Surrender to Healing
Download MP3Welcome to a place of peace, hope, and divine encouragement. This is Joy in Every Step with your host, beloved preacher, retired teacher, and faithful through the valleys or dancing on the mountaintops, Sarita's voice will guide you back to his promises step by step. So open your heart, settle your spirit, and take the next step in faith with joy in every step.
Sarita Bernadette:Hi. I'm Sarita Bernadette, and welcome back to another episode of Joy in Every Step. I'm glad you're here. In the last episode, we talked about the value of solitude. During a tough time in my life, I learned that I needed to spend time alone with the Lord.
Sarita Bernadette:Alone with the Lord, he was able to calm my fears and help me to see my situation clearly and to respond in a way that made sense as I moved forward with my life. God was literally showing me my next steps if and only if I would surrender to healing, surrendering to healing. That's what we're going to talk about today. It was in that season that I just mentioned that I discovered that I was so obsessed with regaining control of my life. So very focused on the next move.
Sarita Bernadette:So anxious about getting it all just right that I was missing out, missing out on some very precious times. Life was flying by and I was missing some of what the Lord wanted me to enjoy. When the Lord brought that to my attention, I was a classroom teacher in a space that had floor to ceiling whiteboards. I remember requesting the use of a ladder and climbing that ladder and writing at the very top of that board in big red letters, surrender Dorothy. When I wrote the phrase up there initially, I had a hidden reason.
Sarita Bernadette:I knew some of my students could read and I wanted them to think it was just another one of miss Sarita's ways to acknowledge her love of movies and Broadway shows but there was indeed something deeper going on at the time. You may recognize that famous phrase from The Wizard of Oz, surrender Dorothy. In the film, the wicked witch of the West uses smoke coming from her broomstick to write that message in the sky. The message is a way for her to intimidate and it's a direct threat aimed at Dorothy and the entire community. The community is being told to give her up or be prepared to pay the consequences.
Sarita Bernadette:At that moment in the movie, Dorothy is enjoying the companionship of her friends in the land Of Oz while on the way to see the wizard so she can get back home. I'm well aware of the original intent of this whole scene. However, God gave me a bit of a revelation back in 1998. When I wrote those words, the message to me was give her up, give her up. That person you once were is no more.
Sarita Bernadette:Surrender Dorothy. There was a major shift in my life at that time and I needed to move from worry and concern to a place of assurance. Assurance that God had my life in his hands. I needed that daily reminder to give it all to the Lord. Two scriptures in particular provided comfort for me during that time.
Sarita Bernadette:Philippians four, six and seven, familiar passage, but this is the message version. Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good will come down, will come and settle you down rather.
Sarita Bernadette:It's wonderful what happens when Christ display displaces worry at the center of your life. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. And another one, first Peter five and seven, cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. The human brain has been designed in an amazing way. Brain anatomy is being discussed and analyzed in new and fascinating ways of late.
Sarita Bernadette:I love it. It has taken a long time for the world to openly acknowledge how the Word of God informs us about the function of our brains. Those verses that we've studied and memorized take on brand new meaning when we're able to recognize how they're related to brain function. Makes sense because we are spiritual beings having a human experience, right? The Bible stresses the importance of the mind.
Sarita Bernadette:It tells us the mind has the power to influence us spiritually and to dictate our actions. It encourages us to guard our thoughts and renew our minds daily. It also emphasizes the practice of focusing on the important things, the things that are lasting, the eternal things. In other words, we can have an influence on how our minds operate. We can condition our minds with the Word of God.
Sarita Bernadette:So when it comes to trauma, there are three parts of the brain affected or involved if you will. The amygdala, this is the region critical for processing one's emotions like fear, it reacts strongly to trauma and it can become overactive when one experiences traumatic events. Persistent trauma can lead to exaggerated fear responses and a constant state of alertness. This can make it hard to tell the difference between safety and danger. Your brain just doesn't know.
Sarita Bernadette:Next is the hippocampus. This is the region where memories are formed and contextualized. It's here where exposure to trauma can lead to disorganized, partial, intensely vivid or intrusive memories and difficulties in distinguishing between past and present danger. The third one is the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex also known as the PFC.
Sarita Bernadette:The more I study the word of God and the PFC, the more I appreciate it in God's design. The PFC is where executive function lives. What we're talking about here is emotional regulation and decision making. Trauma can weaken the PFC, making it harder to calm those fear responses and think rationally during stressful situations. A weakened PFC causes one to remain in hyper alert mode and perhaps react out of one's emotions without stopping to consider the consequences.
Sarita Bernadette:So considering this information about trauma and considering the things the word of God tells us about how we should steward our minds, I'd like to offer up a story. As you listen, please note how trauma affected this individual and how God responded. Let's look at the story of Gideon in Judges chapters six through eight. Now I'm gonna summarize much of this so we can get through it all. Stay with me though because it's lengthy, but we know God wastes nothing.
