Don't Forget God's Promises

God invited me to write today and when I asked what He wanted me to write about, He told me: “Don’t forget my promises”. And it hit home so beautifully.

I believe that many of you, as you spend time with God and sit at His feet in your secret place, receive many promises from God – personal things that He is speaking to you about, for example, what He wants you to do with your life, what He wants you to focus on in this season or even how to deal with certain situations in your life.

It’s so exciting when we receive these promises and words from God, and we are so happy and encouraged in our time with God. And then we come out and we are back to our lives, where it doesn’t necessarily look like it yet. Often, we have to be reminded that we walk by faith and not by sight.

But what happens when our faith gets tested and life doesn’t look like what God promised you at all?

I was reminded of the story of Mary. Imagine having an encounter with an angel who promises you that you will give birth to the Son of God. What an honour! You become pregnant by the Holy Spirit, not through the natural course, and you are called highly favoured. Amazing! After that, you think that your life can only get better, right? But instead her life got into real havoc!

She got back to her normal life – she is engaged and now have to explain to her fiancé that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit... laughable! And then, she is accused of being an adulteress and need to bear the consequences of it. In that time, Mary could have been stoned for this! Luckily, her fiancé was honourable enough that he wanted to divorce her quietly so she wouldn’t get into trouble.

Imagine Mary in the situation for a moment. We know that eventually God steps in and an angel visits Joseph to confirm that what Mary said was true, but imagine her life just before God intervened. When she had to endure the laughs, rejections, accusations, condemnations and betrayal. When she was in the midst of it all! When, instead of receiving what she expected, her obedience to God and her agreement to carry God’s promise put her into trouble unjustly.

The pain is real, the rejection and betrayal are real, the heartbreak is real, but I am reminded that God is in the middle of the messy process. He is present when it hurts, He is close to the broken-hearted and He is in the middle of that dark night. Oftentimes, we think that just because we are in the will of God and in obedience, life will be easier and everything will work out as it should. But what if this is not the case?

Maybe through the process, God wants to teach us about Him and His nature and transform us into His image. Imagine God Almighty being so personal that He comes down to spend time with you in the middle of your mess, when He could easily rule over you and totally not pay attention to you. But He is close to you in the middle of your pain and struggle. He is so close, so you don’t have to be alone through it and carry it on your own. He is there along the way. He is so loving, good and compassionate to us and He wants us to know Him as such God and we wouldn’t if we didn’t have to go through it.

The Holy Spirit reminded me of the Bible verse this week: rejoice and be glad when you are being falsely accused. Imagine Mary being unjustly accused and being told, “Just rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven.” Don’t justify yourself, don’t try to explain, just leave it and rejoice in Me. This is a mindset that is focused on eternity, and this is what Jesus wants to do in our lives – He wants us focused on eternity and being changed into His image.

In the natural, it doesn’t make sense to rejoice and be glad for being accused, but we need to be focused on His leading and His ways, not our own. And when we are obedient, it makes the process and our lives so much easier and helps us to come out of the situation so much quicker. And it transforms us into His image.

It reminds me of my first year at uni. I struggled with depression, and one way the Holy Spirit led me out of it was by continually telling me to rejoice and be glad, for this is the day that the Lord has made. If you know anything about depression, you know that you feel so down and low that nothing brings you joy – even things that used to make you happy don’t make you happy anymore. And so I was in that place, so numb, so down that it was actually scary. Nothing made me happy, and then the Holy Spirit gave me the Bible verses. Every day, I would speak it to myself and remind myself to do that throughout the day. It was a decision, not a feeling, though. I didn’t feel like it; I decided to be obedient and do what He told me to do. To be honest, I was doing it out of fear of Him – sometimes, you have to revere Him enough to obey Him. And so I rejoiced even when I didn’t feel like it and thanked Him for the day. And this is how I learned to walk in His joy, which is your strength, especailly in difficult seasons.

Even though the whole season was hard for me, the Holy Spirit was with me through the whole process. When my depression started, I didn’t even know what it was. I kept asking the Holy Spirit, “What is wrong with me? Why am I so down?” And He kept telling me, “Depression.” I kept ignoring Him because, for me, depression was just feeling low, so I thought, I know that I am low; that’s not helpful at all, haha. And then one day, I decided to Google it, and when I read the symptoms, it all made sense. So I went to a doctor and received medication. The doctor told me that people who struggle with depression usually struggle their whole life, and immediately, in my mind, I thought, there is no way I am struggling with this my whole life.

So I thought to myself, I am in this situation right now. It may be a challenging season for me right now, and it may take a process to come out of it, but if I submit to God and His leading, He will heal me and bring me out of it. And I believe many of you are in your difficult situations right now, but if you submit to the process and let God do what He needs to do in your life, He will bring you out. And He will be with you every step of the way; you don’t have to go through it alone.

I found out what the root issue of my depression was and started to work on myself and my belief system. I went through a freedom course in my local church. I had people who would stand with me, who I could talk to and who prayed with me. But the biggest breakthrough I had was when I accidentally went to a Christian conference – talking about divine appointments!

I was hanging out with a friend in town, not planning to go anywhere, we just wanted to spend time together and we met her friend who said that she was going to this conference. There was a guest speaker from Heidi Baker’s ministry, so we decided to join her. I don’t even remember what he spoke about at the conference but he prayed for all of us, and he mentioned a spirit of depression. I immediately knew that something had left me. At the time, I didn’t know much about demons, so it didn’t even cross my mind, but it had left me and I felt so much happier.

I knew that it was not the end of the journey, that I had to transform my mind, but I also knew that it was a matter of time before I was totally free. A couple of months later, I stopped taking medicine and was no longer depressed within months after that. I haven’t struggled with depression for over 10 years now.

Sometimes, we just have to acknowledge that we have an issue, deal with the root of the issue, submit to whatever process we have to go through and receive what God has for us. If you submit yourself to God, He will lead you along the way and give you exactly what you need to receive your promise or miracle.

But it is important to remember God’s promises to you. My promise was freedom and emotional healing. I knew that God heals emotionally because He healed me from a broken heart before, and I knew that He would heal me from this as well. Sometimes, it is about the history that we have with the Lord, but other times, we can just stand on His Word. Jesus died for me so I could be healed emotionally and physically and be free from any oppression, so I could stand on these promises, regardless of what it looked like right now. If we hold on long enough, God will manifest His promises in our lives.

Mary hung on long enough to be delivered from her troubles too. Her marriage was saved, she had the honour of carrying and raising God’s child and is still honoured for her obedience.

So my encouragement today is to trust God, even in messy situations, even when His promise puts you in trouble and even when some things take a process to come out of. God is faithful and will bring you out of whatever it is that you are dealing with today.

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