TOUGHER VS. STRONGER

TOUGHER VS. STRONGER

  • Authority, Heart Splinters

TOUGHER VS. STRONGER

Going through a crisis in and of itself does not make one stronger. In fact, in the natural, tragedy has the recipe to make one hardened, full of fear, and erect walls around their heart to keep it safe. How does a crisis make you stronger, then? By allowing God to purify those areas that are coming up while you are enduring the crisis. If we don’t allow God access to those places (the fear, poverty mindsets, lack, smallness in thinking, lack of faith, feeling unsafe, etc.), we will gain endurance in the crisis, not strength. We will be able to say, “I went through a divorce/disaster/death,” but you carry the same weight with you. Others allow God to purify them in their crisis, taking whatever is coming up to the surface to Him. They are the ones who say, “I went through a divorce/disaster/death and am a stronger person for it.” The choice in a crisis is to either medicate your flesh with things that make you feel temporarily safe (food, shopping, porn, denial, social media, avoidance, anger outbursts, etc.) or to steward the uncomfortable emotions and give God room to purify you. You may not be able to stop the crisis, but you do have a choice in either partnering with God’s redemptive work in you in the midst or resisting it. Tough has to do with endurance and how much you can go through. Strong has to do with strength. We don’t just want to say we endured hard things. We want to allow it to build our faith, emotional, relational, and spiritual muscles, which makes us stronger. Whatever the weight that is in your heart/mind is the very thing that, when given to God, makes you stronger!

LOOK BEYOND BEHAVIOR

I have strived hard through the Let the Children Fly message to get parents to see beyond the behavior. Yes, train children to manage themselves better, but if we only focus on managing behavior, we will enter legalism and move away from the Father’s heart. We must be willing to endure discomfort with their behavior to explore with Holy Spirit WHY. If we can partner with Him, we will discover what is going on inside their hearts, and we can parent them in that place. This is where real transformation and growth occur. When we experience someone acting immature, wounded, and reckless, we have two choices: #1 Increase our power by using intimidation and fear to control them so that we feel comfortable or #2 come alongside their pain and usher them to Jesus. If all we are doing is managing triggers and outward behavior, we are actually separating ourselves from their heart. If we want to draw closer, we must become students of what is going on in their world.

SEEDS PLANTED

Testimony from a mom who took our online Kingdom parenting class years ago. What I love about this is that God was putting seeds deep inside of her when her children were so little and grew them in His timing for her time of need. 

She shared: “In the middle of taking your class, I didn’t know how I could use the tools you taught at the time, as they were just two and three years old. But now that they are four and five, I am starting to see the breakthroughs happen, and it’s such a blessing to be able to touch the heart splinters and have Jesus take care of them now than years from now. Lisa, thank you for choosing Jesus when it felt like all hope was lost many years ago!!!! I am a work in progress, but I am so grateful for your ministry!!!”

GOD IS SO UNFAIR!

A child of mine has been making lots of messes lately, which has caused a break in connection with the rest of us. The other night another child was crying in their room out of pure exasperation with their sibling. I knew as a mom I had to be more aggressive spiritually in going after this, but I did not know what to do. Sometimes just opening my mouth and letting others in helps shift something, so I shared it with my team. We ended up putting on worship music to be in His presence. I began to cry out for help. God showed me two specific things I was to do for this child. The one made sense, but the other was switching the kids’ rooms around. My first thought was, “Are you kidding me? Said child makes a big mess and gets rewarded with the room upgrade? Another child, who has been hurt by them, has to give that room up?” My mind did not see the wisdom in this strategy AT ALL, but when you partner with God in your parenting, and He gives you a strategy for your child who is in a hard season, you OBEY fully and completely. The kids came home from school, and we spent the night rearranging all of their rooms. I kept telling my child, “God loves you and knows you. He is so unfair in that He is not giving you what you deserve but what you NEED.” Thank You, Father, that You judge by the scales of Your eyes and not ours.

