Emotional Conquest

Tears like white hot fire departed from my eyes, carving their own right of passage and leaving a deposit-evidence of the act, down my wrist. Funny, how the moment tears left my eyes, they felt cold, without trace of heat; But upon making the journey from my face to where my cheek had rest on my hand, the cold sensation registered the same as hot. Salt water so sweet, stung like a burn, clinging to it's host. Jarred from present state, I dismissed the tears from my wrist with a swipe of the hand. The action, simply on repeat to extract the same evidence that lay underneath my eyes.


How magnificent a thing emotion brings, that it draws forth a well from our body. To sit here and say, let it be so, come forth-oh tears! Ye shall flow! Nae; it will never be so. 


Emotion; movement within the soul. Sways us to tears, and ultimately lack of control. A fickle mind and an overgrown heart, a road to confusion; unsure where to start. My mind sets on things that I ought not to do, my heart bids me listen; I know better than you. Now spirit man speaks up at this time; quiets the heart-brings peace to the mind. I find that the only rest for my whole, is found in submission; mind, body and soul.


As one could probably see and as I've mentioned before, I love to express my writing through the meter of how words fall. The pentameter of each word and the way it rolls of the tongue is important to the overall feel of the passage of poetry. Often, a single line in poetry will have many meanings. That's the beauty of it. If one takes it in slowly, chewing on each word until the full nutrition of the sentence seeps in, they will have taken in the purpose for that expression in writing. 


The Lord tells us to meditate on scripture day and night, do all that it instructs, and in all our ways, we will be prosperous and successful. (paraphrased) (Joshua 1:8) 


This particular scripture is able to reach out to us in more than one area of our lives. This verse teaches us that, in order to retain that which is good for us, take it in slowly; chewing on the interpretation and truth of the word. 


Basically, when in the mindset of wanting to learn, quiet yourself and read in between the lines. God speaks in metaphors. His language is symbolic. 


A powerful tool of the enemy has been to get us to feel at loss when reading scripture. 


"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12) 


It is no secret that scripture is a tool given to us by God. The enemy KNOWS the danger to him, if you walk in God's promise-His WORD- for your life. "Your word is truth." (John 17:7) , "The scripture CANNOT be broken." (John 10:35). Write the words on your heart-(Joshua 1:8) again-and BE successful. 


There has been  a dumbing down of language. A loss of attention, understanding and retention. What better excuse to not read the Bible, when one doesn't understand it? The same could be said in the natural with Shakespeare, Moliere, Thoreau, etc. 


"I don't get it." or the excuse that it is elevated language, stunts our growth and conclusively makes us give up. If we were ever to stay in the realm of comfortable-or in the realm of what we understand, the world would be in the dark ages. 


"Necessity is the mother of invention" ~Plato 


Thank GOD for the people who understand this principle! God wrote the Bible, because we needed it. We can't fight the forces of darkness in our own might or understanding. It is more than a physical battle. The phrase, "Knowledge is power"...there IS some truth to that. But it's not an earthly knowledge that we need have. The knowledge is the knowledge that comes from knowing God. Knowing His word, knowing His strategy.


The enemies word is: "We don't understand", "We're not comfortable", "We have no control"-But they're lies! The Devil is a liar! We need to shut him up. 


We've stopped trying. We've stopped warring against adversity. We don't know how to wield our weapon. Heck! Some of us don't even know what our weapon is!


Our weapon is the WORD of God. Account after account is made known to us about how God is victorious. Story after story about men who didn't understand yet counted the word as truth and walked out the promises made to them. 


Life is about operating in your Spiritman and taking control over your body and soul. 


God's word is law. Law stands firm and there is consequence to those who don't operate in that. So, the man who operates in his body bears the fruit of that.


Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. (Ephesians 4:19)



In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. (Romans 1:27)

For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. (1 Peter 4:3)

I don't say this or bring this up with the intent to preach at you. No matter, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31) God loves us. More than we will ever be able to understand; but we do have to know that for every action, there is an equal opposite reaction. The law of sowing and reaping stands firm.

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap" (Gal. 6:7 ) 

As these scriptures pertain to the consequence of living in the body, there is also a consequence to living in the realm of the soul.

The soul is comprised of the mind, the will and the emotions. Let me, Charisa Bareither, be to you, the prime example of what living in the soul looks like. I have endured it. Trust me. 

I was thee most emotional child that has probably ever existed on the face of this earth. Alright, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration...but really. Childhood consisted of absolute torment on the playground from my peers AND adults as I stood to the subjection, scorn and unfair blame of the falling of events-to whom, automatically fell upon me.

As a child, and still to this day, I operate like a sponge. Every emotion that rests in the atmosphere, I soak in. In the spiritual, this is called Burden Bearing, and it is supposed to be a gift...But to those who don't know, the gift that you are given by God can be used as either a blessing, or a curse. God is so good of a God that He pours out His spirit on ALL flesh. (Acts 2:17) Whether or not His child knows Him, God pours Himself on him and showers him with gifting. 

