Did God really say?

There are lots of journeys in my life that I quite honestly wish I would have never walked.  Some were started of my own decisions and some were started by the decisions of others.  I learned valuable lessons from them in the end, but some days I wish those lessons would have come in another way.

The not-so-pleasant journeys in my life that were caused by my decisions were results of disobedience.  Now, before you go and think that I was some rebellious, wild child, I wasn’t.  I was a pretty good rule follower and Jesus lover.  However, with one decision in particular, I knew better, but chose wrong anyway.  Why did I choose wrongly?  Well, it’s very simple.  I began to doubt myself and God.

I had made the decision to end a relationship.  It was a hard decision, but a right decision.  Then one night, the offer to pick that relationship back up was given.  The decision to pick that relationship back up began the hardest 14 years of my life.  I didn’t make that decision out of rebellion, I made it out of doubt.  There was a voice in my head that offered one simple question…. “Did God really say?”

Oh boy.  Well, I don’t know.  I mean I kinda thought he did.  I asked for him to speak and I kinda turned to that one scripture about Peter taking his eyes off Jesus.  I kinda asked God to forgive me for doing that.  But maybe, just maybe, God didn’t really say.  Maybe that was all coincidence.  Maybe God hadn’t said anything at all.  Maybe God was providing this opportunity because I’ll never have opportunity again.  Maybe this is all God has for me.

Lies.  Just lies.  They weren’t out right lies though, they were simply little thoughts of doubt.  Those doubts led me to make what seemed like a small decision and that small decision altered the course of my life.

Later in life I learned that the number 1 tool of the enemy of our souls is doubt.  It’s his oldest and most reliable.  It is what he uses on Adam and Eve in the garden.  He simply questions them into doubting that God would be truthful with them.  Don’t get me wrong, he will absolutely get you to think wrong things about yourself, full on lie to you.  He will bring fear and shame.  He will accuse.  All of that.  However, his most trusted weapon against us is to convince us that there is reason to doubt God.

Did God really say that you shouldn’t go to that place?

Did God really say you need to end that relationship?

Did God really say you were healed?

Did God really say he saved you?

Did God really promise THAT?

Did God really say____________?”

You can fill in the blank for your own life.  If you’ve ever faced a decision as a believer, I guarantee you that you’ve had the thought, “did God really say?”

I could look back now at Adam and Eve and view them as complete idiots.  Of course God said that! He’s God!  You’ve walked with him and talked with him every blessed afternoon!  What is wrong with you?  Except I know what’s wrong with them, because I am just like them.  They allowed the enemy to plant doubt in their mind, even though  they knew God, they doubted.

We have to stand (sometimes literally) on the word and truth of God and who God is.  He is unchanging.  Unmoving.  Unwavering.  Consistent.  Constant.  Always Truth.  If we don’t, we enter the world of being double minded, which will cause you to lose your mind.  James says this, “… because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.⁸ Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.” (James 1:6-8)

So my challenge to myself and whoever reads this is simple.  Believe and don’t doubt.  Even when it looks like there’s reason to doubt, don’t.  We serve the very God who created the universe and who defines constant.  God said it, it is Truth.