​With a trillion dollar industry, it's hard to believe that any of us would stay sick or be in need of healing for very long.  However, statistically we are more sick than ever.  Not only physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually. 

The art of healing goes back to the beginning of time.  God has never left us to fend for ourselves or for us to suffer alone when it comes to our infirmities.  Not only does God heal us as the scripture reads in Psalm 147:3, but he says  that he will come near to us when we are sick. 

When was the last time you needed God to heal something that was broken or your sickness?  Maybe it was your kidney or your lung, maybe it was your leg or an arm.  Or maybe it was even your heart.  Not only physically but emotionally as well.

Jesus is in the business of healing, and he wants to heal you everywhere you hurt.

There was a man who had laid at the Pool of Bethesda  for 38 years.  He was an invalid with no way to heal himself, nor take himself to anyone who could.  However, for whatever reason Jesus decided to pass underneath that colonnade on that particular day, at that particular time, to meet this man for a time of healing.  

Had he done something to deserve The Almighty to look his way, or pass by his mat?  We don’t know, but the bible does not reveal in any way that this man deserved to be healed like any other man lying next to the healing pool.
We get very little insight to this man's conditions other than he has laid desperately trying to get into the pool that heals, however, every time he made his way in, someone else took his place in line to receive healing.

Many of us are in line in hope of God's healing, but how many  have suffered for years hoping and praying but to our great sadness, God chooses NOT to heal us?  

Neither you nor I will ever know why God chooses to heal some and not others, but I do know that I lived long enough to see that God is still in the healing business.  And that he is still performing miracles.

Although I often question why and why not God, I know those answers may never come until I get to heaven.  If you’re breathing, you will always wonder why God heals one and not the other.  Or does He?  Just because we don’t see His healing here on earth, does that mean he does not answer our desperate prayers?  

No prayers are left unheard and/or unanswered.  Sometimes, He says, Yes, sometimes, it's No, and sometimes it wait!  And that can be the hardest one of all.

If your loved one has cancer and you pray and pray for them to be healed and God does not heal them here on earth, does that mean he didn’t answer your prayers?  I don’t believe so.

God may very well choose to heal your loved ones on the other side of glory and make them completely whole. We are just saddened because we don’t get to see that here in front of us.

Just because God does not heal your marriage, does that mean He does not care about your family or your well being?  No!  He loves you way too much to not heal you.

However, your healing may come in a completely different form than you ever thought possible.  What if your healing comes through your tears or through your prayers?  What if your healing comes through all the heartache and pain?  What if your healing comes through caring for someone who didn’t lose their loved one but you are now bringing help in healing through your own loss?

God will use whatever means necessary to heal you at the deepest level.

Remember the man at the pool of Bethesda? Jesus told him to pick up his mat and go so that he doesn’t fall back into sin. Hmmmmmm, this got me thinking. Had he sinned to get himself in this situation? We don’t know, the bible doesn’t say, however, Jesus does and if it's in the bible there is a reason.  Maybe he did nothing wrong like those who question why the young boy was blind.  Was it because he had done something wrong or his parents? 

No, it’s just the way he was, but either way, Jesus can and will heal you.  All you have to do is cry out to him.  Look for him, or watch to see when he passes by. 
 
Yes, God has given us all the great gift of modern medicine, but when is that last time we called on the great Physician to heal us.  To heal us in the places that no one can see.  To the place that not even the more technologically advanced machine can see.

Jesus’ eye is on you and your pain beloved.  He wishes that no one will perish.  But that doesn’t mean that we would live forever.  No that means he wishes no one will perish without Him.

He knows more than anyone that we live in a sin sick world and that we will suffer from the ravages of this dying planet.  However, He does not leave us to care for ourselves or for one another.  Matthew 11:28 reminds us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”  First and foremost, we must come to Him.  Secondly, we read in Jeremiah 33:6 “Behold, I will bring it health and cure them and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth”.

God is wanting to heal you not only in one area of your life but everywhere you hurt.  

Would you allow the great Physician to begin to apply his healing balm to your soul?  Let the Lord Almighty search your mind, body and soul to begin your regime of healing.  He will make you whole!

All throughout the scriptures, we see men, women and children being delivered from some form of bondage in their lives.  Whether that was the issue of blood, or from demons, or even years of being paralyzed.  There is nothing Jesus doesn’t wish to deliver us from. I love the definition in Webster's Dictionary. DELIVERANCE: the act of delivering someone or something. {Especially: LIBERATION, RESCUE}

Who doesn’t want to be rescued or liberated from those things in life that hold you hostage? I know for myself, I wanted to be delivered because I have been held captive for far too long. It wasn’t until I found myself “out of options”. At the “end of my rope” and desperate for God to rescue me, I began to desire deliverance like never before.

