I’m noticing year by year that springtime has taken more and more of my heart. I always said Summer was my favorite season, and it’s hard to beat those warm July evenings with the sun setting around 8 o’clock. But there is something magical about Spring. Each day brings forth new life and beauty. Summer’s still my favorite season, but Spring is the most special to me.

The anticipation Spring brings is what I love the most about it. Everything goes from barren to awake and alive. It’s a precursor to Summer and warmer days. I was told many times as a kid to not wish my life away, and there’s a difference between wishing it was three months later and being excited for what’s to come three months down the road. Having things to look forward to is a beautiful thing – like Spring pointing expectantly towards Summer.

A challenging thing can happen when the future we’re looking forward to gets tainted by pain from our past. When dreams we used to have pass us by. How do we allow dreams to die? What does it look like to turn the page and dream again? Please let me know if you have the answer to this, I’ve been stuck in this place for the better part of three years. Honestly, I envy the person who’s able to quickly turn the page from dream to dream. This is a process that tends to take me an extended amount of time. I find myself staying loyal to things even after they’re over. I look forward to the day when I find a safe place to plant my loyalty.

Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the church answer of “just be loyal to Jesus.” Although, I think that’s a great place to start. What do we do when there are parts of our hearts that are harboring some anger and resentment towards someone? Most people would give you a talk on the importance of forgiveness and how bitterness is only harming yourself – I can tell you from personal experience, they’re right.

What people don’t tell you is how hard forgiveness actually is. My experience with my own heart is that it’s incredibly challenging to convince it to let go of something. I want justice. It feels unfair. These feelings, unfortunately, rob me of my joy. They’re dream suckers. Unforgiveness, left untended, functions like a glitch on a gaming console. You try to fire up the Xbox and it starts making noise like it’s coming alive, then boom, it stalls out and dies.

I’ve had a challenging time moving past some things that have happened in recent years. I noticed something the other night. I wasn’t just harboring resentment towards a person, I was carrying bitterness towards the Lord as well. This unlocked a deeper level of understanding around the feelings I’d been having. Suddenly, it became more clear why worship has been challenging, why my heart has felt at flight. My interpretation of some events in my past had led me to a conclusion that God may not actually be trustworthy or safe for me.

I began to think of what it would be like to have joy that fed into more joy, rather than joy being drowned out by heartache. Or peace that’s so firm and consuming that not even fear could take its place. Imagine love impenetrable, unbreakable, and completely free from anxiety, worry or envy.

This is what the Lord is truly offering. God’s character is fixed, faithful, and trustworthy. Somewhere along the way, my interpretation of how He interacts with me got shaken. The unforgiveness I’d been harboring was actually needing to be resolved between me and the Lord. Lies had come in to try and convince us that God is Someone other than who He truly is. For a number of years now, I’d believed them.

Maybe this feels familiar to you too. So, what now? The only way to protect us from lies is by knowing the truth. The only way to know the truth about the Lord is to read what we know to be true from Him – His Word. The Bible is our key defense from falling into beliefs that are untrue of God, ourselves, and this world.

The temptation when these feelings towards the Lord come up is to retract from Him, call Him hogwash, and walk away. When the only true remedy for us is to run deeper towards the Lord with our questions, hurts, confusions, and heartaches. To confront the Lord head on and know Him more and more. It’s here and only here, friends, that deliverance from lies and breakthrough towards the Truth is found. Fight the urge to run away and discipline yourself to continue towards He who loves you more than you’ll ever fully know.