Wear Your Belt

I drove to church and said, “King Jesus, what was the thing I wanted to ask Matthew?” I thought for a moment and remembered—I wanted to ask, “Where is God’s justice in His forgiveness?” There is no justice. Evil goes free and I am left with the pain.

I arrived at church and asked Matthew what he wanted the prayer team to pray for. He listed the things and told me about the sermon, that it was covering Acts 5, the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Josh would discuss God’s forgiveness and grace. And in that moment I realized my question was the wrong one. And I could not ask the wrong question because then I would not get the right answer. I decided to ask God for the right question. So I went upstairs and waited for the rest of the prayer team to arrive. They were late. They were very late. I sat alone in the darkening room and thought about my question until I realized I simply did not believe that God was good. Who is this God? He ordains evil in my life and then leaves me to deal with the aftermath. And tears formed on my cheeks as the rest of the prayer team arrived. And I pretended I was fine.

A few days later I ran with a friend and told her the story. We prayed. I went home. I ate. I slept. I dreamed.

I don’t remember much about the dreams except there were lots of things happening and there were at least two people and at least two demons.

I was in a house with lots of windows. The windows reached from floor to ceiling and revealed the outside world to my watching eyes. There were two demons outside the window and I rebuked them in the name of Jesus. One left. One stayed. The one who stayed continued making faces at me, and I was afraid. I tried to open my mouth to rebuke it or ask Jesus to come. But I could not open my mouth. I could not cry out. So I prayed. “King Jesus, please open my mouth that I may call out to you. Please open my mouth that you may come, that you may save me.” And I woke up. I was still afraid, but I continued to pray and fell back to sleep.

I was in the same house. Or maybe this dream came first. I can’t remember the order. There were two people wearing hideous belts. The belts were wide and had many buckles and many holes.

“Put on your belt, Beth,” they urged me.

“No way! They’re so ugly. And I don’t need a belt. My pants are staying up just fine,” I replied.

But as soon as I woke up, still in fear of demons, I said, “Of course I’ll put on my belt! And the belt is the belt of truth! And the truth is that God is good! And all I have to do is believe it!”

So I told my friend and we praised God. 

Things to pray for:

Courage and opportunity to share the gospel with my coworkers.

That I would make healing a priority. I’ve skipped the past to weeks…