http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=4114<\/a>). As I read, God spoke to me through them, confirming some key directives I had received from Him previously. By the time I was writing a summary in my prayer journal about everything He had said, the oppression shrouding me earlier was all but gone. As I arose from that task to a more mundane endeavor, however, a scrap of the old heaviness startled me as it leaped on my mind, demanding attention, flooding my thoughts with images of all the disapproval my life had generated.<\/p>\nAnd just then the Plumber, the Ancient of Days Himself, stepped in and spoke very clearly, \u201cDisapproval\u201d, and I saw a man\u2019s hand pull a piece of trim from the wall of my heart pierced by a thickly corroded nail\u2014disapproval itself. All the condemning images drained away, and I recognized what the Lord\u2014my Plumber\u2014had just done for me.<\/p>\n
It all made sense to me. I had been plagued by the feeling of being disapproved much of my life\u2014even as a believer who thoroughly trusted in the finished work of Jesus Christ, His precious blood shed for me, the wonderful regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and the living power of the Word of God. For some reason, I was not able to fully shake the nagging doubts and oppressive accusations despite how loved by God I knew I was.<\/p>\n
God was showing me that the disapproval my parents expressed toward me as a child, teen, and young woman\u2014even though I knew they loved me\u2014had invaded my system and lodged in my soul. When Jesus came to make His home in me, the living waters sprang up to eternal life and all was forgiven and I was cleansed\u2014but that errant trim nail of disapproval remained. Through the years, with every disapproving look or word, that nail was driven in deeper. I felt it, for sure, but was never able to identify what was going on inside. In fact, the Lord showed me, I had developed a \u201cdisapproval response mechanism\u201d in my soul that was triggered whenever I met with anything that felt disapproving toward me\u2014whether it was real or imagined. And if I left it unaddressed, or worse\u2014I nursed or coddled it\u2014and didn\u2019t forgive as quickly as possible, that intrusive trim nail would redevelop its corrosion and the living water within would become tainted again.<\/p>\n
And out of nowhere came my Plumber, the Savior of my soul, who simply removed the offending nail. Of course, I have questions: Why now? Why wait this long? <\/i>But the fact of the matter is this: He did it. He pulled out a grossly contaminating, painful spike from my soul, and I am grateful. The flow of the rivers of life and the washing of the water of the Word will be all the more refreshing, sweet, and powerful.<\/p>\n
My purpose in sharing this highly personal incident is to encourage you to press on in God even if things seem impossibly dark, oppressive, or disturbing. When the leak occurred in my basement, I was angry and upset at the mess and inconvenience. However, without that leak, the corroding trim nail never would have been discovered, and my water would still be contaminated.<\/p>\n
A surfaced boil reveals that an infection needs to be addressed. Without that boil, the infection can spread undetected. A leak in the plumbing reveals that something is not right with the pipes\u2014perhaps even contaminating the water. And chronic issues of heaviness, oppression, or sin in your life can be viewed as a wake-up call to press in to God and His Word all the more. Instead of allowing the oppression to bind you in shame or despair, use the devil\u2019s attacks as your personal launching pad into the presence of God. The Lord will come through for you\u2014every time.<\/p>\n
And concerning errant trim nails:<\/p>\n
1. Protect your heart by obeying God.<\/p>\n
2. Keep the living water of Jesus flowing within you.<\/p>\n
3. Trust Him to bring to light anything that may be hindering you\u2014and watch Him set you free.<\/p>\n
Dorothy <\/p>\n
Norco side effects<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the plumber removed the trim nail that had pierced the pipe, I was fascinated by how thickly corroded it had become in two years and amazed at how well it had plugged the metal all that time. In fact, as I prayed with a group of women soon after, I kept seeing that corroded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-help-from-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4187"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4205,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187\/revisions\/4205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}