Go tell it on the Mountain...

A phrase used to send forth the message that that Christ was born, that God's Son had become flesh and was dwelling among men. "Go tell it on the mountain" was a proclamation of so many things and in my mind the least of which was all together about His birth. Don't get me wrong, we need to be proclaiming the birth of Christ, and while the world is thinking about it we ought to take advantage of it and share of the birth of Christ, but that magnificent birth is wasted unless we tell of Him from the mountain tops, and not of His birth, but of the deliverance we are told comes from Him in Isaiah 9:6 where Isaiah speaking about Jesus says "He will be called might counselor".

I am currently working toward my masters degree in psychology hoping at some point to be able to help other people through difficulties in life, at least that is what we are trained to do: listen, nod, offer advice. The reality is there is not ONE counselor on this earth who can listen deeper than our words, who can offer guarantees and not just advice. I don't want to talk my self out of a profession here but that is reality, I can sit and listen and offer suggestions but case after case shows suggestions can be trial and error. Yes they may help their situations to be better in some ways, but the fact remains if I want to be the most successful of counselors I will give those hurting the best advice I can: Turn it over to Jesus. As a mighty counselor He is the one who said in Matthew 11:28ff: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light ." It is Jesus, the mighty counselor who can take my burdens from me and lighten my load.

In our society we think the only way to heal from disasters in life is to seek professional help, my question is: if we call ourselves Christians why do we doubt the ability and power of God to heal the brokenness, set the captive free, bring peace into turmoil? If we really believe in God why don't we spend our time counseling people with the love and patience that the mighty counselor displayed with me knelt down to a life so riddled with sin that everyone else wanted her dead. He knelt down and in a moment offered her healing that NO ONE else could have offered, peace that her life's pursuits had only promised but not delivered. Is it all together possible that so many don't believe in His healing power that with a word could put a stop to a storm simply because they have not personally witnessed His healing power, or maybe because they themselves have been rejecting it.

I don't know, maybe this is just rambling but one thing I know is, I have made huge mistakes in life and walked around for years feeling empty and direction less all the while putting on a good face wanting everyone to think I was doing good: why? Because that is all we really want to know, don't open up or else you will be ridiculed, at least that is how we have made people to feel. And so for years I stayed in my disaster I wallowed in the mess of a life I thought would never get that bad crying out for deliverance but never really doing the ONE thing I needed to do all along: turn to the Mighty Counselor for deliverance. Let me say today this freedom that I feel, the peace I finally have, this is what I will tell from the mountains, this is what I will proclaim. Some may think it is impossible to change to quickly from years of sin and to a degree they are right. I will wake up everyday and know that I am one bad choice away from being right back where I have been delivered from, but I believe it does not take the Mighty Counselor long at all to heal brokenness.

So excuse me if you feel my excitement is not real or you feel it necessary to doubt the ability to really be different, I am not testifying for you! I am testifying for those who are so broken and who have been longing to hear a message of freedom, I am testifying not for personal gain but because I believe that is what freed people do -- we testify about our freedom so we dont give the devil a foothold back into our lives. I am testifying not of the perfection I have reached, but of the peace I finally have which gives me an indescribable hope every day I wake up to say "I believe!" For the longest time I stood directly in the path of God telling him my sins were too great to be free from and all the while I believe He cried seeing my pain knowing that He could heal me with the same breath He created me with if I would only "Get out of His Way!"