Drama Drama Drama

Galatians 5:15-16 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

I was recently watching a show where the main character finally found some peace among her peers, declared, “what is the fun in that?” and purposefully stirred up strife for her entertainment. It got me to thinking, how often do we use drama in our lives for entertainment?
Something is done to you so you fester and spread it to everyone else, DRAMA.
You are not liking the way another lives their life because yours is so together, so you talk bad about their choices, DRAMA.
You are uncomfortable in a room so you use the opportunity to point out another’s issue, DRAMA.

Drama Drama Drama a process that many live their lives in and I must admit there were seasons I was right along with them. Of course, I have moments now, but living in the constant drama is no longer a choice in my life. When someone lives in the constant upheaval that drama stirs up, you choose to partner with anxiety. There is no peace. There may be moments of quiet, but it doesn’t take long for the drama to raise its ugly head again. 

  Some sources of Drama:

• Gossip
• Judgment
• Criticism
• Negative Talk
• Slander
• Stirring up strife

 

When you take part in drama you are  in opposition to what the Lord wants to accomplish in your life and the lives of others.
Drama leads to walking in competition, controversy, rivalry, and dispute.

I am talking about stirring up drama for drama’s sake, simply for your entertainment or to be the center of attention. But if you are truly having an issue with a brother or sister in the church that has harmed you or sinned against you the word says to follow the steps in Matthew 18:15-18

How to avoid Drama Drama Drama in your life.

• Pray about it: First and foremost, pray about the situation that is mulling over and over in your head, before you do anything else.
  You can start by praying for your own heart in the situation, taking your eyes off of your own opinion and seeking the Lord’s view on the situation. Then pray for the person you are feeling less than lovely about. 
  Avoid talking the ‘issue’ out with a friend or a peer and let the Lord who is the master fixer be the one to work on the situation.
  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 
• Examine your heart: “Is this really my business?” 
  What is the motivation in your concerns for another person? Do you really desire to see a situation fixed or do you lean more towards being right? Is your judgment self-motivated? Are you seeing the situation the way the Lord would see it or with self-righteous eyes? Does sharing another’s shortcomings with everyone else help their situation improve? Does He need your help to fix them?
  There are times that we are to take things to our brethren to encourage their walk with the Lord. But we must not underestimate the work the Holy Spirit is doing in another’s heart. We all started somewhere. We all have faults and flaws. If we are constantly nagging and spreading gossip about another’s issue, your motivation is not in the right place. It is you trying to do the work in them, rather than letting the Holy Spirit.
  Lastly with this thought… while examining your own heart, don’t assume that you know theirs. Often there is a work going on in that life that you have no idea of.
  1 Thessalonians 4:11and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,
  Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
• Go to Leadership: If you have prayed and taken the matter directly to the person you are struggling with and still feeling like an issue needs to be dealt with. Take your heart in the matter to your pastor or leadership. 
  They may see things from a different perspective or have some insight on a peaceful resolution. Make sure though, that you truly want to work on the situation and are not just wanting to produce gossip.
  Galatians 6:1 “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.”
• Be a Peacemaker: To stir up drama, it only entertains for a moment but that drama has a lasting impact on the hearts of all involved. The definition of peace is freedom from disturbance. Quiet and tranquility.
  We are blessed to live a life of quiet and tranquility and bless others when we leave them in peace rather than drama mode.
  God calls the peacemaker blessed! I want my God to call me blessed, to call me his daughter.
  Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 
• Guard your tongue: When you are with a gathering of others, are you improving the atmosphere with your words, or are you shifting it to the uncomfortable world of DRAMA. You may be comfortable in a drama-filled situation, even entertained by it, but you leave the environment full of anxiety and head shaking rather than life-giving.  Resist sharing the short-comings and personal details of someone else’s life.  We grew up chanting to our peers when they were hurtful, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
  Are you building one another up in their absence? Are you speaking what you believe and hope for their life rather than the situation they are in?
  This statement still rings true, it is perfectly okay to grace people with a smile and silence if your words will become bitterness to an atmosphere.
  Science has proven that our thoughts, negative or positive impact on our health. If we speak out the negative won’t it impact those around us?
  What if we determined to only be LIFE GIVING? How would that affect others in our life?
  I myself have over shared with a cry of ” please, pray for this situation,” not with a motive for drama, but in reality drama or not, I was still wrong. I should have just taken that prayer straight to the Lord, not changed the atmosphere of others with my ‘concerns’, and certainly not live with the regret of oversharing.
  Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
  1 Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

  Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
      and those who love it will eat its fruits.
  

