Saturday, July 6, 2013

Trapped

Do you remember some of the old action movies when the good guy would get captured and thrown into a little room with large cement walls that slowly closed toward him?

I would sit on the edge of my seat, anxiously waiting to see what masterful plan the hero would come up with to get out of this messy situation.

As sweat poured down the good guy's face he would look up, down, and side to side to plan his route of escape; to avoid being smushed like a can of sardines!

Thankfully, at the last second, he would spring into action with a brilliant stroke of genius and free himself just before the walls squeezed shut!

As a child and teenager, I can remember watching countless movies like this and wondering what it would feel like to be trapped in that little room with walls closing in towards me.

Once I got older, it became much easier to imagine that feeling.

By my mid twenties, feeling like the walls were closing in became a common occurrence. 

I had begun to construct a little room of my own in my mind.

There were walls of secrets built up all around me.

One wall was my sexuality.
I was gay but hardly anyone else knew it.
The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint my parents and harm my family's reputation.

Another wall was sex and porn addiction.
Because I didn't feel like being in a healthy committed relationship with another guy was even an option, I began to find one night stands to fill my needs of intimacy.
I thought being gay meant having sex.

The third wall was self loathing.
To say I had low self esteem is an under statement.
I felt like lower then low, scummier then scum, fuglier then fugly!
I looked at myself and saw a fat guy who was only good enough for cheap tricks and one night stands, but never a loving partner.

Finally, the fourth wall was a fear of rejection.
Who would want me if they knew the truth?
I was even more messed up on the inside then I was on the outside.
My sense of humor kept some friends around but I thought that if I let the persona as the "funny guy" slip they would abandon me too.

When you are in a place that you don't love yourself, it is difficult to let others love you, and next to impossible to accept the fact that God loves you.

I was surrounded on all sides with these walls that towered above me farther then I could see and they were rooted so deep in my psyche I couldn't imagine digging under them.

Not only did they loom enormously huge in my eyes, they also began closing in.

What was making them move closer and closer around me?

Fear.

Fear was fueling the movement of these walls as they inched ever so near me.

I was surrounded.
For years, I was surrounded!

Living daily in this bondage was exhausting.

Finally, when I felt completely smothered, gasping for air with no place to go, I asked for help.

I was ready for things to change.
Either I was gonna die here in the prison of my mind or God would have to rescue me like a prince in shining armor riding in on a white stallion.

All I knew was enough was enough.
I couldn't take it any more.

So, I surrendered.

Thankfully, though, I surrendered to God.
With the tiniest grain of mustard seed faith, a very faint and time worn glimmer of hope, I prayed.
It was a long shot, but it was still a shot.

In the midst of my cloudy consciousness and battered state of mind, I asked God for help.
I surrendered my life back to Him.

Here's an interesting fact about God:
No matter how tall the walls are around you, no matter how deep the pit you find yourself, His arms can still reach you!

This began my journey to freedom.

First, the walls stopped moving towards me.
The fear started to lose it's power.

The darkness of my secrets began to fade as light started penetrating my fortress.

A secret loses it's power when you shine light on it.

Cracks began appearing in the wall of porn and sex addiction as God guided me to find counseling and support groups to deal with those issues all the way down to the root of them.

God continued to add a support team in my life and soon I noticed stones starting to crumble in the wall that represented my sexuality.
I started accepting the truth in my life that I could not change my sexuality so God must have created me this way for a reason.
I came out to people close to me, including my parents and immediate family.

As the walls kept moving farther away, showing signs of weakness in their structural integrity, I began having more thoughts of clarity.

Somehow the walls didn't reach as far in the sky as they once did.

I could even peek over them from time to time and catch a glimpse of what true freedom looked like.

God kept working on my heart as my mental image began to rise.
That wall of self loathing was losing its facade as well.
I began to see that I have worth as a human being, as a good person, as a Child of God.

Through all of this, the wall of rejection was the last to lose it's power.

The lie I had been taught in church, from pulpits and other Christians, was that God rejected me for being gay.

I had a very deep seeded belief that I was not worthy for God's love and therefore I was rejected by Him and every other decent person.

With a mighty move of His hand, in a divine Kung Foo Chop of Grace and Mercy, God destroyed that wall by instantaneously revealing His great love to me.

In a clarion moment one day the light bulb went off over my head and I realized a simple but bedrock truth.

God Loves Me!

God loves me enough to rescue me from my prison.

God loves me enough to keep me safe even when I was lost in a world of death and destruction, in addiction and std's, in self abuse and darkness.

God loves me enough to create me even though He knew before I was born the many ways I would mess up.

He knew the sins I would commit.
He knew the roads I would take while running away from Him.
He knew the ways I would be hurt emotionally and then turn around and hurt others emotionally.

My friends, when God sees us, He doesn't see us covered in the mess we have made or the slips and falls we have taken.

God sees us covered in one thing: The Blood Of Jesus!

God is not a judge waiting to convict us to death for the sins of our past or present or future.

He is a loving Father, waiting to promote us to a life of freedom!
He longs for us to surrender to Him and let Him be the Prince in Shining Armor who rides in on His white stallion, sweeping us up into His arms, and riding away with us into the sunset.

God Loves Us!
God Loves Me!

God Loves You!

No matter how tall your walls are, God Loves You!
No matter how deeply rooted they run in your life, God Loves You!

You don't have to be trapped any longer!

You don't have to let the villain hold you in that fortress as the walls inch closer and closer until finally they crush the life out of you.

It doesn't matter what the walls are.
Are they lust, greed, depression, hurt, self loathing, addiction, fear?

No matter what your walls are labeled, declare today that you are a prisoner no more!

Take that last glimmer of hope that exists deep down in your heart and cling to it.

Say this prayer right now, wherever you are:

Father God,
I love you and I need you.
I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and I need you to rescue me today.
Please reach down into my situation and pull me out.
I surrender to you, Father, to be my Hero.
I will go where you say I should go and do what you say I should do.
I choose to take the help you offer me.
I trust you, Heavenly Father, as my Papa God, as Jesus Christ your Son and my Savior.
I love you,
Amen

Now trust Him, my friends, to bring you out just as He brought me out.

God's promises are for everyone.

What He has done for me, He will do for you!

He has a plan for you.

You have a destiny for Him!

One day you will be able to share with others your testimony about when you were trapped and How God came to your rescue.

Message me for any prayer requests and I will stand with you.
Stay surrendered to God and He will bring a support team into your life.

I look forward to hearing your testimonies!

As always remember:
God Loves You!
God Created You!
God Accepts You!

Until next time,

SavedByGrace