My Narrow Path

This has been an interesting year of growth for me personally which I believe was completely necessary. I have been friends with a stander for a long time and didn’t even realize I was standing in a marriage for his conversion and honestly mine as well.

This year, through feedback from trusted friends, I discovered some of my lack. This feedback was part of a yearlong school which they wisely broke into trimesters, much like a birthing process. One of the most challenging classes for me was on the ‘spirit of offense’ and the other one was on the ‘culture of honor’. These two were also reflected and confirmed in my feedback as a lack. To set the stage, shortly before this class started, the Lord gave me a dream. It was confusing at first but one I could easily remember. Basically, it meant that I was operating in a self-abandonment mindset. I was forgetting who I was and was leaning way too much on my husband for guidance and support he could not or did not know how to give. Something in me had to change and I knew it.

The help I needed came in the class on how to use I-messages and how my brooding over problems and issues was actually keeping me in this offense. I needed to learn how do I keep from making neuropathways of offense while trying to not have it expressed verbally in an unhealthy damaging way. Spirit of offense is an evil trap.

For me these two, avoiding spirit of offense and culture of honor, are like bumpers similar to bowling to keep me on a narrow path. It also another reminded me of a reading a prophetic friend has given me on several occasions:

Only be strong and courageous …Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. Joshua 1:7 (ESV)

I-messaging with my spouse shows dignity to him and also myself! Using I-messaging has been the only way that I have found to express my sorrow, anger and fear without defensive walls distancing me even more from my spouse and frankly others. This method has been a game changer for me. Using this method of conversation has changed so many things and I believe I truly am being heard. Even if they do not change, I can go back to prayer and not brood over the offense and fall into the snare. This brooding of offense makes neuropathways in my brain that set me in a judgment. Then I walk in this with interactions that do not honor the other person. Another way of expressing this, my brooding becomes my lived experience.

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.  Matthew 18:15

We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5

When using I-messages, I have to be powerful in the sense of accepting where they are at. They may not agree nor change, and if I want to be free then I have to let the other person decide. The reason why is: one, I could be wrong, two, love can only exist in freedom. It is the most incredible gift and mind-blowing move by God to give this to us. The risk of His heart on the line must reflect that He is absolutely crazy in love with us and desires that love from us in return even at His own peril.

Greater love has no man than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13

My other bumper for this path to keep on the narrow way is the ‘culture of honor.’ This culture speaks elevation of those I don’t agree with. A work of collaboration and peace when minds are at odds. An example is Daniel before the king as the king is getting words of warning:

Then Daniel (Belteshazzar) was greatly perplexed for a time and his thoughts terrified him…Belteshazzar answered, ‘My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning for your adversaries!’ Daniel 4:19

Daniel also tries to counsel the king to help lessen his punishment. In the end Daniel wins over the king by this culture of honor and love. Daniel’s compassion and power of control and his ability to see beyond the exterior of this king is very noble and worthy of being imitated.

The parts of the body that we think are less honorable are the ones we treat with special honor. 1 Corinthians. 12:23

In my life, I am seeing that my frustration in my marriage has caused damage to my children. Even when I am able to be silent, this brooding has affected my children in ways I am only now understanding.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. Proverbs 18:21 (ESV)

My poverty needs a great and loving God and here is where I hope to live the rest of my life. Calling on Him, asking Him to fill where I lack, and that I forgive deeply for my sake and my family’s. His love is sustaining and ever present when I need Him. He speaks words of comfort: ‘I got you, You are mine.’ I am never alone and can stand on my victory that I believe the Lord wants to give me either with my husband or with the mystical love and betrothal He will give on the last day:

Come with me. I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. Revelation 21:9 (ESV)

God bless,

Catherine in Oklahoma