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    Exit the Wilderness: Enter God's Promises
    Exit the Wilderness: Enter God's Promises
    Exit the Wilderness: Enter God's Promises
    Ebook125 pages3 hours

    Exit the Wilderness: Enter God's Promises

    By Sharon Hürkens

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    About this ebook

    Everyone has a history. Many times we believe that we are a product of our past, never to attain the life of purpose and fulfi llment Christ came to give us. In your adventure through the pages of this book, you will be equipped to accept your past, yet also be healed and move forward, learning to walk in the amazing, unique plan God has created you for.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateFeb 8, 2012
    ISBN9781449738082
    Exit the Wilderness: Enter God's Promises
    Author

    Sharon Hürkens

    Sharon Hurkens has been in full-time ministry with her husband for over thirty years. Sharon is an ordained pastor in the Church of the Nazarene. She is a professional life coach and a success principles coach as well as a retreat speaker. During Sharon’s years of ministry, she has seen that Christians need to be equipped to live the life of fulfillment that God created for them, yet the enemy of their souls, Satan, tries to keep them from moving forward in that plan. During Sharon’s early teen years, she encountered the demonic in a very real sense and through this encounter learned how to turn to God for His help in receiving the victory and freedom. From a small- town girl, insecure, afraid of her own shadow, God called Sharon to step out in faith, following Him wherever He would lead her. He took Sharon out from her secure surroundings, leaving everyone she knew and loved behind, to follow God’s call on both her and her husband’s lives. Sharon wants to share the awesome faithfulness of God despite the darkest situations people may find themselves in. She has often felt alone and abandoned, only to be rescued by God Himself. Since December 1989, Sharon and her husband have lived in East Rockaway, Long Island, New York. God called Sharon to ministry helping people move forward in their spiritual life. She believes that God has an amazing plan for their lives. Their past hurts and experiences can be used to help others realize who they are in Christ.

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      Book preview

      Exit the Wilderness - Sharon Hürkens

      Copyright © 2012 by Sharon Hürkens.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

      WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      WestBow Press

      A Division of Thomas Nelson

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.westbowpress.com

      1-(866) 928-1240

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4497-3807-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4497-3806-8 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4497-3808-2 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012901012

      Printed in the United States of America

      WestBow Press rev. date: 01/26/2012

      Contents

      Chapter One

      TRAGEDY HAS A BEGINNING

      Chapter Two

      HELD CAPTIVE, ONLY HURTS!

      Chapter Three

      LEAVING EGYPT

      Chapter Four

      AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

      Chapter Five

      THE EMOTION IN THE CALL

      Chapter Six

      THE GREAT ESCAPE

      Chapter Seven

      STUCK IN THE WILDERNESS

      Chapter Eight

      SETTING OUR SIGHTS ON THE PROMISED LAND

      Chapter Nine

      THE END OF THE WILDERNESS

      Chapter Ten

      GOD’S IMPRINT ON OUR LIVES

      This book is written to encourage all who read it to strive for the sense of peace that surpasses all understanding, which only God can give us.

      I want to thank God first and foremost for laying this material on my heart.

      Thanks to my mentor, Sandra Byrd, who encouraged me to finish what I started.

      Thanks to my husband, Stephan, for his patience and encouragement to finish what I started.

      Chapter One

      TRAGEDY HAS A BEGINNING

      It’s a boy!

      It’s a girl!

      Tears stream down the faces of those witnessing the birth of the gift of life. Faces break out in smiles, and laughter bubbles out of everyone’s mouth. The pain of childbirth is already forgotten, and the joy of holding life in your arms is all you want to remember.

      God has a script for the life of every child.

      Then…

      As the journey of life begins, changes in the script occur. Tragedy and trauma are experienced in young lives and innocence is marred through certain circumstances. The enemy of souls, Satan, has rewritten the dreams of people’s lives.

      We cannot, however, place all the blame on Satan when it comes to scars left on our lives. There are choices you make that have painful consequences and for which only you are to blame.

      Satan always tries to destroy whatever plan God has for you and your child. He cunningly and viciously attacks through his deception as he whispers lies and falsities.

