I Know

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Let me give you a little perspective. In 2007, when I was crippled by fear and too afraid to leave my house, I KNEW when I got in the car and went to the store nothing would happen to me. I KNEW I could go to church, and I was a healthy young woman, I was physically able to sit inside and listen for an hour and a half. I KNEW I could go out to dinner, and I could eat the food, and there was no reason I couldn’t keep it down. I KNEW ALL THESE THINGS.

But the fear told me otherwise. What I KNEW was destroyed by what I heard in my mind, the voice of fear saying, “You will get sick to your stomach again. You will start shaking. Your head will start to buzz, and you will get dizzy. You will make a huge scene and embarrass yourself and your family.” That’s what I heard and because of HOW I FELT, that’s what I believed.

But what I FELT was fear talking. I KNEW fear more than I KNEW God. I HEARD fear more than I HEARD God. Like the devil in the garden, as a snake lying to Eve, “HATH GOD SAID, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Ge 3:1) fear twisted my vision of God into a lie. Fear was HUGE. God was small and ineffective and distant.

Now, I grew up in a Christian household. We went to church and went to church and went to church again. My mother is an ordained minister. I sat through hundreds or thousands of her teachings about faith and healing and God’s goodness. I heard none of it. Fear was able to speak to me, to lie and convince me I was about to die, and I believed it, for the most part, because I was so immature spiritually.

Despite sitting under faith teaching, God was a being “way up there” who looked down, now and then, and occasionally did something nice for us. I believed He healed. I’d seen people healed. I KNEW bupkis about how that happened. The ONLY thing I KNEW 100% was that God was love. I KNEW that. You couldn’t shake it from me. I was sure and certain of it. God loved me.

I KNEW it like I knew I was born in Florida. You can’t convince me I’m from New York. I KNEW it like I knew I was a woman. You cannot convince me I am not a woman. I gave birth to my daughter. I KNEW it like I knew I went to Lake Gibson Senior High. That was not a mirage. I was there. I attended. I graduated. On the other hand, I KNEW God COULD heal me. I didn’t know if He would or how He would.

Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: HATH HE SAID, and shall he not do it? or HATH HE SPOKEN, and shall he not make it good?”

My healing came when I chose to believe WHAT GOD SAID over what the fear was telling me. It came when I realized God will never lie to me. He isn’t capable of it. He isn’t a man, fallible, misled, and easily deceived. You cannot pull one over on God. See Hebrews 4:12.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb 4:12)

God is strategic and precise. He knows what you are thinking and what you meant by it. He isn’t ever lost in the dark. The psalm says the darkness and the light are alike to Him. He isn’t ever surprised. He’s declared the end from the beginning. He knows all things. (Ps 139:12; Is 46:10; 1Jn 3:20)

He is TRUTH. The Hebrew word for “truth” means “stability.” (H571) You can rely on Him, all the time, every day, every month, every year. You can rely on Him when WHAT YOU SEE is fear and uncertainty. You can KNOW He has a plan, and He will work that plan for your benefit. You can KNOW HIM as stable and fixed and eternal. (Jer 29:11)

When I sought God as TRUTH and made the image of Him as TRUTH my priority, when I changed my perspective from the lies of fear, from the lies of my feelings and sometimes, my body’s reaction, when I changed my perspective to what GOD HATH SAID, to who He is and how He operates, then I overcame the fear for good. It was gradual, as growth is gradual. It required persistence and endurance, and yes, sometimes, I went backward rather than forward, but there was no other option for me. I was against the Red Sea with no way out but God.

Jesus said, “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” (Matthew 24:13) I am still, to this day, building my endurance. There are things I cannot hear for long without becoming troubled. But I KNOW God will never leave me or forsake me. I KNOW IT like I know I have brown eyes. I KNOW He is always on my side like I know the grass is green in the summer. I KNOW He is Emmanuel, God with me, like I know if you plant a seed and water it, it will grow. (Heb 13:5; Mt 1:23)

I KNOW Him and desire to know Him even more. I also KNOW to ignore the clench in my gut, the pounding fear in my mind, I KNOW to say NO to the temptation to twist God’s words into anything but TRUTH. You cannot fool me with fear anymore. I KNOW what it feels like. I KNOW that feeling isn’t TRUTH. I KNOW that God is greater, and I KNOW He’s given me authority over it. (Lk 10:19)

I KNOW He will provide for me. “Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” (Mt 6:30)

I KNOW He hears my prayers, and I KNOW I’m supposed to pray them. God is in control of my life because I’ve given Him control AND because I take the time to talk to Him. I make the effort every single day to pray, to worship, to read the Word of God. I put Him in me, and now, there’s no room for anything else. Not TV, not news, not the thousands of sometimes well-meaning people speaking out there. It’s just me and God most days, and I’m good with that. I KNOW HIM. He’s everything to me.

“For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: FOR I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED, AND AM PERSUADED that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” (2Ti 1:12)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.feelgoodromance.com
www.suzannedwilliams.com