NOTHING… Not one thing, no how, no way… Not the deepest pit you can fall in… Not what you think of you, not what others think of you, not what you think others think of you… Not your sickness, poverty, emotional weakness, physical weakness, spiritual weakness, stress, depression, unresolved issues, present circumstances, sin of any kind, or ‘any’ hopeless situation you can think of… NOTHING can separate you from the LOVE OF GOD! Think of a little child crying out for help from the bottom of a deep well… He should not have been near the well in the first place, he knew better, he’d been warned, but he was there, he got too close…and he fell in. Do you stand at the edge and say, ‘Well, I told you so, you knew better,’ and then walk away? Of course not, and God who is more gracious and merciful than we can begin to be will not walk away from us either. He will throw us His rope – I like to think of it as ‘the rope of hope’ – and He will tie it to Himself, our unmovable, unchangeable Rock of Ages! So wherever you find yourself today, I encourage you to grab on to that rope of hope and trust that your Savior is lovingly rescuing you again…for great is His faithfulness!!

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The words ‘leaping for joy’ remind me of how fun it was to skip as a little girl. Does ‘leaping for joy’ describe you today? Or does ‘wallowing in the pit’ better fit the bill? I’m ashamed to say that too often it doesn’t take much for me to leap from joy back into the pit. It generally blindsides me! It can be brought on unexpectedly by rejection or criticism from others, or from someone that just makes you feel ‘less than’ every time you’re around them. Though these are toxic relationships, and at times the Lord does allow us to discontinue them, there are situations where we just have to be with certain people…to live with them in our job, church ministry, home or community.

It can only take a word, an attitude or a look to send us spiraling down to that awful pit of rejection and insecurity, fearing that we truly are less than, less than that person, or even less than everyone else that walks the face of the earth. But these are lies, the lies of the enemy who wants to drag us back to the very pit that Jesus drew us out of in the first place. Once you belong to God, the enemy can’t touch your soul…you are sealed by the Holy Spirit. So the devil’s goal is to drag you down and render you useless for the cause of Christ. But God (the two best words in the Bible) has made a way for us to fight back and climb out…even stay out…of that pit.

James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

So the first step is to submit to God. Though we don’t like the word submit most of the time, when our hearts are humble and surrendered before Him, it frees His Spirit to lead us to rivers of refreshing water for our soul! You see, nothing can happen in our lives that He does not allow, so we can be sure He has a plan…either to teach us, cleanse us or strengthen us through the situation. And the only way to discern what He wants to accomplish is to run back to His arms of love, surrendering ourselves to Him as the prodigal son submitted himself to his father’s arms and will. Fall into His arms, fall to your knees in prayer, fall before the throne of love and grace.

Another part of submitting is to be willing to listen. As a teenage girl, trying to become my own person, there was a time when I didn’t want my mom’s advice anymore, so I didn’t ask or seek it. Most of the time, I would have been better off if I had asked! Simply put, after we ask we need to seek God’s perspective by reading His Word until it speaks to the situation. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you, to teach you His ways, to show you God’s heart for you in the here and now, to restore your faith in Him and His purpose for you, and to touch your heart with a fresh reminder that He knows, He sees, He hears and He is with you.

After a very toxic experience this past weekend, I asked the Lord to help me to climb out of the pit of feeling ‘less than’ again (truth be known)… So, I opened my Bible and read, feeling that the Lord was going to reveal something I needed to change, to learn, an improvement I needed to make (again! ^_^). Being one who often needs correction, much to my surprise, this time, a verse jumped out that affirmed me rather than correcting me! It was simply a part of my daily reading plan. God spoke, words leaped off the page and into my heart… “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.” (Luke 6:22-23)

WHAT????? So Lord, this time I’m O.K.? I’m actually doing something right? Yes, but there was still a lesson to be learned… Only if you count yourself blessed for it, rejoice and leap for joy! Yikes! Nope, I wasn’t doing that! But through these verses from His Living Word, He pulled me out of the pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon the Rock of Jesus Christ again! I began saying, “I am blessed!” I began praising God again, rejoicing and leaping for joy! …for great is my reward in heaven. There is so much power in praise! I could then take the next step to… “resist the devil” …so following Jesus’ example, I said, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” I stood in faith, and said to him, “Greater is He that is in me than he that is the world.” Let me tell you, the enemy fled…he was defeated! Faith truly is the victory…faith in God, His Word and His ever-promised presence in our lives! He will never leave me or forsake me! He will never leave you or forsake you either!!!

Dear reader, when people hate you, exclude you, insult you or reject you because of Jesus, you are blessed! Because there is One who will never leave you, He will never forsake you! Run to Him, humbly submit, seek Him through His Word, listen to all He has to say! And He will give you victory! Rejoice and leap for joy! Funny…I suddenly feel like skipping. Care to join me?

“Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.”              Isaiah‬ ‭26:4‬ ‭(NIV‬)‬