From Deliverance to Freedom

By: Unknown on 7:28 PM

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Since we're still getting to know each other, I figure it is as good of time as any to tell you that I am an incredibly broken individual.  I've kind of always been that way, at least as long as I can remember.  As early as 6 or 7, I can remember trying to go to sleep at night but not being able to because I just kept replaying every big mistake I'd ever made in my head.  Like the time I broke my grandparent's ice cube tray because I tried to crack it over my knee like I'd seen my dad do many times before.  Or the time I tried to push my dad's pickup back up the hill after my sister had put it in reverse.  The time I destroyed the wall in the bedroom I shared with my sister during the middle of the night because I thought a fly was on the wall but it was really just a shadow.....these are all really stupid, minor things to replay or dwell on, but they were huge to me.


I've always been prone to concentrate on my shortcomings, rarely able to find the joy or the good in situations.  Choosing joy and thankfulness is extremely difficult for me.


The past few months have been no exception.  I kept finding myself at the end of the day saying to myself, "I really don't think I can possibly be more broken than I am right now", only to find myself saying the exact same thing the next night.  God just kept breaking my heart, little by little each day, and I finally came to my senses long enough one evening a few weeks ago to actually stop and listen to see what He was trying to say to me.


I pulled out my Bible and started reading Psalm 34.  It wasn't planned, I just happened to pick it.


Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." (ESV)


As soon as I got done reading that, I was a mess.  It was an ugly cry, followed by an enormous hug from God.


I started to look into all of the other verses that were referenced with Psalm 34:18 and just kept finding more of the same.


Psalm 51:17 - The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (ESV)


Psalm 147:3 - He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (ESV)


As I was reading through verse after verse about how much God cares about the broken hearted, I got this visual in my mind of someone pouring water into a cup that used to have milk in it and I heard God so clearly say to me, "You need to be completely empty before I can fill you back up."  I quickly grabbed my pen and started writing this frantically in my journal.

When we have emptied our hearts of everything, God is there to fill it back up.  The heart has to be emptied for it to be fully engulfed in the Father's love.  Before it is completely empty, anything left in the heart would simply mix together with the good stuff, tainting and destroying its goodness, much like when you pour water into a glass that had milk in it without first rinsing it.  The purity is gone and you are left with a cloudy substance that no one actually wants.  The leftover contents corrupt the new life, making it less perfect.  For only perfect love, in a completely empty heart, will cast out fear.

Hitting "rock bottom" is absolutely the best gift that God can give us.  It is then, and only then, that those of us who have tried to find life from the things of this world will ever fully realize that there is nothing here that will give us everlasting life, the water that will quench the unquenchable thirst. (John 4:13-15)  

When we have emptied our hearts of all the fear, all the failure, all the lust, all the pride and come to Him, completely broken, contrite and humble, then, and only then, can he take our heart, bind it up, purify it and fill it with his Spirit.  No mixing the good and the bad, just pure, clean, honest and true love and life.

God isn't interested in the details of how we get to this place.  In the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-24), when the son is giving his apology, the father cuts him off and tells the servants to bring the fattened calf.  He wasn't interested in why his son had returned or what he had done when he was away.  He was simply grateful that he had come, broken, repentant and desperately in need of unfailing love.  Deep down, I believe that all any of us really want is to be delighted in, and God has always delighted in every single one of us. 

After spending some time reflecting on these verses and talking with God, I came across a picture of a friend of my husband's family, in his last days of life, embracing his granddaughter, both had their eyes closed and huge smiles on their faces.  It was a beautiful picture that perfectly captured the love that they had for each other.  Tears just began to fall and I couldn't figure out why the picture had moved me so much, and then it hit me, this is what it is to be delighted in. 


As someone who has never felt worthy of love from anyone, being delighted in is a foreign concept to me.  It isn't that I don't have people in my life who love me, I have many, it is that I have just never been able to receive it because I never found anything worthy of being loved within me.  As I sat there, in tears, I felt and saw an image in my head of Jesus hugging me, right then and there, telling me that He delighted in me.  In that moment, everything changed.  In that moment I moved from deliverance to freedom and I want everyone else to know how to get there.


So that is why I'm here.  That is why I write.  It scares me and I've been putting this off for months, but I am finally being obedient to what I feel like God has called me to do.  There are so many people who have known Jesus for all or most of their life, who have said "yes" to secure their spot in heaven, but still live, like I did, completely weighed down by their circumstances and not walking in the freedom that comes from the perfect love of Christ.  As Christine Caine said, "Why settle for deliverance when you can have freedom?" 


Freedom is where it is at folks.  I pray that you find your way there.