Hurting? You may need an IV.

Meet Emily. 
​Emily feels empty. 

Have you ever 
experienced 
​the same? 

Emily is empty... yet Emily will be the quick to tell you she is a woman of faith, a Christian.  She believes in God and she prays.  Yet Emily is empty.  Her heart is not satisfied, she emotionally feels unhinged and cannot deal with day to day life.   

She is critical of herself and feels she just cannot measure up to be the woman she should.  She feels inadequate.  She feels as if there is no one who really cares, no one who can be a genuine friend.   Sure, she reads her bible and yet she is not growing in faith.  
​
She will tell you that there "is no need to go to church." She can listen to preaching on television and she can pray at home.   Those in church are just following Sunday tradition, to be seen by others, singing a few songs and then heading out to eat and gossip. 

So if Emily is a Christian, prays and listens to preaching, why does she feel so empty? 
​

​Emily does not see that her emptiness and emotional health is a spiritual problem. 
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God desires for His child to be "transformed."    We cannot be transformed until we humbly and sincerely desire to give our life to Him.   Has Emily REALLY done that? 

  "...transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3:18, NIV).

Imagine you are in the hospital and the nurse places an IV in your arm to fill you with needed fluids or nourishment need to sustain you.   We need to do the same when we are His child.  When we are His, we give Him our life and we stretch out our arm and  WANT to be infused with the Holy Spirit!  We desire to grow spiritually and to be emotionally strengthened. 

What Emily needs is His spiritual IV!   
God desires for us to be emotionally strengthened and spiritually whole.   We can never experience the peace and inner joy unless we are infused with His Spirit. We cannot cling to the "old" person when God desires for us to be filled with "new" life in Him.  We cannot convince ourselves we are a Christian if there is no evidence of the His Spirit working within us.  We may think we are a genuine saved Christian in our head, but we have not humbly asked Him into our heart. 

Sure life will throw many rocks on our path and we want to hang our head in despair.  We all feel at times that we are not the woman of faith we should be...but it is then that we stretch out our arm and say, "Infuse me Lord!"   Can you tell I have this habit of bringing my health background into these posts?  LOL.  

In  James 1:2-4  Paul encourages us to, Count it all joy, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 
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One of my favorite phrases to tell women is, "We need ESP." 
We need emotional, spiritual and physical strength.   But without the spiritual strength we lack the ability to gain control over our fleshly physical and emotional weaknesses. 

God desires to give us the spiritual strength we so desperately need in this life. We need to seek it.   There we find completeness, security and wholeness.   

God also desires for us to come together as His family, at His house.  As His family we encourage and pray for each other.  After all, we are an eternal family. 

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1 Thessalonians 5:11
​Therefore, encourage each other and strengthen one another as you are doing.

Do you know an Emily? 

If you do, reach out to her.  She may feel you do not understand and are just "part of the church thing," but  open your heart and explain God has led you to speak with her as His child.   Allow her to talk, be a good listener, and pray together.   Ask her to give her heart, not just her head to Christ.