To idolize is to prioritize any person place or thing, any thought, idea, concept, over the living word of God.

‘He hurt me.’

‘Did you know she did this to me?’

‘That church hurt…’

‘But my own dad…’

‘If you only knew what my mom did…’

‘I was victimized. Literally abused my whole life.’

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This chaos, confusion, death, destruction, stealing situation in your life is not God’s authored plan and purpose for you…

God did not create you to bring trauma to you to punish you.

Sin, and the fruit thereof, the enemy of the world, the devil, is behind this, friend.

The enemy works in people, situations, circumstances, and we sometimes are completely unaware.

Division, strife, envy, evil.

Hold the eyeroll, and hear me out.

To some this may sound harsh. Not sympathetic. But you don’t know me well if you think that’s my heart.

I’m a nurse. I eat drink and sleep not only empathy, but compassion. I’m going to tell you to dust off and keep going.

Not only that, I know what it’s like to walk through trauma, and to idolize it.

It’s the love of God that comes out of my heart for you when I say this… it’s holding you back.

How? True, real compassion is Gods kind of love that COMPELS YOU TO ACT.

Somebody’s gotta say it.

Your hardest most painful moment?

God walked through it with you and captured every tear in a bottle for you.

He knows exactly what happened.

But it’s now time to refocus.

Dethrone the little Buddha on your nightstand named Anxiety.

Replace the position you gave on your bookshelf from that ‘church hurt’ with the cross.

It’s time to forgive and let them go.

It’s time to change your mind for letting this infected wound fester and steal from you what God has in store because you’re idolizing this, instead of Him.

These big things for us are no big deal to God.

He can fix it in 5 seconds in His presence.

Let Him in.

It’s time to usurp the idolized hurts we allowed for too long.

Church can help.

But first we as the church, as His Bride, must stop prolonging hurts to fester in God’s people by standing along and idolizing pain and hardships with them…

By denying or ignoring or refusing to discuss and teach repentance and resurrection grace that enables them to get through it, we stunt them.

We promote saved and stuck, instead of saved and set free, ‘now go get ‘em…He’s within you!’

We don’t have to lick our wounds for 5, 7, 25 years.

We don’t have to live the life of depressed, anxious, sick, abused.

Yeah, life happens.

It sure does.

But in the troubles of this world, He overcame for us.

We idolize Christ.

We promote the Risen King Jesus. We stand on God’s promises and BELIEVE THEM.

We turn from evil and God heals our land.

We repent for doing wrong and we reunite with His presence and purpose.

All Hail King Jesus.

Everything else must go.