Being God's Child

I've thought about updating my blog for a few weeks, as well as the sorely neglected GPS and JinLi blogs;;there have been many things on my mind, especially after coming out of a difficult challenge from the death of a loved one to other types of difficulties along with having to go back to work. Things don't always go my way, but I'm learning to let go and to rely on simple faith because I'm confident in God's promises.


I'll be sharing something from my old blog about being God's child (YEY for cut and paste) that I think may help hurting, possibly desperate people. It is my gift to you. Maybe soon I'll update something new when I get a little more free time. There is mention of our forum from the original Shelter site which I had to disable. But who knows? Maybe in the future we can start another as it is my passion to talk to all kinds of people. We'll see in time.

 Shelter of Wings, Vol 2, chap1b

Being God's Child

I’m always thinking. Actually, sometimes I think too much. I don’t like to speak in public and I still get nervous in front of crowds. This happened to me quite recently on a few occasions. I only speak to large groups when I have to not because I want to unlike other people who seem to thrive on this type of atmosphere; I guess it has to do with my upbringing.

When I was growing up, I was extremely shy and nervous around adults for fear of messing up somehow. I always wanted to be the Princess; to be treated extra special. Instead, I was treated more like an inconvenience, a good-for-nothing “dummy” among many other things. So, I used to think a lot more than I spoke, and when I did speak, it was in a very quiet and insecure manner, and very rare as well. Even today as I talk to people, I don’t speak as much as I’d like, and I never think I communicate as well as I could; this reflects in my professional life as well as my personal life, although God has really influenced me in these areas and allowed me to overcome amazing hurdles. One of them was a dislike for myself and the other was fear.
This past week I was thinking about what it means to be God’s child, having a Heavenly Father. There is no fear of rejection, abandonment or abuse when our Father is God. It took me years to learn this. And it took me years to trust that God was loving and faithful–I wish I could relive those years of being a new believer again in total submission, but I have to come to the conclusion that God had allowed me to go through a time of not being faithful to him for a good reason.

During my early years as a believer, I wavered everyday in obedience. I loved the world too much, and sought after things that didn’t last. One of them was male acceptance–in my latter teenage years I did all I could to get what I thought was positive male attention; to be a Princess in their eyes. In reality, I was hurting myself, not realizing that what I wanted was a strong father figure in my life who loved me no matter what. When I came to that realization, I was thinking about sitting at Christ’s feet as he spoke, listening and meditating on his every word. Words of love and encouragement, not abuse and malice. A light bulb went off in my head, and I realized that what I’ve been searching and striving for all my life was with me already! I was God’s daughter! I was his Princess!

I still have a lot of past baggage to get rid of, but God isn’t finished with me yet; I’m just glad he didn’t bump me off along the way.

We have a Prayer Arena on our forum where we post spiritual questions, comments and random thoughts. Here is a post from the forum. It may be a bit random, but I wanted to share it with you, as it hopefully may help a few of you in your own spiritual awakening. God bless.

It’s sometimes difficult to relate to God as our father when we live in a physical world. He is unseen and infinite; sometimes we can’t hear him speak to us. Sometimes when we pray we feel like he doesn’t answer, or maybe sometimes we feel as if he doesn’t hear. For most of us, we think our sins will reduce his love for us as well as his faithfulness to do all he says in his word. No one is perfect; we all fall short of his standards. When we feel distant, chances are, we think he is distant. And many of us never had that close bond with our own fathers so we don’t know how to trust our Heavenly Father, and some of us had no father at all.

But his word says he is always present, always watching, always knowing, always faithful. He is our helper and friend, always there in times of trouble. When we receive the gift of salvation, we are given his Holy Spirit to help us communicate with God. The Holy Spirit is like an interpreter, who makes us understand the nature of God. The Holy Spirit helps us understand God’s will and teaches us to pray. He comforts, and gives us wisdom and insight that we wouldn’t get otherwise. He teaches us deep spiritual things, and most importantly, helps us to be obedient children.

We know that sin separates us from God; sin never separates us from being God’s children.

In the days of David after Saul was killed and David became king of Israel, there was a crippled grandson of Saul named Mephibosheth, the son of David’s best friend and knit-mate, Jonathan, who was killed at war. Mephibosheth was called to David thinking that he would be receiving a sword to his throat for being the grandson of the one responsible for trying to put David to death many times, but instead he was given a seat at David’s table–the highest honor!–to eat with him on a daily basis.

Mephibosheth said he was like a dead dog, and couldn’t understand why the king would allow him to take part at his feasts. But David, moved by love for Jonathan, allowed Mephibosheth to sit and eat and even provided for him land and servants for the rest of his life! This is a small picture of what God will do for us–his own children by Christ’s blood. We will sit at a great banquet table with Christ, our brother, all together as a big family! There is nothing we can do to deserve this kindness, it is freely given.

One small thing I want to share: Awhile ago, I was driving to the store on an errand as the adversary was condemning me for something. I was actually hearing screaming in my head. I was so upset I was crying in the car. I felt confused and horrible about myself. As soon as I walked in the store (I tried to dry my eyes as best as I could and hide my face from people) there was a song that was playing loudly; it was about a father who loved his daughter more than any other father could. That did it–I cried even more and had to leave the store! The condemnation stopped, and I recognized my place as a chosen, special daughter with an inheritance along with my brothers and sisters in Christ. We could never deserve that on our own no matter what.