I’m practicing being honest with God.  This week, He seems to be encouraging me NOT to filter my feelings. He’s been encouraging me to ‘spit them out’.  I realize how often I stop myself from acknowledging any thought that feels like sin.  Like pride. Or judgmentalism.  But you know what I also realized?  That if I don’t tell Jesus what I’m thinking and feeling, then I don’t allow Him to speak.  I cut myself off from what He thinks about all this and what He wants me to do.

Here are two entries from my journal this week.  

December 5

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matt 18:3 ESV

What are little kids like? I think of Elizabeth, my very verbal granddaughter, who is 6.  Every time we are together, she asks a million questions. She wants to know everything.

Just how does that make me feel? Happy that she is interested in what I think! She also wants to show me her latest drawings and what she can do, from cartwheel to piano melody.

Am I annoyed?  No! I enjoy her company. 

I wrote yesterday that God has called us into koinonia: intimate, conversational fellowship with Jesus.  He wants us to talk and listen to Him non-stop.  Without an ‘adult’ stuffy filter.

Someone said the other day: ‘Oh, I don’t want to bother God about the little things in my life.  He’s way to busy!”

One of Satan’s favorite lies! And definitely not what the Bible teaches.  But do we actually believe what Jesus said?

Chatter on, dear friends!

December 6

We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Cor 10:5 Berean

In my study this morning, I saw Paul’s statement differently.  So, I rewrote it in my journal like this:

We capture every thought, bringing it out of Satan’s governing purview, and present each thought and the feeling it produces to Christ who is Lord over our thoughts, our feelings and our actions.

I’ve written about Jamie Winship and how greatly his training in both knowing God and recognizing false identities is changing me. The first step is to bring our thoughts out into the light and ‘confess’ them to Jesus. 

Next, we think through what that thought or feeling implies about ‘who we are’, (who we THINK we are).  All this, without any filter.  Then we ask Him: What do YOU say about this, Jesus?  What do you want me to do?

Then we listen.

I like how Paul says the same thing.

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You know, this freedom to bare all to the One who already KNOWS it all is a relief. I find that I can’t wait to tell him what’s on my mind and in my heart. And I’m curious to hear from Him, too.