My Freedom Began

I am free....
I've been dupped, manipulated and over controlled before, but did not know the extend of it until recently. For so long, I've thought that by just listening and trusting what someone else told me, that would be enough. Boy was I wrong. I was caught in a destructive cycle and I was losing my identity and losing my sense of self worth. When things were going wrong in my life, I let certain people tell me what to do and how to handle my situation. All that listening did was turn my faith in hearing in God for myself into faith of God talking to me through another person. And I didn't know it until now.

Not let me preface what I am going to say here before I tell how I realized what changed my life. We are given Apostle, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, and Elders for a reason. They are to help us walk our walk with the Lord and possibly answer any questions that we have. They are to help protect us when there is possible danger, and to help us become stronger in the Lord. What the danger is, is when you give them too much control. When you start to rely on them to be your voice of the Lord or when every decision you make has to go through them.

I was in a situation that everything I did had to analyzed, submitted, and run through another person. If I wanted to take a vacation, I had to tell this person, when, where, and how long. Not only that, if what I wanted to do conflicted with their plans, I was very strongly encouraged to change my plans. If I didn't I would be labelled in rebellion and had to deal with the consequences. One such instance, I wanted to visit my former fiancee (we got married, so that is why I say former) for Christmas, not only was I told that I could not go, but I also got yelled at for kissing my future wife. I can understand this persons convictions about certain things, but from what I read in the bible, we are all to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. His conviction are his and mine are mine. End of story.