He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. Proverbs 25:28
Because they provoked his (Moses) spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips. Psalm 106:33
To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Hebrews 3:7-8
Even God can be provoked!
Whether it's exasperation because someone doesn't understand, or self-pity because one wishes someone to understand, or frustration ....there has come this awful time when I simply speak unadvisedly with my lips. In this way, I've discovered that the need to express one's pain is used by the spirit of self-pity to make us re-affirm our sickness and our plight. We don't praise God or affirm His promises, or the theological spiritual truth. But we affirm the pathological truth.
In order to be healed in many things, we have to confess the word of God we are believing and trusting in. We have to affirm the promises of God and our believe in those promises. We have to declare to humans, demons, and our own spirits that God's word is true and we are depending on them.
However, I have failed repeatedly in this regard. When up against hard hearts or judgmental types caring friends who just ask a caring question... or even un-understanding people.... I have allowed myself to blurt out the pathological truth.
This is how the devil works: by letting us use the creative power of our own mouths against our own lives.
In the Christmas story....the angel Gabriel had to shut Zechariah's mouth because although God was giving a miracle, Zechariah's mouth had the power to destroy Elizabeth's pregnancy. The human mouth has been given great power.
The wise woman whose son died did not affirm the pathological truth. That is having power over one's spirit and not being an open city with no walls.
And when the child was grown, it fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died. And she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out. And she called unto her husband, and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God, and come again. And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him to day? it is neither new moon, nor sabbath. And she said, It shall be well. Then she saddled an ass, and said to her servant, Drive, and go forward; slack not thy riding for me, except I bid thee. So she went and came unto the man of God to mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite: Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well. And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet: but Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, Let her alone; for her soul isvexed within her: and the LORD hath hid it from me, and hath not told me. Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord? did I not say, Do not deceive me? 2 Kings 4:18-28
That is having power over one's spirit and not being an open city with no walls. She found a way to speak her heart's pain without affirming that her son had died.
Set, o Lord, a watch at my lips. Please!!! For my family's sake, for Gabe's sake, for my sake!
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