Tag: grace

True Freedom

On By Rebekka LienIn christianity, coach, dream, faith, forgiveness, God, healing, law of attraction, love, Relationships, spirituality

I had a dream I killed a rat.

The Lord told me to write this.

“These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written:

“Be glad, barren woman,
    you who never bore a child;
shout for joy and cry aloud,
    you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
    than of her who has a husband.

Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit.It is the same now.  But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman”

He said to me “write about freedom”. Recently I had a friend come to me and say that I don’t need to tell her prophetic words so often, that she wants to live in freedom.

It made me think about how I went through my own “freedom” of being promiscuous, needing alcohol, being broken.

When I started to prophesy over myself and allow others to do so – and then I believed what God said- I started to step into the freedom God had for me.

When Jesus said “sell everything and follow me” – it was a prophetic word.

A prophetic word is something that hasn’t happen on the earth but is already true in the spirit.

I could have said no but I trusted God. All my own ways of living only led to more pain, hangovers and regrets.

All my own strivings and attempts to find my life partner was resulting in degrading myself.

That is why yesterday God said it’s time to come out. And I posted the following.

To my surprise, all the comments were positive and a few women have started to message me about their secret of waiting or perhaps not waiting anymore.

I realized that was a part of my story that I still felt ashamed to tell because I was shamed for waiting. People told me I need to have experience to know who my husband is. People said “your standards are too high, you should just settle”.

But when your mother is Sarah (grace), you live in the covenant of relationship with God bought by the blood of Jesus. So what you believe God for, a prophetic word or promise- it will come to pass if you walk in it. In this case, for me it means trusting God and waiting for the right man instead of jumping on every guy that looks like Mr. Handsome.

When your mother is Hagar (the law and your own striving), you try to attain your promises by your own flesh. This means that you will try everything else but trusting God and being led by His spirit.

A lot of times I prophesy over people and it’s not what they want to hear.

Perhaps it’s a guy they are seeing, or a job.

And I think to myself “why do they need so many reminders?”

But me myself? It did take God awhile to get to me too. Like I said after I broke up with my ex in 2014 I went on a dating spree and only after meeting many men who only wanted to sleep with me, did I come to my end and said “God I give up, you do it”. These men only wanted an instant gratification, they did not desire to love me.

But somehow I still trusted God enough to say “God I’m going to wait for my husband to have sex”. Because I believe God for the right man.

And that’s Sarah and Abraham waiting for God’s promises. At one point when they were a hundred or so, they inherited a promise of Isaac which God supernaturally gave them.

When we strive to make things happen on our way, without God we step into slavery. Hagar’s child was a slave. Whatever we attain by the law, we become a slave to. Hagar and her son never shares in the inheritance of the free women.

Proverbs 10:22

The blessing of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.

What God has shown me is true freedom means being free from shame, guilt, condemnation, fear.

So a prophetic word is always to bring you further into the freedom Jesus paid for you on the cross to have.

Yesterday I prophesied to a man that he is enough and he needs to go ask his estranged parents for help. He said he has spent a lot of time trying to find peace in his soul and I said “no you just need to do it even if they accuse you”.

God has told me to do things that I was not excited to do.

I sold everything to follow Him. I returned a leased car before the lease term was over. I knew my credit would go down but I needed to live for His kingdom and not my kingdom any longer. This means that I needed to be car- less and not live to pay for a car which did not give me the opportunity to minister to people on the streets or buses. I needed to trust that God would provide what I needed even if I didn’t have excellent credit.

And true to what He has told me, I haven’t needed a good credit at all. In fact, God has provided what I’ve needed without credit.

God told me to move back home. In actuality I was at my friend’s house and God said at 3pm you’ll know where you will stay. My mom has already offered to let me stay at her house. I started crying. Hell no I don’t want to move back home. But He understood so He didn’t make it explicit. He used this tactic so I had no other choice but to move home.