      Your life and soul are what he is really after. Remember that he is God’s enemy and is constantly at war with God and God’s people. Satan devises methods to ultimately destroy you, whereas God’s plan for your life is one of hope and meaningful purpose.

      The moment you are born, the enemy of your soul starts unleashing his evil on your life. At the same time, God unleashes His divine plan for your life. You need to make choices regarding whose plan you are going follow.

      Sometimes the enemy’s evil plans seem to succeed for a moment, but God is always there wanting to redirect your life, to fulfill His plan for you.

      Difficult situations do occur in life; some are beyond our control and make us feel helpless and hopeless.

      God is always there trying to get His message of hope to you. This is what He says to you.

      "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

      before you were born I set you apart." Jer. 1:5

      Our personality and the inner structure of who we are and how we function are formed by our history. We cannot deny that our past experiences are a platform on which our personality, abilities, and direction in life have been formed. God gives us breath, but circumstances, culture, traditions, and worldviews mold us into the vessels we are today.

      Those of us fortunate enough to be alive have not only experienced pain and fear, but there are several other negative influences that impact our present outlook on life as well as our ability to exercise a certain level of faith. These can cripple us either physically or emotionally. Our personal history makes us live out our testimonies for better or for worse.

      Jesus came to earth so that we may have life and have it to the fullest. Satan, on the other hand, known as the thief and liar, steals away whatever he can so that God’s plan for us is thwarted (John 10:10).

      Once we accept Christ as our personal Savior, His Spirit dwells in us, giving us the ability and inner strength to refuse the thief and take hold of what God has planned for us.

      I have worked in ministry with my husband for over thirty years, seeing firsthand how Christ’s followers live way below the level of fulfillment Christ came to give them. Many followers limp along, scarred and believing the enemy’s lie that our worth is in what we can see rather than what Christ came to give us.

      Looking at the diverse difficulties and circumstances we face throughout our lives, we often get the impression that we are on our own. We believe the enemy’s lie that there is no plan for our life other than what we make of it.

      Through the pages of this book, you will get the chance to identify the portions of your past that have become blockages and, with God’s amazing work, remove them from your life. Then, looking back, you will realize that God alone has brought healing and transformation to your life even in the midst of your worst trial.

      This helps us understand how He brought us to each point in our life. Several experiences cause us to think that our life is damaged to the point of not being able to receive healing. This is just another lie from Satan hoping to keep you living in defeat and in the past. Healing can and does take place. We will be able to see the thread of God’s hand throughout our life,guiding, protecting, and delivering us time and time again. This can give everyone hope for the future.

      Whenever I felt my spirit sinking with discouragement, my mind would play over and over again a recording of God’s truth as written in His Word.

      God is faithful (1 Cor. 1:9, 10:13).

      He will never leave nor forsake you (Deut. 31:6, 8).

      He has a plan and a purpose for your life (Jer. 29:11).

      Have you ever arranged dominoes, standing them upright and then, when you tipped over the first domino, it just pushed the others down until there were none left standing? Life seems to be just like this. Once a negative incident starts to impact your world, then one after the other, incidents line up and your world is shattered, giving you a sense of being part of the domino effect.

      During dark times we never seem to look back over our life at the wonderful blessings and victories we have experienced. Instead we focus on our failures and why we will never achieve the goals set out for us by God. It could also be that once a negative event occurs, we begin to look for the negatives in our life rather than the positives. Perhaps we have a hand in shaping how we view difficult events.

      Have you ever felt that you are at your wits’ end? That you have hit a brick wall or your life is just ebbing away? Yet, deep within, you do not really want life to end, just the situations in it to change?

      In 1992, I found myself contemplating suicide. My situation was so bleak that I gave in to the enemy’s lie that what I was experiencing was the end of my world. Once again, God stepped in.

      I picked up my Bible to try to get some perspective from God. The Bible fell out of my hands, and when I picked it up, it opened to Psalm 139. Even though I had read this psalm before, this time it gave me the hope I so desperately needed. This is one of the many reasons I know that the Bible is the living word of God. A Scripture can be read one day without impact, yet on another occasion, that very same Scripture hits you between the eyes, lifting you out of the deepest pit and enabling you to rise above your circumstances.

      Psalm 139

      O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

      You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

      You discern my going out and my lying down;

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