The root of all of my issues, I have come to this, was insecurity. The best-built guy in the gym could easily be the most insecure person there.
I worked out religiously for years because it got me what I wanted. It got me the attention that I wanted.
I got in a lot of trouble. I worked for the city of Chattanooga. I was a firefighter for seventeen years.
I got divorced at twenty-seven and became really embittered. The tree of bitterness is terrible. I had a couple of domestic violences and two D.U.I.’s. I actually got into a lot of trouble but got out of a lot of trouble because I worked for the city. There was a lot of mercy that fell on that for because of being a police officer for a while and a firefighter too. The last time I got arrested I lost my career with the city because they just couldn’t continue to pour good money into a bad product.
In holding at Hamilton county, the Lord visited me and He shared with me, He said, “You’ll spend the rest of your life in jail, if not you’ll be dead and in Hell or you can commit your way to me and I will establish your path.” It didn’t seem like much of a decision at that point. I had been in holding several times. I had been arrested several times. I didn’t like jail. I knew I wouldn’t like to be there all the time. So, Hell seemed tremendously worse. I knew the Word enough to have an understanding of what that looked like. So, at that moment I committed my way to the Lord.
He also told me, because I blamed people for my life. The root of bitterness and insecurity produced in me, what it produced in me was a place where I lived at the expense of every person I came in contact with. If you were doing me okay, we were friends but if you weren’t doing me okay, I would just find somebody else to do me okay.
My life isn’t about me anymore. My life is about the person in front of me because that’s the way Jesus lived his life.
Insecurity was if people don’t see me a particular way and don’t respond to me in a particular way so, I have to act a particular way so that people will see me and know me. Then if they know me and like me then I must be likeable.
You can reject me. You can shoot me. You can punch me in the face. You can lock me up. But I’ve been accepted by the Lord. I can never be rejected. He’s the one who holds worlds in His hands. The one who breathes stars accepted me.
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