During the two years I stayed with my mom I reconciled with her. God knew that needed to happen for me to come into my blessings as well. I had never gotten allowance from my mother as I worked since I was 8 years old. It was the first time she gave me money.

I learned what grace and being a child of God actually meant in that time of rest! It’s not something I work for but something I receive just because I am God’s child.

God told me to break up with my ex. I needed a few confirmations and I got them. God knew I wouldn’t listen to one friend, but it was strangers I talked to that made me realize he wasn’t the one.

Yes we are stubborn people.

That stubbornness comes from us not trusting God. But when we come to the end of ourselves we start to see God’s intention for us is to be whole and healed.

Our brokenness prevents us from living the life God called us to.

So when I prophesy, you may not want to listen but it’s not me – it’s God saying “you deserve so much more than what you’ve settled for”.

Freedom is not continuing in a mediocre life or philandering with whoever we want, because it led me to more pain and tears. Freedom is being a child of God, knowing you are not an orphan and you have a father who guides and takes care of you.

The sheep knows her shepherd’s voice.

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The Path of Intimacy

On By Rebekka LienIn christianity, coach, dating, dream, entrepreneur, faith, forgiveness, God, healing, health, lawofattraction, lifecoach, lifehack, meditation, philosophy, Relationships, self-help, spirituality, therapy, travel, writer

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The path of intimacy with Jesus requires that He prunes you (to cut off or cut back parts of for better shape or more fruitful growth- Mirriam Webster).

Jesus will prune you of things that are not of Him, unhealthy soul ties, attachment to things or status, a need for external things to validate your identity. 

He does this not because He is mean, but because He is good. First He has to prune you from what you think you need.

Because He is ALL that you need. And He is the only one that will complete you so that you become enough, whole, NOT lacking. 

He wants to give you ALL things, He wants to bless you and spoil you.

But He cannot do it when you are wanting it out of lack. Because in Christ you are not lacking. 

Imagine if you felt like there was something missing within you, so you go searching for it- in a relationship, in your career, in your finances, in material things, in fame, in status, in reputation, in how others view you….

You ask God to answer your prayers.

“God please give me this and that, please give me a husband, please please….because I don’t have enough and I am not enough….ultimately, because I don’t believe that you are enough”.

God wants to give you EVERYTHING, but He will make sure that LACK belief is out of your system before He blesses you. He wants that blessing to be a representation of WHO YOU ARE, not who you are not.

Ultimately, He wants you to know who He is in the process. He wants you to know His heart for you, He wants to sing over you versus you getting what you want and then walking away, then desperately praying for Him to deliver you when you are in a bind.

Are you willing to be solely committed to Jesus, as His bride? (even if you are a man)

Do you believe He will never leave nor forsake you? Will you walk with Him in the process instead of running away or only coming to Him when you are desperate?

A wife trusts, relies on her husband. Jesus who is whole and complete made you whole and complete with His sacrifice on the cross. You are not lacking one thing. 

When you believe you are whole, all things will be added unto you. Everything you could ever imagine and much more. 

There Is Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Be

On By Rebekka LienIn christianity, dream, faith, God, healing, health, lawofattraction, lifecoach, love, philosophy, prophetic word, psychology, relationship, self-help, spirituality, travel, writer

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The last week I have been wrestling with a feeling of restlessness. You know when you plan charts and goals in your mind but instead God says “rest”. Most people think resting is easy, but actually it’s really difficult. Sometimes you compare yourself, you see celebrities and insta-famous people “progressing” and you think to yourself “what am I doing?” as if your life is measured by fame and money.

Resting is difficult because society drills “you’re not there yet, you’re not enough” into your mind. It’s everywhere, this message.

This message is the voice of the slave master, the devil himself.

But God says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 

The slave master has entered the minds of spiritual people too by telling them to go to yoga everyday, and if not, they can’t enter rest. The slave master has told people of faith to serve like slaves at churches or temples, to the point of exhaustion….I was there once, when I was a teenager. I would go to church at 7am, “do worship practice”, teach sunday school at 9am, lead worship at 11am, then I had youth group leader leadership meeting sometimes until 5pm.