For the sake of an example...Hitler, had an incredible gift of leadership, but instead of using that gift for the eternal glory of the Lord, he used it as a curse. 

Artists of any kind are drawing their creativity from a source.  God is the only one who can make something out of nothing. Everything created needs a source. That source is completely spiritual. Some, pull down creativity from God, others, unknowingly and sometimes very knowingly, pull down their inspiration from...THE DARK SIDE!....dun dun dun! Alright, alright...

As a child, it is really hard to discern what is yours emotionally, and what is not. Emotions are emotions. As I grow up and mature in the Lord, I strive to be able to properly use my gift and will continue to train to use it in it's blessing and not it's curse. The point of my gifting, is to pray until the burden lifts. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Philippians 4:6)

 

I spent years of my life operating and reacting off of emotion and what I felt in the heat of the moment. I couldn't help it, really. I couldn't help but to react. It wasn't fair that I felt things to deeply and was punished for it. But the fruit in my life, due to my reaction based lifestyle, ended up pushing everyone away and causing a deeper more pain and consequently...more emotion. It was a vicious cycle.

Let us reread the beginning of this post:

Tears like white hot fire departed from my eyes, carving their own right of passage and leaving a deposit-evidence of the act, down my wrist. Funny, how the moment tears left my eyes, they felt cold, without trace of heat; But upon making the journey from my face to where my cheek had rest on my hand, the cold sensation registered the same as hot. Salt water so sweet, stung like a burn, clinging to it's host. Jarred from present state, I dismissed the tears from my wrist with a swipe of the hand. The action, simply on repeat to extract the same evidence that lay underneath my eyes.


How magnificent a thing emotion brings, that it draws forth a well from our body. To sit here and say, let it be so, come forth-oh tears! Ye shall flow! Nae; it will never be so. 

Emotion; movement within the soul. Sways us to tears, and ultimately lack of control. A fickle mind and an overgrown heart, a road to confusion; unsure where to start. My mind sets on things that I ought not to do, my heart bids me listen; I know better than you. Now spirit man speaks up at this time; quiets the heart-brings peace to the mind. I find that the only rest for my whole, is found in submission; mind, body and soul. 

God is good to bring me out of my woes. He awoke me from my stupor like a white hot fire and encouraged me to write. Weeping endures for the night, but JOY comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

AND...
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (Galatians 5:16-17)

I hope this encouraged you and made sense. I just needed to write. :)

A Constant Struggle

          A new state, a new city, a new house, a new car, a new 'family', a new culture, a new environment, a new job. As you can see, my life right about now is completely overrun by 'new'. I know that, for all people it has to be done at some point in their life, right? A kid moves out and learns what its like to take on the real world without the parent being their crutch. 
           
          I am the kid who has just moved out-across the country mind you, and is taking on the 'real world' pedal to the medal style. Or so I thought. In my week and a half of living in Florida, it has been a constant struggle to move foreword on so many levels. 
                     A constant struggle to:
                                 write
                                 pray
                                 rejoice
                                 keep a disciplined mind
                                 worship
                                  listen
                                  keep a disciplined mind (yes I know I said that twice)


            In an effort to categorize my thoughts a little bit, I'll take the list that I started above and elaborate on each of them. Number one: 


A constant struggle to write...I have realized, in the last several years of being in the process of 'coming into myself', I absolutely love to write. The constant struggle that i'm talking about with writing is the lack of inspiration that I seem to have much of the time; Or, the fact that I have so much emotion swirling around in my head and heart that it seems like the most difficult, and sometimes most downright impossible thing to even begin to try and transcribe it onto paper in an eloquent manner. 


            From a young age, I felt the call of God on my life to write, but I never knew where to start. This in effect, put a standstill on any writing at all. Lack of inspiration, lack of direction, lack of focus...I felt corked.  Information streaming in and absolutely no control on a way to have a healthy outlet.


            As the years have gone by and I have developed a deeper relationship with God, I feel as though He has helped with many of the issues when it comes to writing. He helps with the inspiration, direction and focus; However, this doesn't go without me asking and sometimes frankly begging for it...My writing is mostly focused on poetry and song lyrics. For some reason, sitting here and writing this blog, or writing an essay is not nearly as easy for me. Many a times, I will feel a pull on my heart about a certain subject, and that leads me to write either a poem or a song about that subject. I love to get deep in the meter of the words. A lot of the time, I will stare at 2 lines of a poem for 30 minutes just to make sure that the phrasing, placement and natural fall of the words is right and is able to convey the urgency and importance of what is on my heart.


