The answer to getting out of your rut

I’m sitting in a Bruegger’s Bagels coffee shop and I have Celiac disease.  Why?  Because I am so compelled to type out the words the Lord has placed on my heart, I’m willing to be tempted by all things gluten.  That’s what happens when you are a writer.  Many times you try to write, and the words are dried up and stale.  For months.  Maybe even years.  Then, in one sweeping moment, you think you might explode if you don’t type out the words that are bursting from your very being.

Even, even if it is just for one other person to hear.  Even, if that person is only yourself.  But perhaps these words might help you today?

What am I so compelled to tell you today?  Get up!  Get up off your couch.  Get up out of your bed.  Rise up from your rut.  Yes.  Today.

Maybe you are sitting there, even now, eating away your feelings.  Perhaps you are staring at a sink full of dirty dishes that have crusted on cereal and sour milk.  Perhaps your house is full of clutter and laundry piles, and your to do list is a mile high.

Get up.

I know, you are thinking, I’ve tried.  I don’t have the energy.  I don’t have the will to do the simple things that need to be done.

Get up.

But how?  How, when I’m depressed, discouraged, and ashamed. 

Get up!

Do you know what keeps us all from doing the things that we need to?

Fear.  Lies. The enemy.

Yes, all those things.  But… what the Lord clearly spoke to my heart today was, the illusion that love is absent.

You see, we all want to feel loved.  To experience love.  To be accepted.  To be appreciated.

What discourages you?  Is it the knowledge that you’ve failed?  That you have let yourself and others down?  Perhaps it’s the inability to help resolve the quarreling of the little ones in your home?  Maybe it’s an unfulfilled marriage?  Perhaps you are struggling with a friendship that seems to be ending or feeling misunderstood by a coworker or acquaintance?

Do you know the one thing that is at the root of all these things and life’s problems?

The illusion that love is absent.

What our very soul longs for and is made for is LOVE.  Not just the gushy, romantic love, but a deep agape love and friendship love!

When we experience a depressed and downcast spirit, it is because we think LOVE has betrayed us.  Perhaps you’ve felt betrayed by those closest to you?

Get up!

LOVE is not gone, for GOD IS LOVE.

There is an enemy that wants us to stay DOWN.  DEPRESSED.  FORGOTTEN.  His one goal is for us to feel that love is no longer.  That love has vanished.  He snatches our very motivation to do the simple things in life.  Don’t let him have it!  Speak truth out loud to the enemy.  Say it with me:

GOD IS LOVE, AND YOU ARE A LIAR.

 

When we love, we are getting just a finite glimpse of who God is.  Just a glimpse!  Can you even imagine?

GOD IS LOVE, and to know love, is to know and feel the love of Him!

So…

LOVE is the answer.  God is the answer.

Sounds cliché?

True love… is to know and experience God.  He alone is the one that will give us the courage to rise above the fear, the lies, and the depressed and downcast spirit that you may feel stuck in.

GET UP!

God is waiting to lift you right up out of your doldrums.  Isn’t that exciting?  I think so!  I believe He will do it even now if you let Him have His way with you.

Think about it with me for a moment if you are still skeptical.

Ask yourself what gives you JOY?  What gives you a leap in your step?  What gives you life in your spirit?  When I ask myself this simple question these things come to mind:

• Encouraging a friend
• Watching my children grow and learn
• Feeling the touch and admiration of my husband
• Being creative
• Taking pictures
• Being active and taking care of my body
• Eating healthy
• Reading God’s Word that is living and active
• Watching others come to know Christ as Savior
• Having a semi-clean and tidy home

Okay.  Now… what keeps me from all the things above?  It’s feeling down and depressed and lacking the drive to do any of the above.  The lies of the enemy, and the illusion that love has left.

The enemy wants to keep us in our rut!

So today, please know that God loves you deeply!  God wants you to rise and know that He will give you the strength and courage to overcome what you are facing.

So, get up and do the things that you have been avoiding.  Get out of that rut you are in because GOD IS LOVE and He will never leave you!

LOVE IS THE ANSWER!

Verses to memorize and meditate on today:

2 Timothy 1:7

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

1 John 4:8

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

2 Corinthians 10:5

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

1 John 3:1

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.

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*Just a side note:  If you are clinically depressed, or going through a time of grieving, this post may not apply to you.  Please seek medical help if needed.