This slave mentality took me through my time in the fashion industry, into entrepreneurship, but finally, God set me free.

He taught me how to be a child again.

Up until then, I defined my worth by how much I could accomplish. Growing up in a single parent home made me want to achieve more, somehow I needed to prove myself and help my family. If I could become someone or something, then I would be worth loving. 

This slave mentally has the whole world bound.

Most Christians don’t even understand the Gospel because it is attached with “and make sure you serve at church”. 

Not everyone is called to serve at church. Not everyone is called to serve yogurt at snack time.

If the Gospel means Jesus has freed you 100% and totally, you are a free person. You don’t need to do anything out of obligation, if it’s not desired in your heart, it’s not from God because God wouldn’t force you to do anything.

“Well, I should want to feed the homeless right?”

No, because God does not give the same desires to everyone. Maybe you are called to write music because it will heal souls. There is no better way or prescribed path for everyone.

I personally love traveling but I realize that traveling is often a way for me to feel like a free person, that anything is possible….that I am not bound by time, money, or location.

But I can feel free now by realizing that “there is nothing to do, nowhere to be”- why?

Because Jesus paid it all.

It is finished.

There is nothing to do because it is finished. I am complete. I am not lacking, I am whole in Christ Jesus. When God sees me, I’m not a work in progress, I’m righteous and whole.

There is nowhere to be because going there wouldn’t make me more whole or complete, I am complete now. 

It has taken me 30 years of my life to truly grasp this.

I received Jesus into my heart when I was 12, but I grew up going to church. Now, I realize most of what I saw was just a bunch of people trying to please God not knowing that God already accepted them via Jesus’ finished work on the cross. 

This slave mentality exists inside and outside the church. It is a prominent culture in America.

This message of “you’re not enough” will lead to death.

The message of “you are enough because Jesus redeemed you” will lead to life. This message of grace will liberate you and break the chains of slavery that torments your mind.

If you don’t live by grace, you will work and create out of lack and lack is just exhausting. Living out of “you’re not enough” will suck you dry.

When you rest in God, you are drawing out of eternal abundance. There is never a lack of supply.

I pray that these words will set your soul free.

 

Why We Put Off Having Fun

On By Rebekka LienIn dream, forgiveness, God, healing, lawofattraction, love, philosophy, relationship, self-help, spirituality, travel

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Nanjing, China

Today I was lying in bed and having a conversation with God. I’ve been back in LA for 2 days and I was feeling sulky. The conversation went something like- “I don’t feel like doing anything today”. “Why don’t you have some fun”. “Well I don’t think I deserve to”.

You deserve to have fun because you are my beloved.

You deserve to have fun because you are my daughter.

Why do we put off having fun, especially since I just went to China for 2 weeks, isn’t that all the fun I deserve? It’s because we don’t believe we deserve to have fun. Now this has everything to do with the curse of Adam and Eve. You’ll have to do your own research because it will be a whole theological post. And it has everything to do with knowing who you are as sons and daughters of God. 

Here’s what I discovered in the last 2 weeks, about sonship.

Grace was NOT a popular message back in the days, especially to the pharisees. So the pharisees were people who worked really hard to keep the laws, they were upright religious people. 

Then grace came. The disciples were not necessarily upright or even perfumed individuals….they were like, hairy and weird, hippies, ex-convicts, etc.

They said “believe that you are sons and daughters of God, that Jesus took upon your burdens and sins, and you are now FREE To ENJOY life as if you deserve, because under the LAW you don’t deserve to enjoy life, you have to work for it“.

As long as you come under the law (which in our society is “work hard, then you deserve to have fun”), you’ll never know what it means to be a beloved son or daughter of God.

A son or daughter of God believes “I am loved by God” and it’s not something I have to work for, I freely receive without conditions.