           With that being said, I know that the Lord is always telling me to be diligent and write. If God gives you a gifting, fan that gift into flame, right? right. But also remember that if God gives you a gifting, you have a certain level of responsibility to practice it. I haven't been consistent in writing, so in turn, I feel like i'm starting from scratch every time I want to write a song or a poem. I have to regroup, ask the Lord to direct my thoughts and emotions and give me FOCUS.  A little bit like this blog :), if a piece of literature does not have a focus, it really feels as though the entire point of writing in the first place has been lost. It leaves the reader feeling just as confused as the writer obviously is and lends no advise on how to solve any problems.


A constant struggle to pray:


           So I'm guessing that I'm not the only one who feels the constant struggle to maintain a lifestyle of prayer...I know that Jesus is constantly tugging on my heart and whispering into my ear, reminding me in that soft way that he does to pray. I guess what I would say is that I don't necessarily have trouble with not praying, it's that fact that I never feel as though I've put forth enough effort. I will constantly be talking with the Lord throughout the day, but everything around my head feels muddy and there is no focus. I know that prayer is the foundation...LORD! Where is my FOCUS? I want to formulate actual sentences before my Lord so that I may make my requests known to him. The only way I am able to have a coherent prayer, is when I speak it aloud, so I suppose my answer is to set aside time for prayer where I am able to pray aloud...That in itself takes an extremely high amount of discipline...which i'm working on...any suggestions for a way to focus my prayer life from my readers? 


aaaannnd...here we go...


A constant struggle to rejoice:

           Gosh, WHAT IS MY PROBLEM?! I'm blessed, living in the complete favor of the Lord and yet it is a constant struggle to start my day rejoicing. I'm currently reading a book called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. The book is about the power of being thankful. "As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible." I want this to be my mentality. Give thanks in all things, for life is one big gift. The key to our joy is in thanksgiving. The enemy's plan may be to steal, kill and destroy and load me down with depression, but I WILL come out VICTORIOUS!


And here is the big one..the one that seems to tie into all other categories of life.


A constant struggle to keep a disciplined mind:


            Can I highlight enough, the importance in keeping your mind focused on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- Philippians 4:8


        Good golly i'm just starting to learn the spiritual significance of doing this. But keeping a disciplined mind goes so far beyond just that. Oh how the Lord knows our thought...If I keep my mind pure, the enemy is going to have NO foothold to come in and reek havoc on my life. If a person struggled with keeping their mind off of their self loathing-that is where the enemy is going to attack. At your weakest point. Likewise with lust or greed, or gluttony or anything that we tend to make idols out of. God says "You shall have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3


          For myself, a disciplined mind means no daydreaming, and no allowing myself to sit in a pool of complacency or idleness. 


          To be idle. Definition: not in use of operation; not kept busy, to be lazy; of no real worth, importance of significance. ~Dictionary.com


            If I am not focused, and actively pursuing the Lord's company, it is all too easy for the enemy to swoop in and place an atmosphere of depression over me.

          It has been a constant struggle to contend for my peace and take my surroundings and say "No, the enemy does not have reign over this turf. This is my territory and Jesus Christ dwells here." The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak-Mark 14:38  I NEED to exercise my spirit over my flesh and take control of my thoughts and the atmosphere around me. In doing this, in practicing this, it gets easier. Lord give me focus. (That's my constant prayer)

A constant struggle to worship:

           Let it be as simple as: Lord, give these worship songs that I have sung thousands of times and listened to thousands of time a new meaning...

           If I would just be more diligent with worship.  I know that out of the place of intimacy with Jesus, greater things will come. He will give me more revelation, favor, dreams, visions. To be in a constant state of worship is so important. We were created to worship. It's time to explore the depths of what worship is.

A constant struggle to listen:

            In my haze of constant thoughts, sometimes it's so hard to just sit and listen. To be still, and listen. If we are always talking, how is God going to get a word in to direct us? Many times the reason God talks to us through our sleep is because we don't give him the time of day. He uses the time of night! My question is constantly "HOW DO I KNOW I CAN HEAR HIM?!" I always get my panties in a wad because I'm thinking to much and i'm not at peace. A saying that really seems to ring true is this: "Peace is the potting soil for revelation." Without peace, there is NO revelation and we're left feeling starved and discouraged that we haven't heard the Lord. GET TO A PLACE OF PEACE. Above ALL else, be at peace. 

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. John 10:27 NLT

             We do hear his voice. Let it be our prayer. Jesus, teach me to how to listen. But know, if we ask, He will often give us a situation where we will have to listen. That's a good thing. A man does not become wise if he has no experience.


I guess that is about it for this blog. I will try and write more often. I'm going to be obedient and exercise my writing gifting...please comment on here and let me know what you think. I would love this to be an iron sharpens iron thing. That we would be able to share our struggles and share the wisdom of the Lord on how to deal with things.


God bless,

Charisa Faith