Freedom in the Spirit is a wonderful thing. It allows you to explore HIM. And when you explore you learn things, new things, that you have not known or heard before! It was fun being a kid and exploring, but you also know there were times when your parents or caregivers said, "Wait a minute! Watch out over there! Be aware of this or that, or Don't do this or that." They meant all that for your good!
They were delighted when you matured and you learned now to cross the street safely, or later when you could run to the store for them. If you kept your boundaries right, they could give you more and more freedom.
Now if parents were too strict, many kids looked for what they could get away with and then explored without the rules and advice of safety.
Some people were scared. I don't mean that they just felt scared of the unknown, but they were worked on and made to be afraid. This may have accomplished a temporary purpose, but that fear could also greatly limit, and limited them.
But God meant for liberty to be a blessing IF it is handled correctly and used for growth and service. Now I think we all get into things that make us self-correct. We are ready to experiment and then we figure out that we went too far. This self-correction is a good thing, and even the book of Proverbs helps us to understand that, and we learn the wisdom and understanding and revelation that another Mind is at work, beyond our own.
And if we mature to encounter negative forces, we learn that there are ways to handle that, too. Jesus and the Father, both exhorted us to HEAR HIM. At first, we are impressed with our own body and self-thoughts, but as we mature, we hear His too.
I remember as a child going to the nearby park and swinging and singing to God. I loved going places where I could just think! And the reason was that there were more than just my own thoughts going on!
Gird Our Loins
People get inspired, they get comforted and soothed, and they also get ideas. Hopefully the ideas are the ones that come from the father, but we get other ideas too, sometimes from the enemy, and we have to learn how to "gird up out loins" (or pull up our britches and get with it!) These thoughts have energies, and we have to learn how to manage them.
Some get great ideas, and some are tempting for self-indulgence. If we weren't taught when young how to handle those, and that may be by a teacher or a counselor or coach of some sort them sometimes we get off track or find a bad counselor. This is why it is so good to discover prayer in early life, especially if you have learned not just to talk, but to hear also.
The Voice of God can take you to good places! Some would like to group like kinds together and get them all in one accord, but that may not be God's idea, fully. He likes the family understanding where we relate to and help each other, but many group in ways that shuts other people out and never gives to others. Then that can become an offense, and needy people are hindered in ways that works negatively.
I think most of you are sensible enough to understand what I mean here! It's easy to be selfish until we have to make up for it! But let's focus on the good side of this with ears open to needed correction, because it's all meant for our good.
We need the Word of God, and we need the interaction of prayer just like a parent needs to know what is going on with their child so that they can help them and raise them. Most parents do the best they can, but some are damaged in ways that make it hard for everyone.
In the eyes of God, it becomes a corrupt place, but He WANTS to bring them out into a fruitful place! Prayers have energies and the lack of prayer can really take down a society. If people get into their own worlds only, they cut off their supplies and other's too.
The world today will say, "I'm sending good thoughts your way," and it means something because there is an energy to it. But it's when that it connects to God that it has the most power, and when pressures are put on people that have little structure, some of that energy feels painful and destructive to them. They are coping the best they know how, or they are bitter and angry and react with the only power they know how to have!
Find Your Structure
So, if we don't learn how to pray overcoming prayers, and if we don't learn how to do redemptive things in this fallen world that needs its rightful King, then we have a lot of serious problems. There is a structure for right and there is a structure for wrong, and it's not hard to see both in today's society.
But first and foremost, of all is learning how to find your own structure that stands for you. You can build! We have to explore and find the gifts that are out there, and we have to help others. We have to seek and find and even discern the right energies.
I was raised a Christian but in my late teens and early twenties, I went to exploring the world. I looked into all kinds of things! Some would not agree to all that I looked into! But doing that convinced and convicted me that what I had learned about Jesus was the greater thing.
Other places offered power, or how to chill out, even way out, but there is a Rock foundation in the Lord that will hold stable. I can't judge others who did not have that! Some things were dangerous!
But now it is on me to help others find that Truth! I'm still learning but in helping and shining His Light where I can, in kind and loving ways, makes me His servant.
But the greatest part of this is that as I grow and see and learn and help others, my own life is blessed! It is enriched and I can be a world changer! The agreement of God's power comes closer.
He will let us explore if we abide by His rules. And those commands are for our good. They help us and they will keep us. Many great things can be done if we reach out in Him, on the inside AND the outside! He wants us to overcome.
Pam Clark