I don’t RECEIVE and then say to God, okay NOW let me work for it because I don’t feel like I deserve it.

May this message set you free to enjoy the life that God gave you.

Embracing “Badness” In Ourselves

On By Rebekka LienIn God, healing, health, lifehack, love, self-help, spirituality, therapy, travel

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(photo from the internet)

I had a dream last night. I was in a competition but the leader expected perfection, I was having an argument with my mom and yelled “SHIT”…the leader immediately canceled me (or outed my from the competition. I was eliminated completely. The leader in the dream used to be a leader in a christian group I was in.

I was so angry when I got outed. I couldn’t believe that just by being authentic I was outed. Then in my car outside, I saw a few other members of the competition come to my car. They sat in my car and I asked “you got outed too?” Yah they replied. I started driving but reached a beautiful land where I actually had to carry my car because no cars were allowed and we had entered from a side that didn’t have a parking lot (the wilderness). 

I believe this is a prophetic dream about where I have been, the wilderness and in the beginning being outed for revealing my “badness” or imperfections especially in the church, or in my previous hidden persona of “always being the positive one”. 

Imperfection wasn’t really accepted in my household, I was the strong one, you know the rock that people leaned on…even in my group of friends…and perhaps the institutional church encouraged perfectionism even more. So when I started to say no and started to show weakness, I was outed. The thing is I have always been different, I always had differing opinions, but for some time I pretended to agree, I tried to love the unlovable, I pretended to be patient when I was a boiling pot inside. 

I woke up from the dream with a knot in my heart and a strained neck. Yes, perhaps I had been hard on myself as well…being polite, not knowing how to say no, forcing myself still to go to things I didn’t want to when in reality I needed to accept and embrace the badness….

The badness we all have:

Being judgmental, mean, harsh, bitter, angry, sad, depressed, ego-centered, selfish, sly, manipulating, lazy, lustful, indulgent, unforgiving, loveless, discouraged, unhealthy, etc.

The badness represents a part of ourselves that wants to be loved but we often hide those parts of ourselves because we have not met people who have had enough grace to love us in spite of our “badness”. I have found that God completely loves and accepts us in our most baddest self…in fact we have to acknowledge and love ourselves in our baddest self in order for grace to heal us.

Because if we continue to hide our “weaknesses”, we will actually starve from love-malnutrition. 

I remember one time I was feeling really shitty and my ex said “I thought you were the positive one?…You are supposed to be the positive one and I’m supposed to be the negative one that you encourage”. It hit me. I hated that.

I don’t want to be the positive one.

I’m tired of it. I want to be able to be the weak one. I want to cry, I want to be weak. I want to be sad. I want to be angry. I want to hate someone. I want to feel those authentic emotions because it is relieving and it is real. 

When your real emotions are pent up, you feel tension in your body. I have been experiencing late periods and now dealing with healing my low thyroid (hypothyroid). I quit caffeine 4 days ago and have also realized that I used to block out negative emotions, tiredness or spiritual weariness by drinking coffee.

I have been learning to love myself through it all. Because grace is sufficient in our weakness. Living the authentic life means being honest with yourself. Find people that can love you despite your differences. 

In our culture, we are applauded for being good at something, but when was the last time you embraced your badness?

Kismet & The Power of Growing In Grace

On By Rebekka LienIn art, faith, forgiveness, God, healing, health, law of attraction, love, spirituality

Today was a magical day.

