Hi, I’m Jenna Winston with Heartscaping Ministries. I want to talk to you today about what it looks like to come from victory instead of trying to attain it. In my sessions I help a lot of people with anxiety and what happens a lot of times when people deal with fear and anxiety, as soon as that “gasp,” the fear of experiencing anxiety itself is what will take them down the rabbit hole. One of the things that I felt like the Lord showed me that I started to do with my clients – and I’ve had amazing feedback of how much it works – is often we want to contain what we’re feeling. We want it to stop. We want to avoid it.
Often when fear and anxiety come, there’s a real fear, you know? I’ve actually told people, “Run through the worst-case scenario. Go to the worst-case scenario. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Allow your mind to take you to the worst-case scenario and then say, ‘Jesus, where are You at even in this?’ And ask, ‘Jesus, reveal Yourself to me. Where are you at? Even in this, in the worst-case scenario?’” The fact is, often if someone’s been diagnosed with cancer and you lose them, ultimately you’re going to go to Him for comfort. If something’s going on and you can’t pay your mortgage and your worst-case scenario is you lose your home, then this is where you get to go to the Lord and say, “Lord, I’m going to choose You even in this. What’s Your truth in this?”
Once you run through the worst-case scenario, then you get to say, “Jesus, what’s the victory in this?” What if it’s that God has a new home for you? There are all different kinds of reasons. What if there’s been a betrayal and there’s a big upheaval at church? All these people are turning against each other and your biggest fear is that there’s going to be a church split. Run through the worst-case scenario and find Jesus in it and then say “Jesus, what’s the victory here?” The fact is God’s moving people, God’s doing all kinds of things. We tend to always want to understand what He’s doing. Sometimes we need to just be okay with saying, “God, I choose You. I worship You, even though I don’t understand.”
Once you find out what your victory is, whatever the victory, whatever the outcome, whatever the Lord is showing you, pray into that. Declare that “Jesus, I declare this victory. I declare this truth. I declare this wholeness. I declare this freedom.” But when we start to contain and try to control and manage our behaviors, eventually it’s going to erupt, right? So we need to be able to say, “Okay, Lord, there’s a fear coming at me. What’s the lie that I’m believing? What am I afraid of?”
Identify what you’re really afraid of – the feeling of fear or we’re dealing sometimes with spiritual dynamics. When that’s the case, call it out and say, “Fear, depart from me right now in Jesus’ name. You don’t get to be here.” But sometimes it’s not spiritual. Sometimes it’s a chemical thing or it’s that you’re so riddled in self-protection. It might be that the Lord’s trying to draw you into a place of trusting Him deeper and more in situations. And it’s like, “Okay, Lord, I’m feeling fear. What is it that I’m really feeling? Oh, okay. I’m feeling fear here because I’m afraid to trust You in this. Okay, Jesus, I don’t want to trust You in this, but I’m going to choose to trust You in this.”
The victory is that you’re learning to trust God in every area of your life. The victory is that God is always working in upgrade and acceleration when we allow Him and we turn our self-protection over. So coming from victory is finding God in the worst-case scenario and finding Him in it. All of a sudden it makes the journey of what could possibly happen seem a lot less traumatizing.
Then also find out and ask Him what the victory is. Start to pray into the victory, declare the victory, and believe in the victory. You’ll notice that you naturally navigate and step into that victory. And that’s coming from victory. So often we get stuck in trying to fix everything to obtain victory. And the Lord’s like, “As long as your eyes are over here trying to fix, you’re not seeing Me, and I want to be in all of it.” Again, exchanging our self-protection and our control for trusting Him more, walking with Him more, and walking deeper with Him.
Let me pray for you today. Jesus, I thank You that everything is an invitation to go deeper with You. You care about every aspect of our lives, even the little things. You’re not up there just waiting for us to get it together so we can be close. You’re up there saying, “Come be close with Me and then we’ll figure it out together.” So, Lord, I pray that there would be such a paradigm shift in people’s belief systems and that they’d start to allow themselves to trust You in deeper areas that they didn’t even know that they weren’t trusting You.
Lord, we thank You that You’re so intentional and that You care so, so much about being in this relationship with us and doing it with us. Lord, we ask forgiveness and repent for all the areas that we think we need to clean up first before we can come to You. We lay it down and we come to You and say, “Jesus, I fully receive You. And I ask that You fix everything behind me.” In Jesus’ name, amen.