Sarita Bernadette:Details matter to him. Listen to the way God handles Gideon's anxiety and his fear. Gideon was an Israelite who found himself hiding out in a winepress threshing wheat. He was there because the Israelites were in the midst of hardship as a result of their disobedience. Again, they're in the midst of hardship as a result of their disobedience.
Sarita Bernadette:They were being oppressed by other tribes and therefore Gideon is threshing the wheat out of sight to keep it from being snatched up by the enemy, to keep it from being taken from his people. In Judges six twelve, an angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and says, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Gideon responds with a few questions. He basically says, how can you say this when all this calamity is on us? The Lord has abandoned us and the Lord tells him to go in strength.
Sarita Bernadette:I'm sending you. So Gideon keeps talking. He says, how am I supposed to do this? I'm from the weakest tribe in Israel and the Lord comes back with, I'll be with you and you will defeat all your enemies. So once again, Gideon can't seem to help himself and he tells the Lord, if it's really you, hold on a second while I get an offering for you.
Sarita Bernadette:And the Lord says, alright, I'll wait. So Gideon gets a goat, some bread and some broth and he brings it all back and the angel of the Lord directs him to put the goat and the bread on a rock and to pour that broth all over it. The angel of the Lord then sets it all on fire and burns the sacrifice. That's when Gideon realizes he's been talking to the Lord for real, and he builds an altar to memorialize his encounter. The story goes on with Gideon following God's instructions and destroying the instruments being used by the people for idol worship.
Sarita Bernadette:Then the people get upset and they want him killed but his father defends him and they can only give him an offensive name. So Gideon under the power of God gathers an army together to save Israel but his anxiety kicks in and he challenges the Lord to show even more signs that he will give him success when he goes to war. You can read about that part in Judges chapter six verses 36 through 40. In the next chapter, Gideon has his army of men, they're all together and the Lord tells him he has too many and listen for his reason for saying that. Listen to his reason rather for saying that.
Sarita Bernadette:He says, the troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hand. Therefore, he says Israel would only take credit away from me saying my own hand has delivered me. I'm gonna read that again. The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take credit away from me saying my own hand has delivered me.
Sarita Bernadette:Then God says, tell the ones who are scared to go home, tell them to go home. If they're if they're scared, tell them to leave. And guess what happens? 22,000 of the men go back home and Gideon is left with 10,000. So God tells him there are still too many so I'll sort them again.
Sarita Bernadette:He takes the group down to the water to drink and only keeps the 300 who knelt down to lap the water with their tongues 300, 300 from 32,000. God says, yep, that's a good number. Now go and attack them. Go and attack the enemy. You will win.
Sarita Bernadette:But but the Lord says, if you're still fearful, sneak in there and eavesdrop in the camp of your enemies and after that, you'll be even stronger. God sees and God knows beloved. He's busy building Gideon's confidence. So we're in chapter seven now, and Gideon goes down to the camp and he hears a soldier telling another soldier about a dream that he's had. And listen to this, the dream was heavy on the symbolism.
Sarita Bernadette:In the dream, it says, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell. It turned upside down and the tent collapsed. And verse 14 says, his comrade answered, oh, this is no other than the sword of Gideon, son of Joash, a man of Israel into his hand God has given Midian and all the army. So Gideon hears this retelling and he goes back to his army of 300 and he tells them, get up. The Lord has given us the victory.
Sarita Bernadette:Wow. There's a lot to unpack in that story. For our topic today, I just want to point out a few things. First, Gideon didn't trust in the Lord's ability to intervene. That was a problem from the outset.
Sarita Bernadette:Seven years is a long time, a long time, long enough for feelings of abandonment to set in. He had watched his tribe go without the necessities and was probably experiencing disappointment and even bitterness. When one endures a tough situation for a long time, one can become bitter. Remember, Gideon asked the angel of the Lord, if the Lord is with us, why is all this happened to us? It was evident that Gideon was insecure.
Sarita Bernadette:Gideon didn't take God at his word. He demands repeatedly that God provide him with physical confirmation such as the famous fleece test. You can go and look that one up for yourself. We know Gideon was experiencing anxiety and fear which resulted from the trauma that I just mentioned. His people were scared, they were hungry and they were overwhelmed by their circumstances.
Sarita Bernadette:We do understand that the situation they were in was of their own doing. They had disobeyed God and they had turned to other gods, little g. They began to worship an idol and God did not like that. They did not know what they would face next must have had the whole tribe on edge. We know Gideon was experiencing anxiety and fear which resulted from the trauma I just mentioned.
Sarita Bernadette:His people were scared, hungry, and overwhelmed by their circumstances. We do understand that the situation they were in was of their own doing. They disobeyed God and turned to others. They began to worship an idol not knowing what they would face next must have had that whole tribe on edge. Then there's self doubt.