I feel like a new person.
True, after years of lament and grieving over the past, after feeling numb, I went through 12 seasons of healing…or more.
Sometimes I just felt like shit for no reason. Sometimes I woke up heavy, asking what was the purpose of it all.
All of this came from broken places within me. Grief of losing a best friend, grief of a broken heart from a long term relationship, I had to let everything fall to pieces and rest in the finished work. I was pushing really hard in my career but it seemed nothing was working and God was telling me to back down. 
I had to believe God in the process. 
And even though many a times there was not a smile on my face, there was not a feeling or desire to dance, socialize or make friends…how could I when everything I had known was too good. Could I have that again? Being known without words? To be appreciated that way?
The healing process is slow and tedious, it is like having the last inch of hope, crawling, lying down.
I think when God told me to sell everything and follow Him, it was a literal and spiritual sense of letting go of what I thought I wanted.
Even though we think we have big dreams, our idea of what our life should look like often is not holistic. 
For example, we want a husband, a house, a good career yet we have broken relationships with our parents. In fact, some of us hope to build a life when we haven’t talked to our parents for 10 years or we have deep distrust of men but we hope we meet prince charming.
These are contradictory.
God will not force onto you what you are not ready for. That is why the way of grace teaches us to wait upon the Lord. 
I know as humans we want things to happen fast, but I have found the way of grace, it teaches us that healing our being is not automatic, it is a process of relationship with God. 
God will not give you what you are not mature enough to handle…..and we can hustle, push for it outside of flow and grace…..and that is when dysfunction happens. 
Trust the process.
In all the waiting I have found that God really does know better. Even though I often struggled with “not knowing”, I found peace in the rest and grace of God.
Everyday was an act of surrender.
I learned to say no continuously to the things that did not feel right. I trusted God’s voice to not pursue opportunities and doors that were opened to me, I asked God for each decision. 
It’s definitely not easy, but it is worth it. Today I enjoyed a nice dinner and cocktail, and then suddenly felt an impulse to do yoga. I have NOT actively exercised, besides walk everywhere. Even though I felt groggy, I knew that it was part of my healing and that I needed to allow myself to just be, to be okay with the process of rest (sometimes just resting in bed). 
Sometimes I felt bad for gaining weight, but then I would hear God say “it’s okay, you are perfect”. And I knew that I needed exercise to come from a place of desire rather than a place of lack.
I desire to feel good in my skin versus I’m not GOOD enough so I need to lose weight and look good.
I needed my inner glory to match my physical glory.
And so I ran, I ran to the yoga place. I didn’t think I could do it, the hot yoga, but I felt every piece of the past fall off me, sweat off me.
“I am more powerful than I know”. Even after months of rest, I was more powerful physically than I knew.
Afterwards, I was waiting for the bus and turned around….it was a friend I had met online, eating inside a restaurant with a friend. OMG.
I ran in and talked to them. This was an online friend I met via our blogs.
Kismet.
Then I talked to a hot fireman and must I say, I have not talked to anyone of the prospective male species for awhile. And it felt good. To be like available emotionally again.
So happy birthday to me, February is my birthday month and I am excited.

Finding God In Bed

On By Rebekka LienIn coach, faith, God, healing, love, Relationships, self-help, spirituality

I like to use a provocative title to draw people in. But it is quite literal.

I woke up sobbing, feeling the depths of my heart, the hard pieces falling apart, away. For good perhaps. This time I had a dream where I was yelling, telling my story and a person in my life telling me to be quiet, to be ashamed. In the vicinity is an array of people that have told me to diminish myself because even if they didn’t know it, deep down they are afraid to be themselves and seeing someone free means they are still captive. 

I was crying in the dream, and when I got home my mom said I could no longer sleep there (meaning of rest) and that I must leave.

Sleeping in dreams usually means living in grace. The 5 years of wilderness for me was healing from the many wounds that I had somehow acquired in my life. 

Growing up in a single mother home, I didn’t quite learn what boundaries meant. This meant I listened to people, I got a load of garbage because I thought that meant I was loving them. Of course it was all in detriment to my own well being.

I found God in bed.

In sleep, in rest, in bed rest. I started having long, intense, novel like dreams. I had them every single night and I could remember them. 

And I stopped going to church. I found safe ways to listen to messages through youtube. I cut ties with people who were unsafe.

