Condemnation Kills. Literally.

About a month or so ago, my husband and I were doing some work in the front yard of our new house. (That I'm completely obsessed with might I add lol) We had these ridiculously ugly pointy bushes that I was dying to remove. Later on my husband informed me that he knew I wasn't going to be able to get out the roots all by myself, but decided to let me go for it anyway. haha!

Anyway, so here I am working away on these horrid bushes. About 30 minutes had went by and I wasn't even close to getting the first one dug up. At one point, Austin had started working on trimming the bushes directly behind me when noticing it was full of bees...they started flying around all over the place, obviously causing distraction and well, fear. haha. I had also started complaining about how I wasn't going to be able to dig them up by myself and needed either his help or my dads. I was literally using all of my strength to pull and dig up these plants. It was really hot out so I kept having to stop for water breaks. I had moments where I would literally get angry at the thing and just go absolutely ninja crazy on the poor shovel...and still...there it sat. Loving life and how deep it was in the ground of the earth. And I'm positive it was laughing at me and how it was making my house ugly. lol

So as I continued working on it, I remembered something I had read in a book written by Joseph Prince. He was talking about how condemnation is just like the root of a plant. As humans, we have a lot of issues on the surface. And just like those plants, the issues are really ugly! It's really easy for us to judge not only each other, but we also feel like failures for mistakes we have made in our own lives. So as I remembered this brilliant analogy, I started paying close attention to the things happening to me as I was working so hard on digging it up...relating to our spiritual lives...

-we get tired from working on ourselves spiritually and need breaks every once in awhile. (water break)

-many times when we are working so diligently on "fixing" something in our lives, other things will be thrown our way to distract us from whats important. (bees, lol)

-we'll get angry at things we're unsatisfied with and work really hard for a short amount of time. in that time we make a lot of progress, but that strength doesn't last long before needing another break. (me being angry with the shovel)

-when we work on "fixing" our issues alone, we'll soon realize we can't do it by ourselves. we need the help of the people that are around us. (my complaints about not being about to do it alone)

So how does the story end? I gave up and my dad ended up coming over and got the rest of the roots out for me. They were too strong for me. I seriously love the ending to this. My dad is a spiritual (ok ok, and physical) giant. I'll humbly admit I'm not as strong (spiritually and physically, lol) as I think I am. Thanks dad. :)

Moral of the story (besides how much dad rocks)...figure out what it is in your life that is making you feel like a failure and dig it up. Dig up the condemnation and don't allow the devil to have that authority in your life. It will take time. Patience. Energy. Prayer. Frustration. You name it. But bottom line, condemnation will spiritually kill us if we allow it to. Don't run away from your problems. Embrace them and allow God to remove the condemnation and live in the FREEDOM found in Jesus.