Forgive. Obey.

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Comment by Pamela Cook Dreyer on January 15, 2009 at 1:29am

Unforgiveness gives the power and control of your life to another person that in many cases could care less about your welfare. I think when people really get a revelation of this they will be more aggressive against being bitter. It is not an easy thing to get over, depending on what the issues are that a person is walking through. However it does not change the dynamic. When you are bitter toward someone else they have control over you. Emotions are wonderful but can become a prison to us if we let them rule us over our will. We cannot make people do right. That is a hard cold fact that we must accept. People will disappoint us, on purpose or inadvertently. If we allow our moods to change because of what people do we will never be stable individual because the only one that never changes is Christ.

In times past I had good reason to be angry in a situation that I could not change. It was quite a long time before I saw changes. I was sinking. The anger was getting so bad that I ended up having three major bouts of depression. The 3rd one almost took me out (I think). Think about the teachings on Satan's War Machine and you have an idea what my life was like during those days. For me one of the open doors of attack was anger. The Lord showed me how to crawl out of the depression. It has not returned. The Lord also resolved the situation that caused the anger and things are fine. I vowed that if at all possible I would never let myself get into that type of emotional state again. Like stated here the only person that is hurt is the angry bitter person.

I heard a well known preacher say something that really makes sense. He said that if you are not walking with the Lord or are in some way in disobedience, there is a good chance that you will meet people that God never intended for you to meet. When I heard that statement I thought 'unnecessary trouble, pain and agony'.

I hated the idea of being called to the five-fold ministry. To say I was horrified would be a drastic understatement. I have no words to describe how I felt. I did not want to disobey the Lord but still had this feeling of dread. This is probably the one time I seriously considered disobeying Him. However thinking about how I could meet people that were bad for me made me reconsider. It also helped me over the years to watch people I knew that walked in disobedience and saw the consequences they suffered. There is already enough pain and agony we walk through in life without asking for it when we step out of His plan.

When I have felt shaky about the call of God on my life I try and look at how my disobedience could affect others in a negative way. I also see nowadays that the Lord has built me for this. Nothing else will fit like a key in a lock like obeying what the Lord tells me. At times it may take years to see the benefit of that obedience but I still hold onto the fact that it is worth it.

You also said it well. We use satan as an excuse for our flesh. Of course there are times that satan will play with us. However we do have emotions and a will. We are in a process of beating that will into submission to the Lord, the inner man, the Holy Spirit, etc. When we truthfully acknowledge where we are it is a place where true resolutions can be found and victories won. It is impossible to conquer an enemy that we cannot see.

You have learned to be honest with yourself. This may sound like a cliche BUT I mean this sincerely. You are in a very good place. As you live and continue in that mode where you will not make excuses about where you are, you will find this process easier to go through. Your goal is victory. I knew that the first time I saw you singing. You are well on your way.