• Walk in kindness and forgiveness– If you are walking around in anger at what another is doing in their lives, or judgment for their choices, you are not walking a life of forgiveness. If you are spreading all of their business around, you are not walking in kindness.
  God calls us to be kind and to forgive. It seems simple in theory but when we are seeking drama for our entertainment it is so easy to walk in self-righteous mode and not be walking out what He calls of us at all. To ‘vent’ our frustrations of another for nothing more than entertainment sake is hateful, not kind, hurtful, not life-giving and certainly not forgiveness. 
  When I am tempted to judge another, God often has to remind me of what He had brought me out of. How far He has led me from my past and how He alone restored my ways. 
  It is a process. I am still in process. So why should I expect anything more of them?
  Ephesians 4:32  Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
  
  Matthew 18:21-22  Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. 
• Walk away: If you are finding yourself tempted to gossip, stir up strife, slander, or any other forms of causing drama, pray for strength and walk away. If you are stuck in an atmosphere of another creating drama, excuse yourself and walk away. It is better to walk away and say nothing than to sin against your heavenly father by harming his church with your drama for entertainment.
  
  I know this is a heavy topic. I know that many walk daily in drama drama drama, not even realizing what they are left with a life of anxiety and strife and often don’t even know the root of it.
  So I leave you with this thought, I believe it sums the topic up nicely.   
  It is impossible to tear down and destroy when you are being a light and building up. 

  
  Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

 

A treasure found this day

This was an old post I had begun and never finished. It was found in the drafts from years ago.

I felt like I had opened a treasure chest full of the Lord’s reminding in the list of drafts. There were many to open and this one I decided to share today. It is a new year. Time to abandon old things and start fresh!!

Surrender : To abandon

I am finding the more I abandon the garbage in my life, the more joy that fills my heart. When we hold onto anger and bitterness it clogs up the flow of joy just as cholesterol clogs the arteries.

When we let bitterness rise again and again and then complain that we are depressed pointing a finger at the one that offended us, it is no different from ramming our head against a brick wall over and over again and then blaming the wall for our headache.

We need to look at our own selves in the situation.  How are we holding on and what can we do to surrender it? Do we really want to keep walking around with it?

We all have our reasons to feel like we have a right to hold on to that anger. But it hurts us, not the one or the circumstance that we are angry with.

There was a person who hurt my family. I hated this person. Many days all I could do was think about how I would murder them if I could get away with it. I hated them vehemently and for what most would think was good reason. But my hatred of this person was taking over my days, consuming my every thought. There was no peace as I focused only on what they had done and how they should pay.

I realized if I wanted to walk in freedom I needed to surrender all the anger, bitterness, and guilt. But the question for me was how did I start? How could I abandon the feelings and leave them  down and not pick them back up over and over again?

 

ADDED TODAY: 1/4/18  from the wisdom the years has brought me and the freedom I now get to walk in.

Question: How do yo let go of the bitterness and anger without picking it up over and over again.
1. I forgive…

Matthew 6: 14- “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

                   Luke 17:4 – “And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

I let go of the circumstances and take off the personal attack. I depersonalize the situation. I work to set it apart from me. It was a situation that happened it does not have to cling to me. When I find  it extremely hard to forgive I ask the Lord’s help. I ask for His peace. I ask Him to help me love my enemy.

2. I pray for my enemy…

Matthew 5:44-But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

I use to struggle with how in the world to pray for an enemy. I would ask, ” seriously God isn’t it enough that they hurt me and they don’t care? How do I pray for them?” God said, “just start.” So now, I pray for the one that has offended me to know Jesus and to break free of the bondage that hurts people. I pray for them to have VICTORY in JESUS.

3. I rejoice that the Lord has set me free…

2 Timothy 2:26- and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

When I walked in my wrath of bitterness I was held captive by the enemy. I am no longer bound up in the bondage of un-forgiveness and bitterness!!! That is MY reward, my gift from the Lord.

I praise, I worship, I shout and dance. Then when that ugly thing tries to rise up in me I praise louder, worship longer and dance like never before. Instead of using that reminder to take my focus, I use that reminder to take me deeper.

The year 2018 is a great opportunity to break off offenses, walk in freedom of forgiveness and grow deeper in loving.

And I say…. “YES LORD!”

 

Will you return to your mess?

Proverbs 26:11
As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.

A few weeks ago this scripture came to me so clearly at church.

Why is it that we can gain victory in an area of our lives, only to open up the door for the enemy all over again? Often times, it is harder to break away the second , third or eighth time, when that door has been opened.

For myself I find if I keep opening the door again and again, it is because the root of the sin has not been dealt with. I will stop sinning in my bitterness, anger, gluttony, worry or whatever it is for a season, but I have not completely rid myself of it. So it sits below the surface and fester, waiting for another onslaught to rear its ugly head. The temptation will rise and I will entertain it rather than cutting it off at the root.

It has been time to CUT off that sin. Walk away from it. Turn away and change. This is what repentance really means. To turn away from. I can’t keep picking the same old hurtful habits back up again and again and expect a different result.

I do not want to be as a dog returning to its nasty vomit. I do not want to be the fool returning to my folly that drags me down and steals my life and abundant joy.

My prayer today is the Lord makes every hidden thing abundantly clear to me so that I will not miss the areas that are lurking. That He will continue to give me strength to walk in HIM and not my own ways of self-destruction. I was created to be more than a fool.

Blessings