In this dream, I was wearing a coat to hide my bare chest. In dreams, bare chest usually means being unashamed, being completely wholly yourself. But I had to still hide my identity around the people who didn’t know how to be themselves.

Basically I wasn’t accepted as a human being. I was too edgy, too controversial, too much, too larger than life. I entered a season of solitude. During this time, I confronted my wounds and my heart. In a healing session I remember saying “to be honest, I was friends with people I didn’t even like” in reply to her question “it seems like you have a pattern of unfriending people and cutting them out of your life?”

I shocked myself there.

True, I was hiding myself, but to hang out with people I didn’t even like, that was extreme. But my final action told the truth. I actually found some people deeply annoying, obnoxious but I tried to be accommodating because I didn’t know how to say no or to explain why I felt how I felt.

Recently, I have started hanging out with people again. It is a slow process but I am now more mindful about what is mine and what isn’t. For example, when people have insecurities about being totally 100 percent themselves, they might project that unto you and try to control your freedom to be yourself. 

They might say something like “why are you doing that in public? It is embarrassing (to me)?” or dismiss your opinion without trying to understand it “that doesn’t make any sense, shut up”….those are examples of things people might say because they are unable to accept you for who you are and are fearful of what others think of them.

The religious spirit doesn’t just exist inside an institutional religion, but anywhere. The religious spirit is a spirit of control, it tries to bully you. The spirit of freedom is I believe who God truly is.

Here are some examples:

The religious spirit tells you that there is only right or wrong, black and white.

The spirit of freedom is relational, it is like a friend, it listens to your opinions and heart. It is collaborative and allows room for mistakes and decisions.

The religious spirit is controlling, it seeks to dominate people, it will only accept people if people follows their rules or idea of who they should be.

The spirit of freedom is unconditional and allows people to be themselves. It liberates rather than controls.

I hope this post gave you some insight. Peace and freedom. XOXO

Where the spirit is, there is liberty.

Daily Surrender

On By Rebekka LienIn beautiful, coach, dream, faith, God, lawofattraction, lifehack, love, philosophy, Relationships, resolutions, self-help, spirituality, travel, Uncategorized

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The beauty of life actually lies in the act of daily surrender.

As crazy as people say I am, the more I live a life of surrender, the more I realize how limited my thinking is. I cannot begin to comprehend how God works and that is just the beauty of it. I’m dumb as fuck compared to God. 

Life becomes enjoyable when we admit that our wisdom is beyond limited and God’s unimaginably creative and mind blowing.

By letting go of control, we get to partner with God in creating art out of our lives, to feel deeply each emotion, to play, to have fun, to create a rich life of love.

I am lost for words, sometimes unable to even express the plethora of emotions that is in my heart. I will go days feeling the tensions and not knowing how to face my truth.

It is in admitting “I don’t know why that happened, why nothing happened according to my preconceived notion of what should have happened, and why I even had that notion in the first place’ and maybe that I’m disappointed, scared that life is unpredictable, uncontrollable….

That my heart can finally release it’s grip.

It is okay that I don’t know.

It is okay that I may have been disappointed, but I want to continue learning how to surrender to God’s infinite ways of life.

Nowadays, grace is not so popular. Not knowing is so unpopular, there is an answer for everything. But I don’t always know what is going on and I’m okay with it. God’s got it, God has it figured out, He knew me before I was born.

I might not know where I’m going geographically even in the next month, and it upsets people. They want to make plans with me, but I can’t. My loyalty isn’t to them. My loyalty is to God. Make plans with me in the next week, but after that, I don’t know where I’m going. If I feel RIGHT about something, I will commit to doing it, but if I don’t feel RIGHT in my heart about it, I won’t. I have an inner compass. Being loyal to your vision makes you uncontrollable, free. 

So don’t feel bad that life didn’t go the way you predicted, perhaps your get married by 30 plan, career plan, etc. Life is better in a daily act of surrender. Surrender never felt so sweet.

(pic above is in SF, my mom and I went on a last minute trip).