I had heard about it, read about it, sang about it, and even hoped for it, but had I ever believed for it?  The greater question was not that God could deliver, but WOULD He deliver me? Why is it that we know God can and will do for everyone else, but why do we feel as though we don’t deserve it to have the same working miracle for our own life that He has done for so many others before?

Friend, if you are standing at this same place I was, can I encourage you to take the outstretched hand of Jesus and allow Him to set you free from it all. I know it's scary but that is who He is. He is Deliverance! That is what he came to earth for.  That is His mission.  To deliver us from it all. No matter what it is, and I mean no matter what, He wishes that you would be completely and unconditionally healed and set free.

David says it best in Psalm 3:8, “From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessings be on your people.” Our friend David knows what it’s like to be bound so tightly he can hardly breathe. His enemies were breathing down his neck.  He has blown it so badly, he’s not sure if God will ever use him again.  He has made mistake after mistake, yet he knows that he knows that God is the only one to deliver him.  As a matter of fact, you have to read what he says in verse 7.  Now I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to demand anything from God, especially when I don’t deserve it.  But listen to David in verse 7, Arise O LORD! O my God…

You have to know something about the word LORD here.  This is Yahweh.  The Almighty.  His name means the Great I Am.  When you see all the letters capitalized in His name, this is all being, all knowing, all authority.  This THE LORD!
But it also means Adonai which translates to “my Lord”.  And David knew just that.  That the Lord was his Lord.  It was personal, despite all he had done wrong.  For most of us, we would condemn David for being so bold. For David he had the nerve, bravery, courage to call on the name of the LORD and tell Him to Rise Up!  I need delivered right here and right now!

 I don’t know about you, but I am not sure if I have ever demanded something from THE LORD like this ever. 
I may have cried, begged, bargained and manipulated. But never demanded for Him to deliver me from anywhere. Kind of scares me to talk to God like this.  

However, this is also why we read that David was a friend to God and the apple of His eye.  David had murdered, committed adultery, lied and every other retched sin in his life, but he knew that if he ever had a chance of getting out of this situation alive, it was going to take God Almighty to do it.  

So, where does that leave you and me today?  Afraid to come to the Throne Room boldly? Sheepish in our conversation with the Lord Almighty? Alone feeling as though you have gotten what you deserved?  I know, me too.
However, I do want to live free.  Free from everything and anything that binds me.  I do need rescued and I do need to be delivered, not only from the things of this world, but from myself.

So, I think I will start there.  With these simple words that you are free to say too, LORD deliver me!  And that my friend is where you will see the LORD like you have never seen Him before.  As the song goes, He is for you, not against you! You’re welcome to sing along. But first, I think I just heard a ding on your phone… you have a delivery!  Go and be free! ​

It takes a prisoner to know a prisoner.  How long have you been here, I asked?
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My day of Freedom came not so long ago when I finally realized that all along, I was holding the key to my own prison door. Wait! What?  I could have walked out of here a long time ago. 
The day had finally come, and the wandering was over when I could leave. I was now free! Truly Free!  

How does one stay incarcerated for years and then suddenly realize that they have the freedom to walk out on any given day of their life?

What person in their right mind would voluntarily sit in a prison cell with the key in their hands?  Unfortunately, most of us, if not all of us, do on a daily basis. Even though our prison sentence may never look the same, a prison is still a prison.

It's cold and dank no matter how many coats of paint you put on it. You can decorate it with each new trend, but as you lie your head down at night, the coldness of your heart as well as the steel bars that stare you in the face all feel the same. Bone chilling fear and loneliness set in like a horribly long winter season with no spring in sight.

The deep seeded questions, without any answers. No one to comfort you, and no one to rescue you. All the while, time is all you have on your mind. How long will I be here? Will I ever get out of this mess I am in? Will there be anyone who will love and accept me despite the wrong I have done?

For most, we all know this feeling all too well.  Being a prisoner is more often the label we wear across our back then a patriotic t-shirt that we wear on the fourth of July. Have you ever considered your prisoner number? Mine was DOC621970. Until today! 

As the calendar turns on yet another year, I’d encourage you to ask yourself how long you want to stay here? Your prison that is? Aren’t you ready to “get up on out of here?” 
Maybe it's a prison of terrible relationships or a mindset of unworthiness.  Perhaps your prison cell is beautifully decorated, while you sit in such deep denial and insecurity that you dare not come out of and be all that God created you to be.

