Help me ….. I Am About To Lose My Mind!!

How many of you have found yourself feeling this exact way? I know I have had my days when that was exactly my sentiments. I didn’t want anyone to pray for me. I didn’t want anyone to quote scripture to me. I didn’t want anyone to reassure me it was going to be better. The truth was at that point in my life there wasn’t anything anyone could say to me that would help me through the dark place I was in. I don’t know about you but I had reached a low place where I told the Lord I wasn’t going to pray any more, I wasn’t going to read His word, and I wasn’t going to counsel anyone who called needing counseling! That is until He removed this bolder of pain that was in my heart that only He had the ability to remove. I had unrealized dreams that made no sense to me as to why God hadn’t blessed me. Especially when everything thing I was dreaming seemed to be right in line with what God had called me to do, and yet after over twenty years nothing had come of those efforts. I was like Jacob I was going to wrestle with God. I was not going to let go of Him until He blessed me!

Let me say up front it’s okay to find yourself in this dark place; a place where you just want to hide, run a way, mentally check out of this thing called life. It’s okay to find yourself at a place where you are sick and tired of always finding yourself at a place of un-fulfillment. It’s okay if you cry in the quiet of the night alone where no one can see the tears streaming down your face. It’s okay if you’ve walked away from the church because you feel being a part of it has done you no good and it’s okay if you’ve reached a place where you want nothing to do with God.

 I know someone is saying what in the world is she talking about? How in the world can she tell people that it’s okay if they want nothing to do with God? The answer is quite simple, it’s okay to reach a place where you are inconsolable, the reflection isn’t did you reach that place, the reflection is, are you willing to come out of it. I submit like me, the answer is yes. It’s just the getting there that seems to be elusive at the moment. One thing we can both relate too is most times when you reach this place the only one who can give you that balm, that medicine that will heal you, is God Himself. The reason it can seem so elusive is because for many of us, we have relied on what the Pastor teaches on Sunday, relied on the Sunday school teacher to teach us the bible, have relied on the televangelist to teach us on television, and unfortunately that which we need so desperately right now, is for US to know the word of God for ourselves, intimately. Not simply recite what we’ve been taught, while there is some validity to it, it’s just if we don’t clearly understand the origin, the root of the teaching, if we haven’t sought the Holy Spirit to instruct us while we study, then we lack the true connectedness to the word that we so desperately need.

Here’s my example. In the bible there’s a story about this woman at the well that had an encounter with Jesus. Once He revealed her true self to her she went and told others, the others sought Him out, sat at His feet and learned of Him for themselves. They came to the woman and told her we believed you when you told us, then we went and found out for ourselves, now our faith is not based upon second hand knowledge but firsthand knowledge. They had an intimate encounter with Jesus. There’s another account of David who was experiencing an extremely dark time in his life, his family had been kidnapped by his son and his men had turned against him and wanted to stone him. The record shows that David realized in order to get himself through this difficult time in his life he had to encourage himself. I too can relate to this realization. Well-meaning people wanted to help me, but there wasn’t a thing in this world they could do for me. God Himself had to step in and thank God, He did.

Here are some of the things that had to happen for me in order form me to come out of my dark place.  

·         First and foremost I had to decide to fight for my life!

·         Second I had to do one of the most difficult things, I had to meditate on the word and move from head knowledge to heart knowledge. It is possible to have read the word, and even taught the word and retained it in your mind. It’s another thing to have read it, chewed on it, and committed it to heart and mind then ultimately allow the word to do exactly what the promise of God says it will do. In Psalm 119 David says thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. The steps of a good man/woman are ordered by God.

Mary, Mary sings a song that simply states:

I’ve had enough heartache and enough headaches
I've had so many ups and downs
Don't know how much more I can take
See I decided that I cried my last tear yesterday
Either I'm going to trust You or I may as well walk away
'cause stressing don't make it better
Don't make it better, no way
See I decided that I cried my last tear yesterday
Yesterday, I decided to put my trust in You
Yesterday, I realized that You will bring me through
There ain't nothing too hard for my God, no
Any problems that I have
He's greater than them all, so
I decided that I cried my last tear yesterday

·         Thirdly, once you’ve like Mary, Mary have decided that you’ve cried your last tear yesterday, you must reach a place where you acknowledge and accept that God is sovereign and that He, and He alone is orchestrating your life and like He told
 Jeremiah, He knows the plans that He has for you, plans for your good to give you an

 expected end. Like me you have to let yourself go and Let God! You have to reach a place of peace where you accept that your plans may not be Gods, and you have to trust that whatever the plans are that He has for you, that they will be accomplished for His glory and not yours. It is only when you, as I had to learn, reach that place that a peace creeps in like a flood because you’ve reached a place where it’s truly not about you, but all about God!! So we can’t be disappointed when we reach that place. We must learn like Paul, “I’ve learned to be content at whatever state I find myself in.” The truth is disappointment only comes about when what we want doesn’t come to fruition. Yes, like me I had convinced myself that what I wanted had to be what God wanted, but why would He deny that from me? My reality was that He has a plan for the gifts and talents that He had given me, it just wasn’t for the present time what I thought, and may never be, but what I am to embrace, as I encourage you the same way, that whatever God wants for me, that I too, want the same thing. And whatever God has for me it’s for me!! 

 Finally, having done all you can do within your power, you do like the scripture says, “Stand”. You do as God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” You stand on the promises of God with great expectation. If there is a battle in your life you stand on the scripture that reminds you, “the battle is not yours it is the Lord’s.” If it’s finances that have you down you stand on the scripture that says, “God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory”. Then the overall promise that I always stand on, my paraphrase, If I concern myself with the things of God, then He will concern Himself with the things of me!!

In closing I want to encourage you in this, make sure your hands and heart are clean. You cannot live your life how you want too, contrary to the word of God, and expect God to show up on your behalf. Don’t get common grace, you know the sun shines on the just and the unjust, to make you believe that God will bless you while in your mess.  

Get it right with God first, surrender and endeavor to be a delight to God. Now I know you would like to know what happens when you are a delight to Him. Here it is, God says, “He will give you the desires of your heart.” So as I began it’s okay to go to a dark place, just seek the face of the God and your darkness shall surely turn to light.