True or False [Hope]?

I wrote this on some notepaper almost a week ago, but didn't have time to blog it until now.

I love my husband.

I love our children.

I love the home and life we've made together, that God has blessed us with.

Moments of panic or despair seize me when I see or feel that I've done nothing else with my life, or with my gifts and talents, or with my passions, because of defeat through my own flaws, or defeat through exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed by my responsibilities and then a lack of sufficient time.

What good are my gifts and talents and passions then?

Most mammals can procreate, feed their young, the population has homes to keep. What gifts/talents/passions are needed for that?

Why am I the way I am, if I was not intended to use what I've been given? Better to have been born ordinary than to suffer my gifts to an ordinary (though nice and noble) life.

So I try to carve out a niche, I keep hoping, I try to protect the flame.

The other option, that I can see, is to snuff the flame and see if I can survive as a “Stepford”. I actually tried that for a couple weeks, but God did not bless it.

So the struggle continues and my hope is in God's grace being sufficient for my weakness and for my passion.

My hope is in His goodness. In His plan. And when I am weak, I rage, and the enemy prowls around like a lion, watching for his opportunity to bring me down.

He who hopes, lives; he who's hope is lost, is lost.

As the Church we have a hope. But even then, it is not church, but our relationship with Jesus, our knowing of, and knowing we are known by God, that gives true hope.

False hopes abound and are dashed every day, hearts and lives are lost.

I can only point in the direction of true hope as I find it myself, live it myself.

It is a huge battle to enter into the place where true hope lives, because of the one who knows his defeat is imminent, his power weakened, his authority taken away, when the children of God awaken to who they are in Him.

The nucleus of holiness that contains true hope will burn off us anything of no eternal value. The closer I get, the more I burn, the more I see how much I carry has no eternal value. His love for me is the only thing that keeps me moving forward. Period.

Later this past week I was desperate to hear what God would say, I even woke up at 3am and then got up at 3:30am to spend some alone time with Him, but even at that hour, my toddler decided to have loud conversation, so I went back to bed. Later that morning, as I stumbled toward the coffee-maker for that life giving elixer, He spoke: “Psalm 23:3”. Not being sure of what it said, I looked it up. In 30 seconds He is able to do so much with one. Little. Word.

“He restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness,

For His name's sake.”

He cares about me. He restores my soul. He guides me. And He does it for me for the sake of His Name.

That pretty much clinches it.

I'm good for another, well... oh week, at least. :-)

No, in all seriousness, these things go deep and do their work. I was also blessed that same day from a meeting with one of my pastors. God is good. Period.

Love,

M

A War

Well, bit of a hiatus from writing and since this is an honest blog I will tell you what happened without telling you what happened. Someday I'll tell you both, but right now you will have to choose to either believe my chosen description or not. I feel like writing now, so I am.

Basically I've been in an active spiritual warzone since about mid May. I think, perchance, I stepped on the toes of some evil spirit and it went to town on me. It did so by mercilessly attacking my sleep through multiple means, not just one, but multiple means. It strove to consume every avenue of rest I had at my disposal. The lack of rest and sleep made me weak and provided it with some open doors to delve into my life further. I didn't know what hit me until I was neck deep in it, gasping for air. But Jesus was with me.

I would give you details if I knew you wouldn't be tempted to judge and label me, and who am I to place such vile temptation in your path, so, for now, no details. What I will share, is that while in the battle I felt my future, with my hopes and dreams, disappear. I was afraid at times, but God let me know He was with me and that gave me peace. He told me I was in His hand. I was able to trust Him with my heart, because we have been through a lot together already, and He had proved Himself faithful before.

I shared details with very few: my husband, my mother, my sister, my pastor and 3 others who I felt needed to know. They kept me in prayer. I believe their Holy-Spirit-directed prayers kept my head above water. I walked in, through, and out. And then “it” came upon me again. This time, however, I went straight to the Throne Room in Heaven and put my face at His feet and cried about what I should do. First He ministered His love to me. He spoke to me in songs. Next He opened my eyes. He showed me that I had misplaced my gaze in certain areas and that gave “it” opportunity. He said, “Put all your gaze back onto Me”. So I did.

He showed me some chinks in my armor, loopholes in my spiritual armor, that I didn't realize I helped to create. When there are holes in your armor, whatever the issue is, the power of your prayers in regards to that issue is then limited. Repentance repairs chinks in armor and restores your spiritual authority in Christ in that area. When there are unrepented issues, those areas, your flesh, becomes visible to the enemy, those areas are not hidden in Christ, they are holes in your armor and your enemy is an expert fighter well versed in combat. Basically you're screwed unless you know where to go and know your place. Pride is an Achille's heel the enemy will nurture in you, because he knows willful pride seperates us from God. Get on your face. This is one reason it helps to have others praying for you, because they may have authority where you do not. The chinks in their armor are different from the ones in yours. This is why we need each other. The church is to function as a cohesive body... “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective”. James 5:16 NIV So I repented of the things He showed me.

Repentance repaired my armor and placed God's delegated authority back in my hand. I began to pray in my spiritual language. I began to feel strength returning to my spirit and I stood up, ready, and able, to fight. Fight and win. “It” left and took it's minions with it. Strength and healing returned to my body and soul. What lasted 2 months was finished in under 2 hours.

I will now make a few clarifications, so that folks don't jump to conclusions and/or make jackasses out of themselves:

One: Just because someone is going through a hard time does not mean they sinned and brought it upon themselves. We live on planet earth and stuff happens to us. Sometimes God allows us to walk through hardship so that we learn to access His peace, comfort and strength despite it, this grows us up into strong spiritual warriors. When things are going well we often forget what is important and that can be lethal, our spiritual muscles can atrophy.

Two: Sometimes God allows the enemy to think he has won in an area of our lives, because when the enemy gets overconfident in his dealings with us, God comes in and put's him in his place again and let's us participate (that part is fun). That is also training ground for spiritual warfare.

Three: The reality is we have been born into a spiritual battle between God's Kingdom and satan's. If you live on earth, you are in it, whether you like it, believe it, or not. All humans were created in God's likeness and all have potential to ruin satan's spiritual kingdom. He hates all of us, Christians in particular, because we have been given the keys of authority through the atoning work of Jesus Christ in our lives. Unfortunately many who call themselves Christians don't yet understand how the keys work, the less of a threat you are to satan's kingdom, the less he pays attention to you, however that is because he knows in the end you'll die anyway, and he's fine with that.

Calling yourself a Christian is no guarantee of heaven, knowing Jesus and proving your belief is. This by accepting His ultimate sacrifice to redeem you, by giving Him your life, the rights to your life, Lordship over you. He's the only one who deserves it and He went first (giving His life away), because of love. Jesus asks, the devil takes; Love vs. hate. How much light and dark is in us and where we are in the process of sanctification is proved by the ripening fruit of our thoughts, words, and actions. Fact of spiritual life. And everything is connected to spiritual life.

I think that's enough for today.