comparison and calling

Comparison is the thief of joy - Theodore Roosevelt

I feel as if I live a fairly joyous life. Yeah. I would say I am generally happy. I have beautiful kids, my husband and I have fun together and walk in relationship with Jesus...and many other blessings. I am a fairly positive person moving through life...and yet the enemy can still attack...not often, but he does it just enough.  And it is usually when I have realized a different piece in my calling.  

He attacks me in my identity and tries to plant lies. He tries to strangle those seeds that God has planted and that are growing and squish the life from them.  The way he does this to me is mostly through comparison. He whispers:

they are more fun than you
they are nicer than you
they are a better mom than you
you are not looking like a Christian
that person doesn't like you because you're not ...
they are better at everything than you
you are not enough

And on and on it goes until I put a stop to it because I have the power to do so. The power of Jesus lives in me and I am united in Christ.

"...{God} has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ." Ephesians 1:3

Here is also where I know I'm blessed is my relationship with God. He secures my footing. He makes me able to fight and brings me a community of people to help destroy those lies. I'm super blessed to have friends that pray for me daily or when they see me overwhelmed (or crying) they know how to handle the current situation. I was a mess this past week, but God provided me with so much clarity. I was able to hear 3 messages from great pastors and also to have some devotionals that spoke out loud and clear and ALL interconnected and were exactly what I needed to hear.

Lisa Bevere said in a devotional video, "There are very real forces that whisper lying innuendos that assault your mind, your will and your emotions, in the hope of causing you to turn on yourself and then turn on others...but God has made you unique to release your creativity into your calling...you are so focused on comparing yourself with others that you can't even see your calling...but you are called to do something and sometimes you haven't even seen it yet. God called you to be unique so that you can be all he intended."

This is all true.  If I am not living the life God intended and continue to compare it to others I am pushing myself farther and farther away from my relationship with God, and from the calling he has given me.  God WANTS to be in relationship with me.  Jesus came for the sole purpose of love and relationship through that love.

"I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me."  John 17:23

Jesus is in us, and he loves us, and therefore we experience that same relationship that Jesus has with the Father. I find that the times I feel farthest away in my relationship is when I have put my time with God on the back-burner.  Not because he isn't there, but because I'm not seeking and listening for his counsel...I am not abiding fully. Because when I am abiding in him, the flavor of the fruit is good and sweet. And even if things are hard I know I can come to God and relinquish the control and just let it be.

TODAY in a ladies prayer group, the passage was Isaiah 43.  These are the parts that were highlighted to ME (which btw- in a room full of ladies it amazes me how just a few verses, and sometimes even the same single verse, those words from God can be timely for so many different people in so many ways):

"...I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
    and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;" vs. 1&2

I am His and he has blessed me with a gift of His heart. The emotions I feel are important and may not be for my understanding, but they don't need to overwhelm me because He is doing something with them. I own these feelings and know that the more I am abiding in Him, the stronger the emotions.

During that prayer time I got a picture of an open amazon shipping box -weird I know- and just a fountain of water continually flowing out of the box ferociously. And I took that to mean that those are my emotions flowing from my heart, God's heart, outside of the "box" I've put Him in, and that it's gonna keep flowing ferociously, especially when I am abiding well in Him.  Watch out! You might get splashed!

I also received a word of encouragement from one of my friends telling me that God wanted me to know about my significance and that if I was feeling insignificant in my daily life (which I was) God was saying "If Elly only knew just how significant she is here in heaven. Even the angels know about her significance up here." I just love that she took the time to tell me that, because it obviously spoke to me. 

These were the take-aways I had as I processed through this week:

• Comparing yourself to others only strangles your uniqueness and calling that God has intended for you.
• Abide strongly and you will be blessed richly.
• Own the calling God has given you and take it.
• You are significant...and sharing what God has for you can bring so much light, love, and life, to others.
• Call out to God and He WILL respond...again and again

"the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full!" John 10:10

This is a song by Digital Age that spoke to me this week too:

Love, you've captured me again
Oh God, you steal my heart
And oh when I reach out
You're always there
Cause love has come to rescue me
Your love has come to set me free
Your love, love is all I need
Your love