This morning God spoke to me about home again, but this time in a different way.
For the last couple of days, He has been talking about seeing the value in one's home, knowing the honor it is to have a place to call home, and how special it is to care for one's home.
The pressure to keep up with the Jones' is real and social media does not make it any easier, but there is another reason why so many feel discontent, bitter, even angry concerning their homes and it was the one He spoke of today. It caught me off guard but also tied the last few messages together.
"My daughters are being seduced out of their homes," is what I heard and then as I lay in bed, still just waking up, I saw the story of Eve and the Garden of Eden. I saw the enemy as a serpent in her ear, talking to her, whispering to her.
I felt how one's heart feels in that moment. One's heart flutters at the idea of having something off limits. The seductive idea produces both a strong desire and a sense a uncomfortable lack, a feeling of resentment, that it seems only the fruit can fix. The fruit becomes the remedy and the answer.
Eve was in paradise. She had everything she needed and more. She had an easier, better life than she knew. She didn't realize how good she had it because she hadn't experienced how bad it could get. The comfort, safety and provision she lived in were literally God sent but but compared to the illusion presented to her, it wasn't good enough.
She was seduced out of the paradise by a single voice who told her there was something good she didn't have. She was missing out. God was holding out on her. God has lied to her, she'd been wronged.
And so she ate and paradise was lost.
I wonder if Eve, once living outside of the garden, ever reminisced. In the heat of the day or laying in bed by night, I can't imagine that she didn't think about where she'd come from. The beauty of it, the peace, the serenity, not to mention experiencing God in such a pure, intimate way.
The enemy could not taken the garden away from Eve. He had to convince her to lose it for herself.
"My daughters are being seduced out of their homes."
To the person reading this whose peace has soured into discontent, to the person reading this whose garden no longer looks lush and rich with fruit, but stale in comparison to something in their imagination, to the one feeling restless, hearing a voice speaking so consistently and negatively it has, in your eyes, turned your paradise into a prison, be careful.
"Where I am is far from paradise." How do you know? Compared to what? Even probably didn't know what she walked in until it was gone.
Better. Bigger. Different. New.
I heard a quote once that said, "Wherever you go, there you will be." Many chase happiness thinking it's right around the river's bend, but there is a type of discontent that is not remedied with running shoes. It can follow a person.
There are gardens that are overrun with neglect because the tenders abandoned them in their hearts years ago. In that case all that is required are seeds and willing hands in the dirt.
There are a times a situation is abusive or rotten in a way that is harming people. There are times God has removed me from situations that were dangerous for me that I wanted to stay in because I don't like change.
And there are times, in my own life, I have walked away from things God had planned to heal but I already had my eyes fixed on what was just over the hedge.
Better can be great. There is heaven-sent upward momentum, elevation and promotion. And there is human ambition driven by an inner emptiness and envy. The difference is the hand of God in it.
Joy isn't just around the bend. It isn't found in the next house. The next person. The next thing.
Ask yourself whose voice you're listening to and what their intention is. What is in your hear?
There is a prince of the power of the air at work who hates homes, hates families, hates mothers and seeks to see all destroyed. He has no gardens for you. He has no good things. He sings to people about greener pastures while leading them off of cliffs.
And what God was showing me this morning is that he, to this day, is still trying to talk women out of their gardens.
What about men? I'm sure he does the same, in fact, I know it, but God speaks to me regarding women and mothers probably because I am one. But it applies, take it.
How do I know who is talking to me?
"My sheep know My voice." -John 10:27
Is it in inspiriting fruits of the Spirit in you or something else?
Happiness is not just around the river's bend. Someone reading this is in a garden and does not even know it because of a combination of peering into other people's, being dazzled by illusions both online and off, and listening to voices steady trying to talk them out of it.
You can have great things. God is a God of elevation.
"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work." -2 Corinthians 9:8
And He will give you the desires of your heart, under one condition.
"Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."
-Psalm 37:4
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
-Matthew 6:33
Put first things first: a heart, mind and soul firmly rooted in Jesus. Then watch to see what God does in your life. I am living proof.
You won't be pulled by voices stirring up bitterness, restlessness, and resentment. You'll be presented with gifts from the Father of Lights in whom there is no change, no shifting shadows, no moving goal posts, no chasing clouds, hoping, wishing. You'll see the goodness of God in the land of the living and hold it in your hands.
This is how the world lives: chasing emotional high after emotional high, looking for peace in possessions and validation, hiding secret emptiness and sadness while pretending to be happy. If you listen the world's song, you will dance to it.
There is a real fountain of peace, of living water that won't have to be faked and it springs from Yeshua of Nazareth, the Messiah and Son of the Living God.
Listen to God's voice, read His words until it drowns out all other noise. This is big. The snacks of one verse devotionals and apps aren't satisfying some of your appetites so you're eating elsewhere. Read more. It's not just a book. It'll cover you in a way that is difficult to explain. If there's no time to read, put on a YouTube vide of an audiobible or play it in the car. There's no replacement.
It would be one thing if Eve had been led from one garden into an even better one. It would be one thing if celebrities truly were the happiest people on Earth proving fame and fortune were the key. If the data proved these were truths, that would be one thing, but it does not.
There is a hymn I love. I don't know the official name, but I'm going to paste it below.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.
When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil.
His oath, His covenant, His blood,
support me in the 'whelming flood;
when all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in Him be found:
dressed in His righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne.
I don't know what it is about hymns. If you're going through a time where your soul is being tossed around, perhaps that is why you've begun to believe some peace is just outside of your home, perhaps turn one on and listen as you go about your day.
There is another one I like.
It's called Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus and there is a line that goes:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full, in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
"My daughters are being seduced out of their homes."
Thing about the devil is that he has no new tricks. He got one woman out of the garden and he's still at it. You don't have to run around trying to heal yourself like a lost orphan. You have a Father. Take your troubled heart to the One who made it. Take it to Jesus.
Daughter,
God is a good Father. He does not withhold good things from His children. In this fallen world, where things are stolen and purposely withheld so that many starve, know God did not do that.
This world will not last forever, though. Busy yourself with the things of God so that on that day, He will find you standing firm. There is a crown for those that do. Don't look for a crown here, in a place moths and rust destroy. There is a crown this world cannot touch. A heavenly crown. Stand firm. Your peace rests in the hands of the One who breathed you for a purpose.
Love, Bunmi ♥️
The promises of God begin and end with Yeshua, Jesus, because He is the reconciliation. If you've been walking through life on your own and want to be a child of God, you want Him by your side through it all, here's how to begin.
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