One man's voice Thoughts, rants and commentary of a simple man

The paintings of people

If you have not yet seen the VeggieTales movie "A Snoodle's Tale" you should. It was my inspiration for this post.

Everyone that you have ever come into contact with has painted a picture. You have, too. It is an unavoidable experience and one that, unfortunately, leads to skewed vision for many people. Parents have parents, and since you have parents, there is a good chance that a picture has been painted of you by your parents' parents. You have also painted pictures of your parents. You have also, more than likely without knowing it, painted pictures of yourself.

You see, every time you develop a judgment you are painting that judgment on someone. As an example, have you ever seen a homeless person standing in the media at a stop light and thought to yourself that the person could probably walk right across the street and apply at the McDonald's that happens be staring him right in the face? Or perhaps you have seen that woman dressed provocatively and thought to yourself that she is obviously a loose woman since she is tempting so many men, perhaps tempting even your husband or sons?

Worse, sometimes we take it upon ourselves give words to the paintings that we make, thus making the painting a lot more vivid. That painting then becomes larger to the person receiving it and, after a while, the painting gets tacked onto their back with the others. That person then travels through their life carrying the images cast upon them by people without them even knowing it.

"Why do you always do ...?"
"Can't you try ... for once?"
"I am so glad I am not you."
"How do you live with yourself?"

These paintings, images if you will, stay with people for a long time. Sometimes they become so prevalent that they take over our own vision and become the image of what we see toward ourself. When that happens, we begin to see things through the eyes of people that have no care whatsoever how you see things. Thankfully, we have a loving God that sees things a little differently.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
- Jeremiah 29:11

Did you know that God has an opinion? And that His opinion is typically vastly different than yours? God loves you, and He sees the things that He has for you. God has a future for you. He created you with a purpose for the future. It almost makes sense that everything we do in life is geared to forward motion. We are intended to move forward, to progress, to attain to levels set before us.

So how is it that pictures creep up every now and again to keep us from looking forward by making us look back?

"Remember when he cheated on you?"
"Remember what she told her friend about you?"
"Remember when your boss said ...?"
"Remember the time your dad did ...?"

This is not our intended course. Looking back is not how we are meant to move. If it were, we'd be able to move our heads completely around to see what is behind us. If you don't believe me, try looking directly behind you right now... without moving your shoulder position or other parts of your body. Can't do it can you?

I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.
- John 10:9-12

Notice something in this scripture: You enter into the presence of Christ forward (as you walk through a door) and run from the wolf (being chased from behind). God is always moving you forward, the enemy is always chasing you from behind. The enemy lives in the past because that is where all your failures, challenges, obstacles, hurts and infirmities (the ones that God has delivered you from) live. Satan has a singular objective which is to totally corrupt any relationship you have with God. He tries to make you remember things in the past that appear as though God let you down. It is very important to remember that God does not remember the iniquity that he has delivered you from. There is no reason to try to remember something that God has chosen to forget for you. So why do we do it?

In Genesis 3:1-4 Satan speaks verbally to Eve. In Matthew 4:1-11 Satan speaks verbally to Jesus. What are the chances that at some point Satan may choose to speak to you? If it makes your relationship with God the Father rocky, why wouldn't Satan try to skew your image of God. Better yet, why wouldn't he try to skew your image of yourself and your loved ones at the same time so that your relationships get torn up all over the place?

I know from personal experience that actions in the past that are forgiven, but brought back up can have seriously detrimental effects on a relationship. Whether it be marriage, sibling relationship, friendship, employment, parenting... whatever, it is always a terribly experience to endure. God has forgiven the sin, now it is your turn. The enemy is powerless if we give him no power. But if every time the enemy shows you a painting of what someone drew of you, even one you drew of you, and you choose to remember that, you are allowing the enemy to take a stronghold position in your life and more importantly with your relationship with God. When things from the past creep up and and try to sneek into your relationship with God, you need to turn them over to God. Imagine handing God a nasty, funky, rotten piece of filth and asking him to remember it from years ago. I can just see His reaction to it... "Why do I want this? I threw this away for you years ago. Why are you rifling through the trash of the past?".

