What Does Your Harbor Look Like?

Our Pastor was teaching about forgiveness and an analogy of a harbor used in this teaching was an opportunity for God to show me something about my own “harbor” (or heart).  According to www.definitions.net, a harbor is a haven, or part of a body of water along the shore deep enough for anchoring a ship and so situated with respect to coastal features, as to provide protection from winds, waves, and currents.    That's where the terminology comes from when we talk about harboring ill will about someone.  We bring those thoughts into our “harbor” (our heart, mind and soul), and that area is deep enough to take anchor.  We then protect those thoughts and feelings from the winds, waves and currents of life. Soon, we have our harbors so full, we don't have enough room to let God come in. 

While I was listening to that message (it's only about the fifth time I've listened to it!!), this is the picture God gave me.  I saw my “harbor” full of boats anchored down being protected from the raging storm.  Because the storm is so vile, other boats are trying to push their way into my port – boats carrying resentment, hate, sorrow, pain, sadness, pride, self-righteous, and many other things – and there were some boats that had been there so long they had become decrepit and were no longer seaworthy. 

Because my harbor was so full (the pain is so deep), I felt the need to share my boats with other people by filling them in on all the gory details and asking them to pray for me.  That's the Christian thing to do, isn't it?  We are to be a praying people!  And those we ask to pray for us need to know exactly HOW to pray for us, so they need to know all the details of the situation, right?  Hmmmm – Riiigghhtttttt.

This is the picture I got from the Lord about what happens in these situations that go on every day across the world in Christian communities.  I take one of my boats and put it in my friend's harbor by saying, “Please pray for me – this and this and this happened to me and so-and-so did this and that to me because they are such blankety blanks, and furthermore, that person also did this and that and that and this…..”  You get the picture.  What I'm REALLY saying is I don't want you to pray for me, I want to justify my anger and hurt to you so you can empathize with me and condemn the other person so I can be right.  So, I start helping you fill your harbor with junky boats for you to harbor. 

Because neither one of us know how to clean out our harbors, now there are two people with diseased hearts, souls and minds who aren't letting God in to do the work.  Now there are two people who harbor resentment towards the people involved.  If I go to yet another person and do the same thing, then another and so on, and if they don't know how to clean out their own harbors, their burdens become greater, their harbors get filled with junky boats and God can't get in there, either.  Then there are three, four and more people with hearts being filled with animosity, anger, hurt – all the things we feel.  The great things, however is we now feel better because we've just dumped a bunch of our junk on someone else which freed up more room for other boats to come in.  

And this is all in relationships with other believers, where we often use the terminology of “will you pray for me” to justify gossip.  What about our secular friends and family who we dump on who don't know there is a way to clean out that junk?  And how could they know when they see us as a Christian doing the same thing everyone else in the world is doing.  We are doing anything different  - nothing to set us apart.  In both instances, I see a barricade being built at the opening of that harbor – it only lets ships full of vileness come in but nothing can go out.

AH - I was in tears when He showed this to me!  How many harbors of friends and family have I filled with junk and am enabling that person to harbor ill will and not show them how God can come into their lives and clean it up?  That makes me sick.  I repent of not cleaning up my harbor by not going to God appropriately with the junk and I repent of helping fill someone else’s harbor full of junk so they can't be filled with God's amazing love and mercy.

How do we do it correctly?  We do need people to pray with and for us – we need God in the skin of man.  We need the support of others in the body of Christ to come along and support us in times of great storms.  I know if Karl and I hadn't had great Godly friends who know how to do this stuff with us through the storms we've experienced, I think we would have drowned in our own harbor.  So how do we clean out our harbors and be discerning enough to know if someone else is able to clean out their harbors so we can go to them for real help?

Here is what I see a fresh, clean living harbor looking like.  The mouth of that harbor is open to receive the greatness of God’s ship filled with mercy, love, justice (real justice), righteousness, respect, faithfulness, etc.  Sometimes, because of the raging storm, the other boats of despair, anger, hurt, etc must push into the harbor, but we deal with them right then and there. 

We may have to ask a healthy harbor person for prayer, but it's done similar to this:  “Jane, I have been really struggling with anger at a particular person.  I'm so angry because I've been unjustly accused of something, I've had unreasonable demands put upon me and I'm not dealing with it very well.  Will you pray with me so I can see what God has for me in this situation?  Will you pray with me that God will reveal His will and shower me with forgiveness for that person because I really don't have it in me right now?”

The POWER is released.  We have not placed our anger boat in someone else's harbor to make their waters sick and unhealthy but we've opened the mouth of our own harbor and let the Power of God come in and push that boat of anger back out to sea.  It may try to come back in during a storm, but if we know how to appropriately deal with it, it won't be able to stay long.

In fact, what about when someone tries to put their boat of junk in our harbor?  Once we've cleaned ours up, we notice them trying to put it there and we can just say no.  Here's an example.  Someone comes to us and starts gossiping about someone or blaming someone about what's going on in their lives.  They've just put their junky boats in my harbor and I have to decide what to do with it.  I can go back to my old ways of taking it and harboring it by letting it set anchor (and sometimes, because our harbors are so full, we don't even know when someone has done that to us!!!)  OR we do it the correct way.  We say, “hey – wait a minute.  I don't know what they've got going on in their lives and I don't understand where they are coming from, but let's talk about you instead.  You can't do anything about them but you can do something about you. Let me pray that God will show you how to handle this difficult situation.  How he can bring healing to your heart.  Let's go to scripture and see what He says about how to deal with this.” 

