Study Guide for This Week’s Video Message: 7 Reasons God Wants Us to Make the Most of Our Time

I do these video/podcast messages almost every week and lately I’ve just been posting the content on my blog. But I thought I’d try making the blog more of a study guide for those who might want to go a little deeper.

In this message,

I talk about when God wants to help us overcome our trauma so that we can help someone else. When we do this, the Lord helps us to make the most of our time, because when we’re stuck in it – we can’t see anything else, but the trauma because we’re responding to life out of it.

So, here are some scriptures for you to go and study, and not just the ones I share, but I encourage you to read further with them. If you are just getting into the Word, this can be a great way to go deeper, to just read around what you’ve been guided to.

The first scripture I share is, Psalm 98:11 “Teach us to number our days; that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Now let me give you the 7 reasons God wants to use us and bless is as we recover from trauma.

#1. You Need to know God doesn’t use the perfect people. He uses the broken ones.

1st Corinthians 1:27-29 tells us, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”

#2. You are Christ’s Ambassador.

There is PURPOSE in recovering from your trauma that goes beyond you. 2nd Corinthians Chapter 5, verse 20 tells us, be —  “Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. we implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

#3. You are redeemed. It’s time to tell your story. 

Psalm 107 I mentioned multiple times in this series and now we can read verse 1-2, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story – those redeemed from hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.”

#4. He lifted you out of a pit. 

We are here to tell our story of how he rescued us from our pit. Psalm 40 says, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet upon a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him.” When others see us come out of the pit, God will get the glory!

#5. God working through you is breaking generational curses and chains.

In Deuteronomy it talks about the blessings we get from obedience, Chapter 28 verses 1-6, “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nation on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:

• You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
• The fruit of your womb will be blessed (I can attest to this – 5 years of struggling with infertility and we had a miracle child!) and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock – the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
• Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed
• You will be blessed when you come and and blessed when you go out!

We have to BELIEVE God for blessings if we WALK with him! He is the one that will help us break the generational curses! We have to believe he blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others! That brings me to my next point:

#6. We have to remember we are here to serve. 

I don’t mean we don’t take care of ourselves or remain the victims of our story. I’m saying if we are here to serve, then we have to understand that just walking in our renewed life is serving the Lord. We have to find purpose that is greater than ourselves and when the Lord redeems our story it makes it not what WE did, but how HE did it in our life! So often we want to stay in our cocoon, like I talked about earlier in this series – there is a time to be in our cocoon. But there is also a time to spread our wings and fly. If we’re not flying like a butterfly, we’re planting seeds in the garden of our lives and watching them bloom and grow.

Acts 20:35 tells us, “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

#7. We have to let God discipline us with our TIME.

Ephesians 5:15-17 says, “Be very careful, then, how you live -not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be fooling, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”

and

Hebrews Chapter 12, verse 5-7, “And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?”

In the video this week I talk about how it’s so hard to recover from trauma because we’re so used to the chaos. But recovery from it is about building a new life outside of it. This week was the beginning of fall and there is a saying that goes, “The leaves falling is a reminder of how wonderful it is to let things go.” When I say that, I don’t mean – just move on, just let it go. I mean maybe begin the process of letting go.