ROOTED RENEGADE

Lack is something that is easily dismissed by some and obsessed over by others. It can infiltrate your whole being. It can rule your finances. It can create wedges in your relationships. In essence, it can rule your life…if you let it.

For many years I struggled. Struggled to put food on the table, to find stable housing, to feel that God would indeed provide for me. I spent 7 years homeless, bouncing around from couch to couch, man to man, jail, and a program for trafficking survivors after my kids were taken and I was evicted from our home during a horrible divorce.

Destitute and broken, I wandered around looking for a safe place to land and not really finding one. Even when I got into a program, it didn’t feel fully like home. It wasn’t mine. I couldn’t decorate how I wanted to. There were rules to follow. I was dependent upon them for groceries and other supplies that many take for granted. I arrived there with someone else’s clothes because I had nothing but what I had brought with me from jail. And that wasn’t much.

For the longest time, I didn’t feel like I would ever get out of there, let alone be in a place of my own. The spirit of lack consumed me. I always ate fast because I was subconsciously afraid I wouldn’t eat again or someone would withhold food from my like the traffickers did. We had hotel hopped so much, I had a hard time staying in one place and wanted to run all the time.

When I finally got out and got my own place, it was overwhelming. I had spent so much of my life with people telling me how to decorate, what temperature I could keep the thermostat on, what I could and could not buy at the grocery store, when I could and couldn’t leave, etc. that I had no healthy framework for living on my own without restrictions and rules.

It took me several months to realize that in spite of what I didn’t have, what I did was so much sweeter. I was able to pay my bills and take care of myself without living with someone else. I got to the point where I could go to the store and get what I wanted without feeling guilty for it.

I had learned to grow in freedom, even though I was free. And I learned to be content with what I had because I understood what it was like to have it all taken away. Including relationships that I held so dear to me.

Lack is many things:

Relational: We often lack relationally when we isolate ourselves from others out of fear of not getting hurt. 

Internal: We feel we lack the gifts or talents needed to do the work we were called to do. Or we feel we aren’t good enough to be used by God because of our pasts.

Financial: We struggle financially and don’t expect God to show up for us because of past decisions or wounds.

Mental/Emotional: We don’t think we are smart enough to figure things out, that we lack wisdom or clarity, and emotionally we are drained and exhausted.

Learning to come out of the mindset of lack to defeat this trickster, isn’t as easy as it seems. 

1. You have to create new neuropaths in your brain. Instead of partnering with the thought of “I don’t have enough” or “I won’t make it because I don’t have _____”, you have to partner with thoughts like “I can do all things through Christ”, “God will supply all my needs”, etc. 
2. You can’t rehearse lack. Meaning you can’t continue to believe you will never have _______ because God gives in abundance. Thinking that He does and believing that He does takes mental effort and discipline. 
3. You have to know the ways you have partnered with lack so you can defeat them. Sitting with Holy Spirit and asking Him to show you, then laying what He does at the feet of Jesus. Ask Him to help you overcome each one.
4. You have to get to a place where you believe you have all that you need to succeed within you by the power of the Cross and the Blood of Jesus. 

Then repeat. Repeat Scripture each time you think you don’t have enough. Repeat that you can make it every time your situation looks like you won’t. 

After struggling for so many years with lack of all kinds, I have learned that it takes time to undo the mindset. That I had to start believing the Word I was reading and that it applied to me. It didn’t matter what anyone else said, I had to come to an understanding and needed personal revelation from Jesus. 

Over time, it shifted. And it can for you too. One thought at a time. One breakthrough at a time. One miracle at a time. One day at a time. How you get there, how you defeat this giant, how you begin to see yourself as content, how you think about your circumstances, it can only change when you allow Jesus to help you. 

And when you do, He will replace the faulty frameworks with His truth. His truth will heal those broken places and help you defeat the giants.

Below are some Scriptures you may find helpful.

• Psalm 34:10: “The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing” (ESV).
• Psalm 23:1: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want” (NKJV)
• 2 Corinthians 9:8: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (ESV).
• Hebrews 13:5: “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (ESV).
• Philippians 4:19: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (ESV).
• Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (ESV). 
• James 1:5: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (ESV).
• 1 Corinthians 1:7: “Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed” (NIV). 

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