By doing this, we are helping them deal with their hearts – helping them clean up their harbor and see the boats of resentment and anger, etc. and allow God in to help clean it up. 

Again, The POWER!!!  You do that a couple of times with people and they get a knowing about you.  They will either never gossip around you again because you won’t take on their junk and revel in it with them or they will come to you because they really do want truth.  They really do want to progress.  Another thing, they will trust you.  They will know you are a rock and that no matter what, they know you won't be stabbing them in the back with gossip.  They know your harbor is cleaned out and that you know how to do it, so they come to you for real help.  Again, the POWER!

Thank you Jesus for our safe harbors.  I choose to clean mine up.  I choose to remove all those junky boats full of resentments and things NOT of you.  I choose to keep the mouth of that harbor open to you and your boats of forgiveness, love, mercy, happiness.  I want my harbor to be appealing to others, to be a refuge for others – one to be counted on.  Thank you!  Praise your Holy Name.

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Small Me

I love how God works in my life! Almost every single day He shows me a little tidbit which helps me understand how His Kingdom really works. Today was no different. Here’s a thought that just popped into my head – can everyone have these beautiful insights? I know for me, I can only see them when I am willing to get up in the morning! I am awakened anywhere from 2am-5am and if I am sensitive to what’s been going through my head at that moment rather than how many hours of sleep I didn’t get, I’m on my way to a great Word from my Heavenly Father. So, however God has created you to hear from Him (and He loves you SO much, He has created you to hear from Him), be willing to discover that communication. It will rock your world!

This is how it works for me – I get one picture, maybe two, upon waking or in that no-man’s land where I’m somewhere in between sleep and “what day is this”. That picture is like a raindrop on a calm water’s surface that, when it hits the surface, it sends ripples of understanding and on each ripple, another picture and more understanding comes. If I choose to get up and write about that beginning thought, the ripples go far and the understanding goes deep. If I don’t choose to get up, the understanding starts to sink and drown. Sometimes I can recall bits and pieces of it, but most times it sinks to the bottom. I suppose if it was something God really wants me to record, it will come back to me, but I don’t recall any particular thing coming back exactly as it was. 

I believe it was a lost moment, but who really knows for sure. This is what I DO know - if it was something critical to my life, I’d know. Most of these little pictures are helps to keep me going through some of these very hard trials in life and if I miss one vision, it may be the ONE thing to either help me for the day or someone else. I don’t want to miss one occasion to have the strength to complete a day or to enable someone else to walk out their day!

So, back to my picture – it was the picture of a graph and on that graph was one bar line that represented me and my problems. Here’s an example: 

If I believe my problem is at this level, it looks very overwhelming and daunting. It’s a big bar on a graph with nothing to bring it in to perspective. If I’m showing my salesmen a bar representing the sales for the month, that one bar really means nothing unless there are other bars on the graph representing last month’s sales or the whole year’s sales.

Now comes the rest of the story God gave me because I decided to get up - If I put this graph column in perspective to God’s strength and ability to overcome my particular problem, it would look more like this:

This is another way God works – He gave me the numbers for the graph and I only graphed the “ME” part of it. Then, when I did this last part part of the graph and added God to my world, "me" and my problems got rather insignificant. The solution to my problem is so easy in the sight of the Lord, but if I look at only ME, I will see only ME and the way I would handle and solve my problems! If I look at God instead of me and let "me" fade into the greatness of the I AM, my problems won't disappear, but I'm allowing the Great I AM direct my path!   He can't make things disappear - He has to work within our cursed system because of Adam's sin.  However, Christ's death, burial and resurrection bore that curse and He has given us access to the real Kingdom of God!

WOW! Thank you Lord! He loves us so much and we are so small next to Him, yet he knows the number of hairs on our head (even when I lose so many in one day!!?? grin) 

Matthew 10:27-31 New King James Version (NKJV)²⁷ “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. ²⁸ And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. ³⁰ But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

I’ve heard this said, and at times I've even said it myself – “Yeh, He may do it for you, but I don’t believe He will do it for me”. So, when that statement is made, I have to ask this – Is God a liar? Doesn’t that scripture say, “But the very hairs of YOUR head….?” If we go through the Bible and we put our name in place of every you, your, or yours, we will see He is speaking to each one of us individually! Don’t believe the lies of the enemy! Believe TRUTH!

So, next time I start fretting over a problem that looks really big and insurmountable, I will now have this tool in my bag – I will be able to remember 1 John 4:4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
 

AMEN!!! Go out and have a Blessed day! 

PS – for those who are interested in the meanings of numbers in the Bible, I looked up the meaning of two, since that was what I was given to use for the graphs (2,000 and 2,000,000).  Here is the reference – very interesting:  http://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/meaning-of-numbers-in-bible/2.html  


This website and its content is copyright of OverallSolution - © OverallSolution 2012. All rights reserved.