Sarita Bernadette:Self doubt showed up as Gideon was called on by God. Living under those conditions caused him to doubt his own ability to lead. He wasn't sure he was capable of doing what God called him to do. In the end though, Gideon gives in to the Lord's plan. He believes he can lead the army into battle and win because the Lord is with him.
Sarita Bernadette:In Hebrews 11 verses 32 through 34, Gideon, Gideon is listed as one of the heroes of faith. He's listed among several people in the Bible who accomplished great things through their trust in God. Gideon is remembered there because his faith prevailed over his fear. And note again how the Lord was patient with Gideon. He took the time to carefully build his faith.
Sarita Bernadette:When I think back, I can see so many times when the Lord showed me grace and patience. How about you? During the many times when my faith was weak or I was feeling anxious about moving forward after a setback, he held my hand and showed himself to be a loving and cover. He let me know he was right there when I felt insecure about who he was calling me to be. When I needed physical evidence of his presence, he provided it.
Sarita Bernadette:So I can't hold anything against Gideon, can you? When I needed time to gather myself and get my amygdala in check, he provided a calm space to do that. Our God ministered to my hippocampus through the word so I could see the situation clearly so I could recall what actually happened and thankfully God was patient and he helped usher in that PFC helped usher it into the front of the room. Thank God for that. So I could respond to the situation in a reasonable manner so that I could see the situation from God's point of view.
Sarita Bernadette:A huge lesson with this story is one of surrender. Yes, surrender. Gideon had to be willing to heal the place in him that was filled with distrust, insecurity, anxiety and yes even fear. He had to be willing to put it all in God's hands and to trust that he would handle it. Trust.
Sarita Bernadette:I believe a lot of our fears and anxieties stem from our need for control. I read Philippians four six and seven at the top of the episode. That first encourages us to surrender our worries to God and to trust in his sovereignty. If we're being honest, many of us struggle to do what Proverbs three, five and six remind us to do. You probably know this one by heart.
Sarita Bernadette:Proverbs three, five and six reminds us to trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding, his will in all you do and he will show you which path to take. Trust him beloved, you can't do this on your own. When we lean on God's understanding, he orders our steps. Speaking of honesty, in the previous episode, I highlighted the way Jesus poured out his heart to the Father in the Garden Of Gethsemane.
Sarita Bernadette:It's found in Mark 14 verses 32 through 35. Remember Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and it says he was distressed and agitated and he said to them, my soul is deeply grieved even to death remain here and keep awake and going a little farther he threw himself on the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass from him. Yes, Jesus was upset and he didn't try to mask it. He went to the father and he was honest raw feelings beloved. He let the father know he was struggling with his assignment in that moment.
Sarita Bernadette:So note again how important it must be to the Lord that we are honest. We see examples of this throughout the Word of God. Human beings encountering tough times and instead of pretending that they have it all together, instead of acting like everything is going as planned, they tell God the truth about where they are. Beloved, that's what He wants from us. He wants us to come to Him and lay it down so He can remind us of His word and His intentions for our lives.
Sarita Bernadette:God is waiting for us to invite him in so he can show himself to be trustworthy and a strong tower. Surrendering to healing is work. It's not easy. Surrendering to healing requires that we replace those thoughts centered around our trauma or our hardships. We have to surrender and dig into God's Word.
Sarita Bernadette:We can dig in and see what he has to say about us. Genesis one twenty seven lets us know that God created us in his image and likeness. We reflect his nature. He says we're deeply loved in Romans eight thirty eight and thirty nine. Nothing can separate us from his love.
Sarita Bernadette:Second Timothy three and seventeen reminds us that we're equipped for good works. We're equipped for good works. It says all scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work and Ephesians one and five makes it clear God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Christ Jesus. This is what he wanted to do and it gave him good pleasure. I love that last part.
Sarita Bernadette:This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure. Three final verses for you. Psalm one hundred forty seven and three, He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. That's a promise. He binds up the wounds.
Sarita Bernadette:That means He stitches us up beloved, He closes it, He closes up our wounds, let Him in there. Jeremiah 3zero 17 says, I will give you back your health and heal your wounds, says the Lord. Boom! Another promise of not just physical healing, but emotional and spiritual healing as well. Isaiah 5seven 18 I have seen their ways, but I will heal them.
Sarita Bernadette:He's seen who we are, He's seen all of it and He's still going to do what He said, He will heal. Practice the daily discipline of surrender. Realize releasing your worry, your fear and your pain. Put it all in God's hands and allow him to carry it. Then agree to submit to the healing process.
Sarita Bernadette:You've been listening to Joy in Every Step. I'm Sarita Bernadette and I'm grateful you chose to spend some time here with me. You can find Joy in Every Step wherever you listen to your podcasts and give us a follow there. Do check out the website at joyineverystep.org.
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