So how do we let these things go?
Turning things over to God is very simple, but it is not easy. It is one of the most difficult things to do as a Christian because it involves your complete intimate faith and your willingness to trust that God will take care of your needs when no one else can. This is about the best illustration I can come up for this:

Imagine that those paintings that you have been collecting from other people are all being kept in a nice sack that you sling over your back and carry with you everywhere you go, day after day. You have easy access to all the crap that everyone has ever cast onto you. Now imagine, as time goes by and as more paintings are added to the sack that the sack gets pretty heavy. At some point, if you don't remove something from it you will not be able to carry it anymore and you will essentially stop moving because you can literally not carry the sack anymore. So you hold the sack, standing still, wanting to progress and not being able to because that sack of remembrance, iniquity, failure, hurt, pain, anxiety, depression, is so heavy. Now you have two options. You can either let go of the sack and continue moving forward or you can stop right where you are at and sit next to the sack for the rest of your life and go nowhere.

This is the part where you get to make a choice. Letting go of the sack of crap from the past means that God needs to meet you at a place where you can give it to him:

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,
casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
- 1 Peter 5:6,7

God loves you enough to want to free you from the bondage of remembering past afflictions. He wants you moving toward Him, focused on Him, in pursuit of fellowship with Him. He wants you humility that He would be able to exalt you for it.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
- James 4:10

Then, when He takes that load off of your shoulders, the one that has been pressing you down, making you grumpy and angry and depressed,, he can then lift you up for His glory.

He delivers me from my enemies. You also lift me up above those who rise against me; You have delivered me from the violent man.
- Psalm 18:48

Now the funny about all this is that as God tries to rescue us from our past, as He tries to lift us up, we try to recall all the stuff the enemy tries to make us remember. We argue with God as though God will come down and see things your way. God does not need to be reminded of your image of yourself. He made you. In His image. He knows what you are and what you are capable of doing. He doesn't want your image of yourself, He wants you because He loves you. Our only requirement is that we heed His call.

Hearing God
At some point it is going to come up that in order to do all of this 'relinquishing' we are going to have to ultimately come before God and give Him our cares. I can tell you firsthand, this is not nearly as easily done as it is said. But it needs to be both said and done.

In order to know that God will deliver you, you must have faith that God will do what he says He will do.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
- Hebrews 11:1

This means that, while you may not see anything with your eyes or hear anything with your ears, your spirit can already see the completion of the task that God has set in action. That is how God sees: everything that He says will come to pass has already come to pass in His eyes. We just need to see through his eyes every once in a while to actually get a glimpse of what living by faith is truly about.

So how do we strengthen (or in some cases develop) faith? You listen.

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
- Romans 10:17

Now this requires a little greater detail than most folks care to mention. Imagine if you will that you are in a crowded room and people in the room are all talking. Who are you going to hear the best? That's right, the person closest to you. Whether you want to or not, that voice closest to your ear is the voice that will resonate the loudest to you. Right now, Satan is trying to get your attention. He seeks an audience with you so he can continue to go over all those things that can keep you from moving forward with God. But you know what? God is talking to you also. He is telling you how much He enjoys your time, your prayer, your faith, your fellowship and how He wants more of it. Who are going to listen to?

The answer is obvious. Who are you closer to? If you allow Satan to come between you and God, then when God talks, Satan can whisper and still drown out the voice of the Lord. But if you keep God close to your heart, protecting it and you walk with him, Satan can't scream loud enough to get past the voice of God.

So my challenge to you is this: Put God first and closer to you than anything (yes, closer than your spouse, your kids, your job, your country... anything) and let the continued growing fellowship of God do the work that He said it would do. Don't let the enemy get close enough to you to make you believe the junk he pushes. And when someone paints a picture of you that stands out dramatically different that what you know you are, give it to God to put in the sack that He is already carrying for you. Besides, God doesn't need their image of you anymore than you do. He has you, and that is what He wants anyway.