Our prison can be our past sin that we can’t let go of all the while Jesus is saying, “I don’t even remember that sin anymore. Remember, I have put it as far as the east is to the west and to the depths of the ocean floor.”
Friend, Jesus proclaims in Luke 4:18-21, He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free and that the time of the Lord’s favor have has come. I have read that passage and the same one in Isaiah 61 for years, but never did I apply it to myself until now.

I knew the words in my head but never got them down into my heart. It truly can be the shortest 18 inches of death. It has taken me decades to realize that even though I have been in church since my mother's womb, I too was a prisoner of war.  A war with the enemy of my soul.  A prisoner to the world, or most sadly, a prisoner to myself.  
So, today, I am offering you a “get out of jail free” card. A Freedom card so to speak. It costs you nothing. But it costs Jesus everything.  The only thing you must do is place the key into the Savior's hand. He is saying, “I have come to set you free!”

The key to your imprisonment may be your divorce, your addiction or your _______ (you fill in the blank). It doesn’t matter why you are there, all that matters is who is there!
King Jesus stands at your cell door and waits for you to step up and over the threshold as the door is now open.  Honestly, he is wondering what you are doing?! Staying bound where you were never meant to be.  And that is why he has come.  To set us FREE!

When this image came to a full realization in my mind, I thought the same thing.  What in the world am I doing here?  I know what John 10:10 says clearly!  The enemy comes only to kill, steal and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. 

So, I ask myself, why have I waited all these years to live in this fullness, this Freedom?  
That answer is still taking some time, but what I do know is this, I am never going back there.  I am not stepping one foot in that prison cell ever again.  I am not sleeping one more night.  Time is short, and Jesus paid too high a ransom for me to squander that away on foolish thinking. 

I am inviting you to come with us.  To walk out of your prison and away with Jesus. 

Although we may not have a clue where we are headed, he does and that's all that matters on the road to Freedom!  Are you coming?
​
In Him, 
Shannon

As daybreak began to appear in the wee hours of the morning, I peered with my foggy eyes and heard the sweet sounds outside my window. The song birds broke out into song as they welcomed a new day with joy and gladness that seemed to inspire my soul to rise and shine! “It’s a new day!” As cheerful as they caroled, I realized there was a part of me that seemed to have trouble stirring myself out of a deep slumbering sleep.  It was my own inner joy and happiness that was absent. Nothing like theirs…that was full and vibrant.  As if mine were lost and missing. ​

It’s the misplaced feeling of knowing that a new day is about to begin and that Gods mercies would be new for me on this fresh day, that I held fast to the broken truth and reality that seemed to sing yet another tune, that said that “that day” was a far and distant land.
Most of our lives we work to please our families, our spouses, our bosses and even our churches. We desperately give our all, but our all is just never quite good enough.
Maybe your day begins something like this…“Mom, my project is due tomorrow with a snack for each person in the classroom!”, “Honey, I am going to need my shirt cleaned and ironed before tomorrow big meeting!” “Sweetie, we will need to you to house sit and feed and water the dogs, while we are away the next 10 days on a cruise!” “Could you please bring a dish or two for the funeral meal by weeks end?”  “Would you be able to cover my children’s church class this Sunday as my husband is sweeping me away for an impromptu love fest?”        UGH!  Giant UGH!!!!!!!!!!   

​All are requests that seem harmless and even doable most of the time.  But when life is heavy and already over loaded, one more appeal can seem like it will be the tipping point that could take you to the point of no return.

When is enough, truly enough?  
When do you wave the white flag and say, I am going under here?

Not only are you feeling the weight of all the daunting tasks, but you feel as though you cannot let anyone down or disappoint those who are looking to you. There is another feeling that lurks around the your doorstep of your mind, and that is the threat of insecurity and anxiety with every swipe of your thumb. You know that post on Instagram that has you analyzing each pixel to see if she really looks that good, or has she used the latest and greatest filter to get that stellar look. Or perhaps, you have caught the Facebook feed that has left you envious of your colleague’s great life that continues to skyrocket to an all-time high, while yours seems to be at a plummeting low. Whether it is a dozen and one things to do with your already encumbered schedule, or your not so great life that feels like you are drowning in a pool of helpless, God doesn’t want us ever feeling like we are never not enough.

​The world may scream “step up”, “climb up” and “dare to find your destiny”,
while God says something totally different.

​Yes, God does want to give you an amazing life, but he doesn’t want you to die trying to obtain it. Your life was predestined long before time ever began.  So whether you feel as though you don’t measure up or tally up, God says you do to Him. Your worth was set before the beginning of time. Unfortunately, we often believe the lies of the enemy all too often and then fall hook line and sinker for his schemes that leave us helpless and hopeless.  
But remember this… if for some reason you are in some way engaged in conversation with this smuck,  hear this and please LEARN this once and for all… he is a big fat liar. Lies, lies, lies!!! All lies!   He cannot tell the truth for even a minute. He is the father of lies. 

