FEELING SCARED

FEELING SCARED

  • Authority, Testimonies

FEELING SCARED

A friend messaged me this: “Last night, our son (age 6), who can feel things in the atmosphere, said he felt scared and didn’t know why. His father explained that other people are afraid of something he doesn’t need to be afraid of. This would normally result in many discussions. But last night, he said, ‘Oh, okay. Can I talk to Jesus about it?’ To which the answer was, ‘Of course, bud!’ He got quiet, the room shifted, and he fell asleep! Yay, Jesus!”

IF A SIX-YEAR-OLD IS LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT TO TALK TO JESUS ABOUT FEELING SCARED, WHAT’S OUR EXCUSE? There is a KEY in this testimony. He felt it, talked to Jesus about it, and rested. It’s okay to feel, but we must bring it to Jesus for the rest to come.

FEELING DEPRESSED?

Do not be so quick to assume something is wrong with you. Depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain. The only way to resolve depression is through medicine. Oppression is a spiritual weight that we can come under when the enemy is trying to take ground in an area. The only way to resolve oppression is through your authority. Both look, sound, and feel the same. How do you know? Walk in your authority and see if it shifts. 

“I command all heaviness to leave me now in Jesus’ name. I break all assignments against me by the blood of Jesus. I invite You, Holy Spirit, to come and fill my mind, emotions, body, and atmosphere with Your peace, power, love, and clear mind in Jesus’ name.”

EMMA’S OUTFIT

I have favorite stories of my children about how God encountered their hearts. This is my favorite one of Emma’s because we are still seeing the fruit of it a decade later.

When Emma was five, she came to me sobbing that she hated her outfit. I encouraged her to pick out something else. She did, and that, too, produced an ocean of tears. She set off to find something else, but the flood of tears continued. At this point, I was getting a little annoyed and frustrated. We were already super late for Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house, and clothes were simply a non-issue in my home up until that point. Why did they matter so much now? By the fifth outfit, I was about to give her a good lecture on, “naked you came, naked you will leave,” and I could feel my blood pressure rising. I heard her tears coming back up the stairs, and suddenly Holy Spirit whispered, “Ask her WHY.” I sat her down and asked why she hated her clothes. She stated immediately that it was because she wasn’t pretty enough (lie). But we had to keep asking questions. WHY did she believe she wasn’t pretty enough? She then revealed the painful splinter: “Because my daddy doesn’t love me.”

Satan had whispered to her that he didn’t like her because she wasn’t pretty enough and that if only she could find the right outfit, she would be pretty enough to be loved. Imagine if the splinter had not been dealt with that day. Fast forward several years to when she is fifteen. Her unresolved need for love drives her to dress for boys’ attention. What about when she is twenty-five and married and causes a great amount of debt due to her obsession with shopping in an attempt to feel good about herself?

The hurts, lies, and offenses are there to steal, kill, and destroy our relationships with God, ourselves, and others. I believe that the enemy was seeking to plant a lie deep in Emma that day that would reap a harvest for a lifetime through the pain with her father. I explained that the voice she heard was not Jesus but His enemy.

Because kids have free will, I always ask, “Would you like to tell that lie to leave?” It empowers rather than controls them. She said she wanted to get rid of the lie, so I led her through a prayer that looked like this: “Jesus, I confess I believed the lie that I am not pretty enough to be loved.” “Jesus, I forgive my dad for not making me feel like a princess.” “Jesus, where were You when I got my feelings hurt?” “Jesus, how do You feel about me?” She sat there with her eyes closed and her head bowed and suddenly got the biggest smile on her face. She looked up and said with excitement, “Mom! I wore this beautiful dress, and my hair was like a ballerina’s. I was dancing with Jesus, and He said I was HIS princess!” While that was indeed a sweet moment, what is so awesome about this story is that God used it all for good when the enemy came to harm and hurt.

To this day, years later, that girl KNOWS she is Jesus’ princess!

IT WAS JESUS

I led my group to ask Jesus to show them a time they made Him laugh and one girl busted out laughing saying, “Well, that wasn’t Jesus.” I was curious about what had just happened, so I asked if she wanted to share. She told the story of being a toddler and accidentally spilling her milk. Her mom freaked out and reacted very strongly. When the mom turned her back, she gave her mom a funny wrinkled-up face. Is it hard to imagine that Jesus laughs over us? While I do not think Jesus was communicating it is okay to be rude or disrespectful to our parents, I am sure if another adult were in the room, they would have forced themselves not to smile at the cuteness of a toddler reacting to the fury of a mother’s rage over spilled milk. So give it a try, and I dare you not to laugh at what He shows you.

