I Got a Spankin From God Today!

I Got a Spankin From God Today

Have you ever felt spanked by God?  You may be thinking, “God doesn’t spank His children!”  But let me tell you that yes He does and yes He did.  Let me explain.  I am not talking about a “spanking” in the sense of God physically punishing me because I did something wrong; but rather a “spanking” in the sense of after I did something or had a particular thought I could hear His still small voice say, “Now why did you do that?!” or “Why did you think that thought?!”  Today, I got a “spankin” from my loving, heavenly father and not because He was mad at me, but because He loves me so much that He wants the absolute best for me.   

It all started this morning when I opened my eyes.  I raised my head and felt the intense pounding of a migraine that I know all too well.  My first thought was “Oh great!  Not again!”  You see, I have always been plagued with reoccurring migraines (family history) but from January until May I rarely had one.  However, recently I have had an average of one every two weeks and they usually last up to three days.  So once I get one, I know that I will be dealing with the lil booger for a few days.  They can become so intense that I can’t move, stand, sit up, or eat and I feel as though I might vomit.  I normally can keep the migraine to just a headache by taking the maximum dosage of Advil or Excedrin Migraine throughout the day.  However recently I have been feeling challenged to not rely so heavily on medicine as my “plan A” but to instead have faith in God’s Word that by His wounds (and not the continual popping of pills) I AM (past tense, already happened) healed (Isaiah 53:5).  After all, it’s not like the medicine has been working all that great if I have to take the maximum dosage for up to three days.  Not to mention I will be the first to scream from the rooftops that I am healed of my infertility and soon I will have my own children, so if I can believe God 100% for this type of healing then why shouldn’t I rely on Him and believe in His healing for my migraines too?  Migraines would seem to be easier for God to heal than infertility right? Haha (I know all sickness/diseases are the same to God but that’s our thinking sometimes.)

I will admit that once I made the decision to not take the medicine I became fearful.  I was fearful as to how long the pain would persist and how intense it would become.  But I made the decision and I was going to press through no matter the physical cost…or so I thought.  Before I took one step out of bed I immediately prayed for my healing and then thanked God for it even though I could still feel the throbbing pain.  But as I got my coffee, the pain become more severe and I could feel the fear and doubt rising up within me, so I began speaking healing scriptures out loud.  I wasn’t speaking them to “move” God to heal me because His Word says that through my faith I am already healed, but rather I was speaking the scriptures out loud to “move” me out of the position of doubt and back into the position of faith.  

After about ten minutes I kept looking for my pain to decrease but it wasn’t and in fact, it was getting worse.  So I turned on some worship music and did the best I could with an intense migraine to praise God thinking that this would help take my mind off the symptoms; but I found myself still thinking about and focusing on the pain.  The pain was so intense that I ran to the bathroom thinking I would vomit.  As I laid there crying I began to doubt Him and whether or not I would be healed of this migraine.  I went back and forth between believing and doubting and over the course of three hours and with no relief in sight, doubt and unbelief really started to take root and grow in my heart.   I began questioning not only God but myself. ..”Was I speaking His Word enough?  Did I have ‘enough’ faith?  Were my prayers being said correctly?”  My thoughts were all over the place and I became desperate to be released from the torment the devil had placed on me.  All I wanted was to not be lying on the bathroom floor in tears for the next several days, so I got up and decided two Excedrin Migraine pills were needed.  It wasn’t even before I swallowed those two small white tablets did I instantly think I felt better.  In addition, while gulping down the water my next thought was, “I will finally be able to function in about an hour.” 

This is the moment I got spanked by God.  As soon as I had those thoughts I began crying.  My thoughts revealed what was deep inside my heart.  God didn’t spank me for taking the medicine; that wasn’t His issue with me. His issue was the condition of my heart towards Him.  I heard Him ask, “Where was this same confidence in Me?”  Ouch!  I realized at that moment that my confidence was stronger in the medicine than in Him. The definition of confidence is to trust in the abilities, strengths, integrity, or faithfulness of someone or something.  That moment proved that within my heart I trusted more in the ability, strength, integrity and faithfulness of those two white tablets to heal me than I did in the belief that by Jesus stripes I had already been healed.  

Not only that, but I literally thought, “In an hour I will feel better.”  I gave the medicine at least an hour to work, but each time I spoke God’s Word I was looking for relief in five minutes.  Why wasn’t I this patient and able to give God this same kind of confidence?  Why was I able to walk by faith with the medicine but walk by sight with God? 

These were two tough questions that I needed to answer.  I thought about them all day and I meditated on the word “confidence” for several hours.  I was reminded of Hebrews 10:35 (NLT) which says, “Do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord.  Remember the great reward it brings you!”  God wants the absolute best for me (and you) and when I don’t cast away my confidence in Him then that is when I will receive the promises that I believe Him for, which in this case it was healing. 

The spanking from God was a subtle reminder that it’s important I don’t cast away my confidence each time the “going gets tough” or the pressure to “give up” or “try something else” seems easier.  I allowed the pain to distract me from remembering the fundamental principle that ALL of God’s promises (such as healing) are received through faith; which means I believe I have received from God without ever having proof of receiving it.  I let the desire to see a physical change become the foundation of my faith and confidence and when I didn’t see proof in the natural realm, my foundation crumpled and my confidence in God was shattered.  The foundation for what I believe God for should ONLY be what He says in His Word…not by what my five natural senses are screaming. 

The enemy knows how powerful my faith and confidence in God can be in destroying his tactics and today I allowed him to distract me with the physical evidence to make me lose sight of the truth in God’s Word.  As a result, doubt and unbelief came in, took root, and grew; therefore making me immobilized, powerless and fearful.   I was reminded today that doubt and unbelief should never be entertained because when left unchecked they will rob me of God’s ultimate best.  I know this because James 1:6-8 says that a double minded man will receive nothing from the Lord and Mark 11:22-23 says, “Have faith in God, ‘Jesus answered.  I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.”  It’s obvious as to why my healing never came—I was a doubting, double minded person who couldn’t decide on whether or not I would put my confidence in God.

 Is God mad when we use medicine?   Doubtful.  But I do believe that God would like to see our faith and confidence eventually become so solid and strong that we can trust and depend upon Him in every area of our life including the ones where we have the answer to “fix” it. I believe that too many times we only come to God in prayer and have confidence and faith in Him when that’s all that we have left…when all of our “ideas” and “efforts” are exhausted.  But I want to have my faith so strong that I am able to trust Him in complete confidence without wavering for the things I can’t change (my fertility) but also the things that I believe I can control and change, such as a migraine.  In addition, I am sure all of the Advil I consume is killing my liver…why would God want me fixing one problem just to cause another…