If this was our child or spouse, we would never tolerate it.  If this was our pastor or closest friend, we would probably disown them. But for some reason, we will listen to him all day long. He will whisper in your ear at the break of day and will baulk at you until you close your eyes for the night. Repeating over and over and over, “you are never enough.”
It doesn’t matter if you work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, have the greatest fitness workout, eat the most organic foods you can find, cloth and train your children up in the way they should go, love your husband every day… all day, and serve on every charity you can possibly find, the enemy will tell you, you are still not enough! 

Well ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

​At some point in all of our lives we have to make one of two decisions. And stick to it! 
 1) Either, we buy into the lie and stay miserable, beaten down and overwhelmed until it takes us over.  Or 2) you can call his bluff, put him in his place and tell him who he is and who and whose you are! It really is that simple!

I engaged in battle for years with myself that I too was never enough.  I added up all of my inadequacies and accepted that as my grand total or sum for my life.  All of my mistakes, all of my misfortune and all that came to be was my worth and value. But thank God He says something differently! It didn’t matter how hard I tried, how strenuously I worked or how many days I pressed through, enough was just never enough!  I was spent. Depleted and honestly, completely wrecked inside and out. I had bought into the lie and it left me completely bankrupt.  Ruined from good health, a meaningful mindset, and elevated emotions.  Meaning, emotions that kept me in good standing.  Not hot on a wire or deep in a pit of despair.  All because I believed in the lies of the biggest loser of all. Satan.  The great schemer.  The adversary, the wicked one, the roaring lion, the devil and the accuser of all of mankind.

​Look at those names again. Reread them slowly. Think about what those words mean and what they mean to you and me. Why in the world would we listen to him for even a moment, let alone a life time?  Call me stupid, but I did for way too long.  And perhaps you feel the same.  You too even know the bible verses to counter this fool like me. But some way somehow, he wins out more than we would ever like to ever admit.

How can you and I get off of this never-ending treadmill of insufficiency?  How can we learn to run our race with grace and mercy?  With excellence without treachery!  And live the life that God has set before us, not what the enemy lays in wait for us?

I believe we really can. But if we continue to believe the lie that we are “never enough” then we chose to yoke up with the one who has come to kill steal and destroy. What?!  Yup that’s right! We have linked to the one who is out to kill our soul.

​His only goal in life is to kill steal and destroy your life. John 10:10 even says so!
No one in their right mind would ever choose to do such a thing, but day after day, month after month, you and I scroll through the lives of others, measuring, evaluating, and estimating our worth by a sick standard of the world. This mindset leaves us feeling empty, hollow and often very alone.  Isolation is one of the greatest tools to send someone down into a slow fade.  It’s not an overnight drop off.  But it’s a sure and sudden slippery slope that often takes us straight to our demise.  And then the day comes when you finally do.  Honestly, it’s more like a slow growing cancer that goes undetected until it’s too late.  The tests are run, the verdict is in.  Your years have now been dictated into days!

​Maybe you feel as though you too are getting closer and closer to the edge.  And in some way, it feels as though this may be your only hope. Jump and throw everything to the wind.  To finally check out and leave all the consequences to those behind, simply because you are not enough!  Friend, this is NOT Gods will for your life.  He does not want any one of us walking around aimlessly in despair feeling as though you are not enough.

I believe when your name was created in time, God wrote down your life plan and saw all that you could be. I also believe that He makes no mistakes and wastes nothing! I can almost guess what the next question would be…then why in the world would He give me this kind of plan for my life? I don’t have the answer for that.  But I do know we have a God who loves us beyond measure.  He personally laid himself down on a cross because we were enough. 

Think of that for just a moment…
God came down as man, so He could know exactly what it would feel like to be like to be not enough. He walked among broken men, so that He too could be broken.
But in the end, he chose to place Himself on the cross, stretch out His arms and say,
“You are enough!” 

As simple as they may sound, Jesus said and continues to say, you are more than enough to Me. And just in case you could offer a good argument like I often do, Paul clearly writes in the New Testament that He is always enough. 
​ Because He says, when you are weak, He is strong.
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1 Corinthians 12:10. Says, the less you have, the more depended you are on Him.

This is great news for you and I friend.  Because we are not enough, we may never be in our own eyes.  But Jesus says He is more than enough.  
And this makes you and I more than ENOUGH!

Which leads me to this… If God before you, then who could be against you?!
​
It’s up to us to stop listening and living the lies of the enemy and start believing the One that only matters.  And in case no one has told you lately!  You are more than ENOUGH!

~Shannon