PROPER AUTHORITY

We don’t want to use our parental authority to control our children to keep our childhood wounds comfortable. We want to use the way our children trigger us to get healed so that we can respond to them as a loving parent.

CLEAN VESSELS

When I travel, I intentionally spend time with the Lord once I get to the hotel to be in His presence and allow Him to align my heart to whatever He wants to do. While I know my message enough to do it in my sleep, I want HIM to show up, interrupt me and feed the people through me in whatever way He chooses.

As I was sitting with Him, I sensed strongly that I was to ask my daughter (then 9), who was with me, “Jesus, is there anything we need to confess before ministering this weekend?” The question felt out of the blue, but I trusted He was doing something. As we asked, my daughter became agitated. She was wringing her hands together and didn’t want to talk. Oh my. I told her that she could have some time to process it, but that Jesus was highlighting something for a reason. An hour later, she was still upset and shut down. I felt conflicted about what to do as a ministry leader and also as her mother. I heard God say, “How would you respond if she was a team member,” and I knew immediately if a team member was struggling with unconfessed sin, I would allow them time and freedom to work through it but would not invite them to minister. Why? Because while we all fall short of the glory of God, Jesus was highlighting something specific that He wanted to deal with BEFORE we ministered. It would not be loving of me as a leader or mother to allow someone to walk on a platform if they had something the enemy could use against them.

I told her, “Baby, you can take all the time you need to gain the courage to work this issue out with Jesus, but I love you too much to have you minister with me tonight. There is no pressure to be anywhere other than where you are right now, but as your mom, I need to cover you.” It was hours later that she finally, with great effort, came to me and told me why she was struggling. Whenever she goes to bed at night, she gets these sexual thoughts in her mind. At first, she knew she should take them captive, but they kept coming at her. She stopped taking them captive and allowed her mind to ‘see’ things. She was very emotional. I asked her what she thought she had done wrong, and she replied, “Mom, I wasn’t pure.” Oh, no, no, no, baby. You were being tempted by the enemy and needed some help, but you didn’t do anything wrong. The enemy was using it against her even though he was the one doing it, not her. There is a world of difference between something coming from within and something coming on you. I helped her walk through forgiveness for the things her eyes saw, and we asked Jesus if He forgave her. We then asked what lie she was believing because of it, and she heard, “Something is wrong with me.” We asked Jesus how He felt about her.

Hours later, we were on stage together ministering, and guess what God did during ministry time? He had me go after sexual purity. Jesus was showing us there was something in her that needed to come into alignment BEFORE we could go out and fully be His instruments. Could you imagine me calling that out when it was an area she was walking in shame? The enemy would have used it against her. Jesus is so smart, and we can trust Him to lead us.

EXPOSING THE SPIRIT BEHIND IT

After having the world shut down for so long, many thought once everything is opened, all will be well again. I took the kids for a drive-thru lunch and noticed cars parked in a lot that has been bare for months. I soon learned that the local stores were opening. With three teen girls, we clearly needed to join the party and do some shopping. We exited the car, full of giddy joy and excitement. Our masks were on as we waited our turn in line before entering. We grabbed our cart, and something profound happened. The atmosphere was intense. It was eerie, unpleasant, and super heavy. All of the girls reported this weird feeling of being in trouble (fear). There was little joy in shopping in an atmosphere like that. We left, and as I pondered it deeper, He showed me this. The oppression was never about the economy closing, the inability to be out in public, or the lack of shopping. The oppression was about the SPIRIT BEHIND IT. If that is not dealt with in each of us, it will remain, and we will continue to carry it around with us. Opening the stores will not resolve it because it isn’t a financial issue but a spiritual one. Yes, it manifested IN the natural and HAS affected our economy, liberties, freedoms, etc., but we do not do battle in the natural when it is a spiritual issue. Oppression is a spiritual issue and can’t be fixed with tools in the natural any more than one can put a band-aid on a broken heart or rebuke a broken bone away. We have to have the right tools for the issue. What to do? Keep breaking the tension with fear and in your own heart. As believers, we can be in perfect peace everywhere we go.

PRAY FOR THE CHILDREN

This will be a hard thing to read, but God woke me up at 1:11 one morning, and I felt led to share it. When things first broke out in 2020, I spent a lot of time with the Lord, asking Him what He wanted me to know, what His strategy was, and how to respond. Not so much for ministry, but as a single mom of my own four children. Please pray before reading. 

