All things are lawful but all things are helpful!

1 Corinthians 10:23:  “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful but not all things edify.”

This verse has been stuck in my mind a lot lately.  In the last two years I have grown in my knowledge that there is nothing that I need to do in order to be righteous and that I am whole and complete.  I have stopped doing all the “have to’s” and “shoulds”.  I have stopped trying to judge if I am on the correct path but looking at what others are or are not doing.  I have not held others to my standards.  I have felt peace and love from Papa God and it is awesome!

Relishing in that freedom has been a wonderful change from the way I have lived my life so far.  I am not as anxious as I have been.  I just been sitting and not trying to change myself.  I feel that I am coming to a place where I accept myself for who God created me to be and I can see how what He created is wonderful!  I am a much loved and highly valued daughter of the King.  I have needed this time to just decompress and renew myself.  It is something that I needed to do and I am thankful that Papa God has helped me get off the road of trying to make myself righteous.

In the last month I have been thinking about my life and where I want to go from here.  One direction I want my life to develop is in the area of my health.  I am tired of always feeling run down and bloated.  I know that this comes from what I choose to eat and lack of exercise.  In the past I have tried to get healthy in order to please God, in order to fix myself, and to feel good about who I am.  Papa God showed me that He did not want me to worry about my health or trying to eat a certain way or force myself to exercise.  I have really enjoyed that freedom.  Recently though, I have felt a longing to feel energetic and full of life.  I want to change the way I eat in order to change the way I feel.  

Also, I have looked at the things I want to accomplish in my life time.  I want to be a writer.  I have so many ideas in my heart and mind and I want to share them with others in order to be encouraged to be the person they were created and designed to be.  I want to be able to one day own a resort on a beach somewhere with my husband.  I want to develop a crochet business as a way to express all the colorful and crazy ideas floating around in my head.  In having all these dreams I know I need to “do” something and I am learning to understand what that means.  In the past I would have thought I needed to do something to show Papa God I was worthy of doing these things.  This thought process would lead me to trying to prove myself to God and I don’t have anything to prove to Him.  He has given me all I need for life and godliness.

The verse in 1 Corinthians speaks to me in that I have freedom to do and be what I choose.  There are somethings that I have been doing that are not helpful and edify me.   Eating a lot of high sugar foods have not helped me to feel energized or reach the goals I have in my life.  Jesus came to give live and give it abundantly.  It is for freedom that Jesus has set me free.  Some of the things I have been choosing to do have not helped me enjoy the abundantly life Jesus has for me.  I am not convicted of a sin, I don’t feel I have to purge myself or beat myself up for the choices I have made, that is something I would have done in the past.  Now I see that what I have been doing is not the things I truly want to do and even though there is freedom in my choices I want to do things that help me and edify me.  The abundant life Jesus has given me cannot be taken away.  

I am not sure if I have explained myself clearly so I will try to sum it up as succinctly as I can.  I have freedom  in my life and Jesus came so that I don’t have the law hanging over me.  I don’t have to try and live up to that standard because, as Jesus said on the Cross, “It is finished!”  I no longer am satisfied with the choices I have been making like eating high sugary foods, not exercising, and putting off my writing.  I don’t have to wait for something supernatural to happen to change me and make me want to love the abundant life that is before me.  I have the freedom to choose the abundant life and to just let these other things that are not helpful to me fall away.  

Be blessed!

Sister Cindy