Several times in my Christian walk, when the Lord told me to separate from someone, my reasoning mind didn’t go along with it. It still doesn’t, but now I know better than to disobey. Every time I didn’t listen, things didn’t turn out well for me or for others. He knows what we don’t and that must sink deep into our minds and hearts or we’re going to find ourselves in a lot of trouble.

Have you ever been an enabler or had someone in your life who enabled you? A precious young man I knew long ago was addicted to drugs and spent some time in prison due to it. While he was incarcerated, he called out to the Lord and became a dedicated follower of Jesus and was he ever on fire! He was like Joseph of old who gained great favor with many and that “blood-covered” prison had lots of honey bread in it made from Heaven’s bakery in George’s heart.

I knew his mother and father well and when George got out of prison and wanted money, his mother would give it to him despite George’s father telling her “Don’t do it!” It seemed cruel to her not to respond to his requests, but George used that money for his addiction and my friend’s only child tragically died because of it. Thank God, they are both in heaven now, but George’s life didn’t have to end the way it did. 

What do we do with our Lord’s words: “You can not be my disciple UNLESS you forsake mother, father, sister, brethren, lands, … yes, forsake ALL for HIS sake?” When we’re put to the test, will we be like George’s mother who couldn’t entrust him into the Lord’s keeping, like George who couldn’t forsake drugs or will we be like Father Abraham who became the Father of Faith because he was willing to obey God? We will all be tested many times in our lives: What will we each do when we’re put to those tests?

I came from a family that did not know the Lord, and my mama was very much like George’s mother. I was very spoiled and whenever I needed something, even when I was married, she’d get it for me. But when I became a Christian, the Lord immediately let me know HE was to be my provider, NOT my mother. 

My conversion came after my first husband left me with two children 2 ½ and 1 ½ to care for and my mother was ready and willing to help me any way she could, but when I told her I couldn’t accept her help, it didn’t go well with her. Her response was: “We’ll see how YOUR God takes care of you.” As I share my story now, I think of our Lord saying: “Think not that I have come to bring peace. I came not to bring peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” (Matthew 10: 34-36) And so it was so with my mama and me until she received our Lord as her savior just before she died. God answers prayers! Hallelujah!

In making it on my own on just a very little income, my children and I didn’t have everything we would have had, had I accepted help from my mother, but oh my, I wouldn’t trade my walk of faith seeing God meet our needs, sometimes even in miraculous ways, for anything. Money and luxuries can’t compare to the riches in Him and the love relationship I had with Him in those early years.

We are living in a time now that all the world is in chaos and many will be coming to us wanting us to help them. We are more than ever going to need to know God’s voice and take heed to it. I believe we who love the Lord have it in our hearts to want to help everybody, but we can’t. There had to have been many at the pool of Bethesda, but Jesus healed only one man, not all of them. He chose twelve disciples, not a hundred, and then there were three who were closer to him than others. We, like our Lord, must know by the Spirit the ones God would have in our lives and who we are to help and not to help.

It has never been easy for me to say “no” and I still have trouble separating when our Lord tells me to do so. Today, the test came again concerning a homeless person that I wanted to help. After hearing the Lord’s instruction, He gave me a picture of her in a tomb coming just a little way out, but then going right back into it.

Truly, the carnal mind is death and there can be no life when we operate in it. I believe the vision reveals that this one has chosen death, not life, and it’s not that the Lord doesn’t love her or want to help her… He does! There’s no doubt in my mind that He wants to help everyone and loves all of us, but we make choices and those choices have consequences. But thank God, there is always hope we can change and for this one who is not able to fully come forth in life at this time, I decree: “Let there be light!” I picture a light shining in the darkness on her path and believe it will lead her to the place of change and new life.

God says His house (you and me and all who bear the name of the Lord) shall be a “House of Prayer”: Verily, verily, our prayers can move mountains and find a needle in a haystack… even one that can mend that which is torn and make beautiful “comforters” out of our lives.

Let it be so Lord!