When Your Dream is In Limbo: 3 Keys to Keeping Hope Alive for the Remainder of 2013 – Part 2

Let’s face the facts.  This time last year as we were finishing out last two months of 2012, we were already beginning to think about what 2013 would look like.  We received prophecies.  We prayed, praised and worshipped.   We began to make confessions.  We began to declare and decree what would happen in 2013.

But alas, it is now November.  The year is far spent.  No doubt 2013 was a year that brought both challenges and blessings.  Not everything we had hoped for has materialized.  We thought for sure that we would be at a certain point, but we are not.  There are dreams and visions still yet un-manifested and unrealized.  We made significant shifts and progress in some areas, but in others we sit in the exact same position that we did in 2012.  What happened, Beloved?  Are you still in limbo?  Are you still waiting?   What hindered you?

Let’s pick up our discussion that began back in August (see When Your Dream is in Limbo – Part 1).  In Part I, we defined what Limbo is:

A region or condition of oblivion or neglect; a state or place of confinement; an imaginary place for lost, forgotten or unwanted persons or things; an unknown intermediate place or condition between two extremes; a region on the border of hell.

 Another way of looking at being in Limbo is also to view it as a season of Transition or Wilderness.  (see other posts regarding Wilderness Seasons and Transitions) We also looked at the first 3 keys to surviving being in Limbo so that we do not lose our minds, faint give up and turn back around: 1) Learning to Be Complete, Content and Rested in Christ; 2) Learning to Have Confident Expectation and 3) Let Him Continually Redeem and Regulate Your Mind while in Limbo.

To survive the remainder of this year without becoming overwhelmed at the prospects of what 2014 could potentially bring and to still keep hope that God will do what He said He would do, let’s look at a few more things.

Have the ROOTS [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him… (Col 2:7, AMP)

Let Him Help you Master and Maintain Your Deliverance while you are in Limbo. You don’t want to lose the valuable lessons and deliverances you learned before the limbo season started.  During the first part of this limbo season, God has rooted something things in you – such as a greater deeper root in Him, greater security in Him, being grounded in Him and His love.  Then there is a brief season of rest.  Then you may transition to a second valley which could be triggered by external circumstances and situations.

This second part of the wilderness experience or transition limbo focuses on rooting out, or purging out the stuff that accumulated in the first wilderness, i.e., mostly negative thought patterns, hurts and wounds not fully addressed or dealt with that accumulated in the first wilderness that would flare up and cause issues in the Promised Land. Note the process. In Wilderness/Limbo #1, God allows situations to develop for you to become dependent on Him and not the opinions of others and thus causing you to be ROOTED IN HIM.  In Wilderness/Limbo #2, God allows circumstances to force you to see your heart again and exposes things in you that need to be ROOTED OUT.  God waits for us to be rooted in Him, so that we could hang on when he begins to root stuff out of us.  We wouldn’t be able to survive the Rooting Out Process if He did it the other way around.  We must be rooted in Him to survive the purging process without giving up on God.  It would kill us.  So God, rich in grace and mercy, left the same character flaws in place while He rooted us in Him , and then when we have established enough root in a certain area, He initiates another purging through to take us through another process.

Thought purging and mindset pattern purging is extremely difficult without the grace and power of the Holy Spirit.  It is a mammoth battle — one not to be taken lightly.  You have to be rooted in Christ before you are in a position to handle this battle with any degree of deliverance or victory.  A key feature of this purging process is the intensity in which the thought patterns assert themselves in circumstances and situations once you are aware of them, repented of them, and actually attempt to focus on what you are thinking about and the right thoughts.  If you are trying to determine if you are in this season, let this be a clue.  THIS IS WARFARE!

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil 1:6, NIV)

Learn to Focus -Not Force.  Focus on what God is forming and working in you and your life this at time as we close out 2013.  Do not try to force what or where you think should be.   Let God do His work. He is the creator.  You are His Workmanship.  There is no use in getting anxious about it now.  This could be a potentially great season of your life if you let it.  Don’t worry about what someone else could do or may do or what could potentially happen.  We must trust God.  God is forming a deeper level of humility, grace, discretion, prudence and wisdom in us.  We are being tested in a variety of ways in how to conduct ourselves, how to handle business/financial/personal/family pressures, how to give encouragement to others in the midst of going through ourselves, and how to conduct ourselves in a way that generates trust and respect.  We are being tested in our ability to keep our mouths shut.  We are being forced to humble ourselves in ways never done before.  We are being forced by circumstances to realize a deeper dependency upon Christ that we did not have before.

LOOKING unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…(Heb 12: 2, KJV)

Look to Christ – Not Yourself & Not the Other Person or Persons.  Realize that as you look to Christ,  and cast the cares of your relationships on Him, that His timing for your deliverance will occur: 1) when you are not looking and sweating about it and; 2) when you are so focused on Him that the situation doesn’t bother you anymore.  Right now, we are still struggling, still learning how to daily cast cares, and how to daily stop re-running and re-hashing the same issues in our minds.  We are still struggling with trying to figure out how someone else is thinking and feeling.  We are still learning how to let it go, how to forgive, how to trust God with our ISSUES.  If we don’t stop looking out our own inadequacies and other people, it could keep is in a Perpetual Limbo, going about in the same old circles this time in 2014.  Beloved, let this not be your testimony!

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God (Phil 4:6, NIV)

Learn to Calm Down –  Christ is Here.  Remember that greater is He that lives in you than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4, KJV).  Christ is in your situation because He dwells in you.  You have the Mind of Christ.  No need to get emotionally depleted because you can’t figure it out and 2013 still looks the opposite from what have believed for.  Christ is right there in the midst of it so you can calm down right now. He is the Prince of Peace and He dwells within YOU.  Peace is the absence of all strife or fighting from within and without.  He is working.  He does all things well (Mark 7:37). If you have been earnestly seeking Him and praying, God is there!  Your motives have been purified. In 2013, you have been doing best you know how in your present situation.  God sees. He has not forgotten you.

I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: FORGETTING WHAT LIES BEHIND and straining forward to what lies ahead..(Phil 3:13, AMP)

Learn to Finally Let Go of the Past in Limbo.  You just can’t drag it with you where you are going.  Let go of unrealistic expectations and your will.  Let them off the hook for what they did to you.  God is your validation and vindication.  For some people in your past, they must stay away from you at a long distance and do not need re-entry into your life at all, because they are emotionally and spiritually toxic for you.  It is totally understandable, healthy and expected for you to disconnect and not engage with such people but still be able to forgive them and pray for them from a far.  It does not mean you are being hard and cold.  It means you are setting healthy boundaries to protect your own life.  Jesus did not die a dishonorable death on the cross to bring you abundant life for you to allow dishonorable people to mess up your life.  Keep your boundaries intact as you move forward in 2013, let them go, don’t think about what happened, and keep it moving.

Until Next Time,

Lady TB

Image source: http://www.saharamet.org/desert/sahara/photos.html