jesus.

September 2, 2022 1

Jesus Loves Me Podcast: August 2022

JLM Podcast August 2022

Sharon and Jana get back on track by recording the Jesus Loves Me Podcast for August 2022. Listen as they break down Psalm 110 and discuss the next move for the Podcast.

August 27, 2022 0

Mistakes & Failures

Get Up When You Fall

Being aware of our creative boundaries, or any boundaries, in our lives helps us to mature in Christ and co-create with God. Embrace your mistakes and failures as learning experiences. Work through them by trying again. Creating and succeeding satisfy the desires that lead us to our mastery and purpose.

Each person has within him or herself the ability to become a master of something. Why does it matter? God designed each one of us uniquely with very specific gifts and talents. We must discover what our purpose and calling are in order to walk with God in obedience. Mistakes and failures lead us into our calling by directing us toward our purpose. We can build on mistakes and failures until we master something.

We can master making recipes, drawing the human figure, building a carburetor, or whatever you are led by Holy Spirit to do well. You are unique and your mistakes and failures are unique to you. Failure for one person is not a failure for another. A mistake for one person is an inspiration to another. So, how do we judge ourselves to know what is good? It’s a feeling; a knowing from our hearts that we did the best job we could possibly do. But we can’t judge ourselves too harshly.

Let’s redefine how we judge ourselves. Let’s give ourselves room for mistakes and failures. We are made to co-create with God and do miraculous things for our lives and for others regardless of the mistakes we make.

Excerpt from Hardwired for Creativity: Art Supplies for the Mind by Jana Rawling (Coming Soon)

August 7, 2022 1

A Future & A Hope

Photo by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12, English Standard Version

A Quick Exegesis

Proverbs 13:12 powerfully states that we need hope in our lives for our hearts to be healthy, but that’s not all it says. We hear the first part of this verse repeated often, but we rarely look at the second part of the scripture, let alone the whole meaning of the verse.

We can look at the Hebrew transliteration and clearly see the author of this verse is talking about a weak or sick heart where “heart” represents our inner man, mind, or will. Let’s take a quick look at all three of these areas. Our inner man can represent our soul as we exist today with its mind, will, and emotions. Our mind containing our emotions takes us to a complicated place of potential positivity and negativity. Emotions are feelings and they are temporary. Emotions are not who we are, they are fleeting within the scope of eternity. Our will represents our free will which God gave humans to make choices for Him or against Him.

The second part of the verse is very straightforward. A desire is a feeling to want something or want something to happen. God places desires in our hearts that support our calling and purpose. We can also create our own desires from our flesh, which can get us into trouble.

The Tree of Life is now more accessible to us because of what Jesus did. We must believe in and trust Jesus to have access to the Tree of Life. The good news is that Holy Spirit came to us, and He teaches us everything we need to know to mature and grow closer to Father God.

Hope Reimagined

In the entirety of Proverbs 13:12, we can see that a person without hope can become desperate and long for a happy life, identity, and purpose. Without a strong identity in Christ as sons and daughters of God, and an understanding of our calling and purpose, we can have a hard time finding meaning in life.

It is without hope one can become depressed, fearful, and even suicidal.

Hope is defined as a feeling of expectation of something happening or trust that a desire will be fulfilled. The thing is, we can trust God. God does what He says He is going to do; He is not a liar. God has made all of us many promises throughout the Bible that we can count on happening. Our Bible is a manual for finding hope, faith, and love.

We need to desire the Word of God, which is Jesus Himself as stated in John 1:1–3 to be set free from negative machinations. Our minds must be on the Word with our faces turned toward God in this season. It’s time to use our righteous and sanctified imaginations to desire the things of God.

I repeat, it is without hope one can become depressed, fearful, and even suicidal.

To have hope, find your calling and your purpose, and walk toward doing them. God will meet you as you walk, and He’ll give you new hope and renewed meaning to live.

July 19, 2022 1

Living in Love

Walking with God

Scripture says that when we love God, He will abide in us (See 1 John 4:12). Think about that. The God of everything will live in us. He will make us His dwelling place. Our lives can be difficult here in this world. We are attacked at every opportunity the devil gets to come against us. He hits us with illness, ruins relationships, and distracts us from time with the Lord. The devil steals, kills, and destroys as he roams around like a lion seeking whom he can devour. And devour he will when we forget that God live in us when we love Him.

It sounds simple enough — just love God and He’ll live in you. The thing is, we don’t always know how to love. Love is twisted for many of us who have suffered. We have a less than perfect definition of love thanks to our upbringing or dysfunctional relationships. We don’t know how to set effective boundaries, honor each other, or remain independent versus being co-dependent. We have had parents divorced, trauma and abuse, and we’ve engaged in self-destruction.

Our only out is Jesus. Jesus is the only One who can heal our understanding of love permanently. Holy Spirit knows what we need to learn and grow in love. God is the foundation of our loving relationships. We must cry out to Him with sincerity of heart for restoration of love in our lives. So, let’s stay in God’s Word, Who is Jesus Himself, and ask Him to show us how to engage in His righteous and unconditional love. Let’s walk with for love Him. Let’s know that no matter our understanding of love, He will live in us and teach us how to love ourselves and others.

November 9, 2021