I had an open vision last spring that was haunting. I saw a makeshift tunnel that was sectioned off into cages. Children were in their own cages, but they were almost sub-human from the torture they had received. So demonized they were zombie-like, unable to move. It was fear like I have never encountered before. Some cages were closed and locked, others were closed but unlocked, and others were wide open. Suddenly the lights went out, and wild animals that had been starved were let loose in the caves. The pure horror of hearing the sounds of the animals, not knowing if their cage was locked or not. Worse yet, hearing the tormenting cries of the human next to you being ravaged to death. The moment it was over, I asked, “What was that?” If it was the enemy, I would have used my authority to rebuke it. If it was God, I wanted to know what He is allowing me to see. I pondered with Him for some time on this and heard Him say, “Pray for the children.” Something so deep, so strong, and mighty comes out of me when I pray for the children. This has anchored my strategy in this season of utter chaos and confusion, where our land is so divided amongst beliefs and opinions. Go low and focus on the children. 

As the parents in this nation, we must go low under the loud crashing waves and pray for the children with everything we have. Fight for them. Declare light where there is darkness. Wage war in the spiritual realm, where they are bound up by the enemy. Sound the alarm of freedom for those held captive. Drive your stake of righteousness deep into the ground. Rise up and declare, “Not on my watch.” Invite the angels and Kingdom of God to flood their minds, bodies, and emotions. With authority, declare Luke 17:2 (better to throw yourself overboard than lead a child astray). Cling to His truth. Be unmovable in your pursuit of the children around you. They are dependent upon you to cover and protect them. 

I strongly encourage you to spend some intentional time praying not only over your children but those in your family line, friends, and community. NOT ON MY WATCH! We declare freedom, protection, and safety for our children and children’s children.

BIG BROTHER

For Hudson’s 8th-grade mission trip, he was offered a chance to work in the church nursery and would tell me about this boy named Micah. His parents took my parenting class, so I reached out to Kelly to tell her how precious it was that they had connected. She said Micah talks about Hudson all the time. Clearly, God was on the connection, so we decided to get them together. When Micah came running out the door to greet us, I was so taken aback by how much he looked like Hudson at that age. Their bond is precious, and I am so thankful for the scores of men who have sown into Hudson over the years and that he has a grid and understanding of what it means to sow into someone’s life. It is so fun to watch your child receive and then grow up to be the one who values passing that gift onto someone else.

ASK HIM

Random acts of kindness are when people go out in the name of Jesus and do good, kind, helpful things for others. While this is indeed praiseworthy and profitable Christian behavior, we need to be asking Him the who, what and where in order to be abundant in our harvest. Let me give you an example: One day, I was having a really hard day. I decided to get my eyes off myself and asked God what we should do with our day. I heard Him say to go be a blessing and rake leaves. I jumped into action. Logical thinking concluded that going to the poorest part of town and blessing the souls there would be best. I loaded up the van with kids and rakes and waved to my neighbor as we took off searching for the family that needed to be blessed. After forty-five minutes of driving around endlessly looking for a single family that had not yet raked, I was growing frustrated. What was supposed to help my day ended up making my day even worse. Defeated and somewhat mad, I made the trek back home. Upon entering our community, I heard the words, “What? You don’t think your rich neighbors need Me?” and instantly, I knew God gave me the WHAT (raking), but I ran with it before I asked the WHO or WHERE. I repented. Immediately upon parking in the driveway, the kids flung open the van door and ran across the street to the neighbor’s house (yes, the one we waved to on the way out) and raked all of the leaves. But the story doesn’t end there. Days later, I received a letter from the single elderly lady with a check saying she was so overwhelmed by all the work that needed to be done and was crying out to the Lord about her needs AS we were driving by waving at her. She finally had to leave the house with the yard work not done, and when she came back, she found ten bags full of raked leaves.

That is a perfect example of the harvest being ABUNDANT. God is a perfect economist. While one woman needed to take her eyes off her circumstances, another woman needed an extra set of helping hands. We can’t just DO in the name of Jesus. We need to ask Him the who, what, and where, too! And this requires communication – both talking and listening.

BLOW IT OUT

From 2018 when wildfires broke out in Redding, CA:

Friends, around noon today, a fire that could be seen all around broke out. It is fast-moving as we have high winds today. Our land is dry, and we need this fire to be out. They have already evacuated some and moved the previous evacuation center (which is down the road from us). Grab your kids, tell them there is a fire that needs to be blown out, and prophetically have them blow and declare that this fire will be stopped in Jesus’ name.