Pour out your heart to the Lord by Lynda Alsford

Learning not to do it myself

I have been learning to pour out my heart to the Lord. It is the kind of thing we often say as Christians - "Pour out your heart to the Lord". But do we actually do it? I realise now that I didn't often really pour out my heart to Him. I tried to deal with the emotions myself. This summer I asked myself "Lynda, what is your first instinct when you are upset? What is the first thing you want to do?" And when I was honest the answer was not to run to God and pour out my heart to Him. I sometimes let out some of what I felt to others when I was really upset but mostly I tried to bury them which led to depression.

Pray your problems not your solutions
Do you know what I was doing? I was trying to work out what the solution to my problem was alone, then praying God would do that thing for me. I was praying answers rather than asking God for answers. What I need to do is take the whole problem, including all my emotions, to Father and let Him guide me through the whole process.
Since God freed me from my addictive eating behaviours I have continued to have a steep learning curve. I have a tendency to bury difficult emotions. I don't like feeling them - well who does. But not everyone avoids the difficult ones the way I was doing. In the past, I buried these emotions in food. When I stopped bingeing I didn't know what to do with all these emotions. I had to learn how to process them. Unfortunately, I frequently still buried them and this led to getting depressed at times. But gradually I am learning to deal with the emotions more healthily. 

And do you know what I've discovered? And I wish I had discovered it years ago. When I come to Father God and simply pour out my heart to Him, warts and all, He really does have a habit of changing things. Sometimes the situation is changed. Sometimes it is my emotions that are changed. Sometimes both are changed. I pour out my pain to Him and Father takes it and gives me His peace in return. But it only happens when I am truly honest with Him. 

For my next trick I will learn not to take back my problems at regular intervals! But I am learning. And I want to encourage you all to learn along with me. Learn to really pour out your heart to the Lord, to our loving, oh so loving heavenly Father.

It's taken me too long to stop telling God what I think He wants to hear rather than what I am really feeling. "I supposed I have to love this person, Lord, because you ask me to" I might say when what I am really feeling is "I am so very angry with this person, Lord. I dislike them immensely". If I go on saying "I suppose I have to love..." when it is not what I am feeling inside I will never really learn to love this person. When I come to God honestly and tell him how much I dislike the person, when I pour out why I am angry to God then He will change me gradually by the power of his Holy Spirit.

Pour out your heart to the Lord for he cares for you. You can trust him with your deepest, darkest feelings.

 Lynda Alsford is a sea loving, cat loving GP receptionist and writes in her spare time. She has written two books. He Never Let Go describes her journey through a major crisis of faith whilst working as an evangelist at a lively Church in Chiswick, West London. Being Known describes how God set her free from food addiction. Both books are available in paperback and on kindle on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. She writes a newsletter, Seeking the Healer, in which she shares the spiritual insights she has gained on her journey. Sign up for this at her website, www.lyndaalsford.com. Lynda blogs at www.patch-work-blog.blogspot.co.uk.