Walls By Mandy Bowen

Hello friends and welcome back to the Skirt Society blog! We are so thrilled that you decided to join us today. While you are here let us tempt you to check out this week’s new arrivals!

Walls

Walls serve many purposes in our life. They can be built out of many different materials and can be designed in almost any shape. Walls are a structure built to protect or enclose something within. Walls are meant to keep things in, but also to keep things out.

Now we all know I’m not a builder in any shape, form, or fashion. So that’s not why I am here today to talk on how we build them, but rather why we have them in our emotional and spiritual lives. Let’s talk about the walls that we put up in our heart. Maybe you have put walls up because you have been hurt by a situation. Maybe your trust was broken. Maybe you were betrayed and you felt alone. Or maybe they are there to see if anyone even cared enough to try and tear them down. No matter your reason today I am sure you have a justifiable cause.

God is not against walls. Are there walls we shouldn’t have in our life? Yes. Although, there are walls or boundaries that should be a part of our everyday spiritual life. We read in the book of Nehemiah where God instructed Nehemiah to help rebuild the city of Jerusalem after the people of Judah had been exiled from the land of Israel. One of his instructions were to build a wall around the city to protect it from enemy attack. You see some walls are necessary and beneficial. We can put walls up to guard our heart from spiritual attack. “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.”(Psalms 119:11) I like to think of this verse as an example of a good or necessary wall, one that we put up to protect and preserve God’s word in our life. Another word for wall could be coined as a boundary we set in our lives. An example of a good boundary to set would be for those who are in a dating relationship. When you are dating, you set boundaries to protect your purity and abide by God’s word.

However, some of the walls we place in our life can do more harm than good. These are not walls that are required by God, but walls we thought we needed. It’svery important that we understand and recognize the difference between the two. For example, let’s say we have been hurt by an individual and now we have built a boundary that person can no longer cross in our life. We must ask ourselves, have we truly forgiven that person if we have a wall up there? The danger lies when we begin to have walls that are made of bricks from bitterness and it begins to settle in our spirit. As the old saying goes, we tend to forgive but not forget. We are reminded day by day from those walls of the hurt we received. In order to truly forgive someone and receive total freedom from a situation you must also forget.

May I give you something to think on for a few moments?Did you know that you can live unguarded but yet perfectly protected? Read that sentence again and let it sink in.

I am sure we are all familiar with Psalm 91. For the sake of this blog I will go ahead and insert it here. I encourage you to read this chapter over and over again until you feel yourself truly believing every word of this passage.

Psalm 91

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the LORD; He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Surely, he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him.

16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

This chapter gives me hope that I don’t have to worry about putting my own walls of defense up because the Almighty God is my refuge and my fortress, He will deliver me from my enemies. His wings will be my “walls” to cover me and He will be my shield of protection. I could keep going with this entire chapter, but I’m sure you get the idea. The beauty in all of this is I don’t have to build my own defense walls; God does that for me and He sends His mighty angels to take charge over me to keep me.

 So, what exactly are we supposed to do when that friend or loved one hurts us? Instead of building defense walls we are to forgive AND forget their wrong doing. We don’t need to have a wall there to remind us of that hurt. If we are constantly reminded of the hurt in our spirit, bitterness and hatred will settle in our hearts and we will never experience true victory or joy. It is so important that we must tear down our defense walls because they are causing harm, they are keeping us from true deliverance.

 Our only job is to forgive, forget, and bless them. Yes, you read that right! I Peter 3:9 commands us, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.” This is easier said than done but God will take care of them, for He declares that vengeance is His. If we can focus on our part, God will do the rest. Again, I go back to the phrase, you can live unguarded but perfectly protected.

 God is our defense, our refuge, our body guard, and our hope. Hope that we can experience joy after pain. Hope that we can overcome that bitterness that has settled in our heart. Today, as you read this blog, I hope your heart can be open to the idea of forgiveness and that you will search your heart for the good and bad walls. I urge you to pray for a better understanding of God’s word and ask God to reveal that which is harming your spirit. I pray you take comfort in knowing that God has your back and He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is with you always! I don’t know about you but that sure is a pick me up for me.

 Encouragement:

 God’s protection

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.

Psalm 32:7 | NIV 

 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.

Psalm 46:1 | NIV 

 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them,

for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Deuteronomy 31:6 | NIV 

 

 Blog by Mandy Bowen

Mandy is a student pastor’s wife and mother to two sweet boys. She is a full time medical coder and her hobbies include blogging and creating hair tutorials. Her modest fashion blog and hair tutorials can be found on her Instagram page @mbs.hairwithstyle . She loves connecting with new people so give her page a follow and show her some love.

 

 

 


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