Set Free From Darkness

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future…”  Jeremiah 29:11

A roadmap of my life would show you that the roads I have taken ended in one place: God’s mercy and grace. I am still a work in progress, and God continues to bring new levels of freedom to my life. In seeking Christ, He has shared truths from His Word that have set me free from the chains that bound me. The process has been quite a ride! Although I am walking with God in obedience, I have known many seasons of disobedience. I have walked right into the enemy’s playground, and I have known defeat too many times because I had little knowledge of God’s Word and God’s love. Fear and desire for people’s approval influenced me, but through spending time in His word, God has brought me to new levels of freedom. 

Many of us are walking around with emotional wounds that are leaving us vulnerable to the enemy and blinding us of our sinful ways. Because of these wounds, we are often caught off guard by the enemy and fall for his schemes. Whether we are acting out in rebellion or numbing pain through sin, the enemy is keeping score of our wrongs. I know from experience. By early adulthood, my self-destructive choices would ultimately bring me to a place of utter desperation. As I began to cry out to God to save me from myself, the enemy played his last trump card. He knew the secrets I had been harboring. I was so bound by the manipulating people of my past and the fear of rejection from those I loved, that admitting the secrets in my life seemed impossible. By my mid twenties I was bound by so many lies, I truly believed if those close to me knew the kind of sin and bondage I had been living in, they would abandon me. Therefore, I continued in a cycle of self-protection, sin, and defeat, which only dug me deeper into a pit.

As God began to speak to my through His word, I slowly shared the things I kept hidden in my life from those who deserved to know. The lies I believed about opening up and sharing my secrets were the very thing that kept me from living in freedom. Once I exposed my secrets, I was not rejected and abandoned! By opening up and confessing these things, it proved to be my very ticket to getting on the road of freedom—the very freedom Christ bought for me. The same goes for you. The Bible teaches in Jeremiah 29:11 that God has good plans for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us and plans to give us hope and a future. Do you trust that? Oh what freedom awaits us when we choose to trust and obey! Praise His Holy Name!

Carrie Wright