SPIRITUAL RAID

It was intense… I woke up one day and couldn’t figure out what was going on. It felt like the cartoon picture of a swarm of hornets attacking endlessly, and it lasted all day long. I felt pressure from all sides with no explanation or purpose. It was so intense I literally could not work or do much of anything. I tried to busy myself to manage and endure whatever was happening. I can honestly say I have never experienced anything like that in all my life. The only emotion that I could identify with it was profound discouragement. I knew if I quit, I would feel better. The next morning, I woke up, and all was blue skies again. I felt led to ask, “Jesus, yesterday was insanely intense. I have no grid for what any of that was. Is there anything You want me to know?” and I heard Him say this, “There was a full-on assault against You yesterday” (yeah, the swarming hornets = full-on assault). I asked about what and heard the word “RAID.” I looked it up: a raid is a military tactic with a specific mission. It is not to capture but about using shock and awe to get your enemy to retreat to their previous line. 

DEFENDER

Pray this powerful prayer and allow Holy Spirit to restore connection with your child. “Holy Spirit, I give You permission to be my child’s Defender and Advocate. Would You please reveal to me where I have been wrong, caused a hurt or made a mess so that I can make it right?” If He showed you something, go low and ask for forgiveness.

LOOK BEYOND THEIR FLESH

Picture a toddler screaming and crying in the middle of the grocery store. No matter what you say, he turns a deaf ear to you. He is kicking and flapping his arms hysterically – a total and complete meltdown. Everyone is looking at you in the checkout lane, wondering why you can’t control your child. You feel the piercing stares of judgment. How would you respond? 

How about this scene? Picture sitting in a country club – the kind where they eat lunch in diamonds and pearls – and in walks an elderly man and four children. The children are all nicely dressed but unruly, bouncing all over the chairs and disrupting the people around them. The youngest won’t stop crying and the eldest are bickering. The guests are getting more and more agitated at this appalling site. Judgment and stern looks are being thrown towards the man allowing such disgrace to intrude on their well-to-do luncheon. 

What would you say if I told you the young toddler above was dealing with a double ear infection, and his eardrum just popped? Is the issue the meltdown or bacteria in his eustachian tubes? I am sure the words ‘eustachian tube’ were the last thing on your mind, but that area of his body is raging with pain, and nothing else matters to him at that moment. What would you say if I told you the rest of the story of the kids at the country club? Finally, the affluent guests couldn’t take it any longer and called the manager over to request the immediate removal of such nonsense. The manager replies, “Oh, I am so sorry. That is their grandfather, and they just came from their parent’s funeral. They both died in a car accident last week.” 

I share this to make a strong point – we have to look beyond their flesh and have to discover what is REALLY going on inside of them. Spanking, time outs, discipline, removing toys, withholding dessert, doubling chores, yelling, ignoring, giving them an electronic or bribing them with a sugary treat is as foolish at that moment as treating a broken leg by doing laundry. When we are empowered with the truth of what we are dealing with, we will be so much better and help them overcome and win the battle.

EXPOSING FEAR 1/3

While fear can be an emotion, more times than not, it is an actual demonic spirit and needs to be addressed. The enemy loves to take an event, even innocent ones, and whispers lies that feel true to the emotions based on circumstances. When we partner with the lie, we activate a demonic spirit of fear to influence us. It looks like this: Mom and Dad go on a much-needed date (normal) and leave the child with a sitter (normal). The child is uncertain about being left (normal), but in that uncertainty, the enemy whispers, “They are never coming back” (lie), and the child partners with that thought as their own, and now fear has a legal right to be there. While the parents return as promised, the lie remains because it opens something in the spiritual realm, not just in their physical minds. The next time date night rolls around, the child is tormented at the thought of being left alone. This is why kids are still afraid of certain things despite telling them the truth over and over. The battle isn’t just in their minds (lie) but is now a spiritual issue. This is why parenting is a verb, and we need to be active in helping our children with their spiritual lives. Lies are resolved through TRUTH. Fear is resolved through AUTHORITY.

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.