I read a great quote today. It said “God has a plan for your life. The Enemy has a plan for your life. Be ready for both. Just be wise enough to know which one to battle and which one to embrace.” What an incredible perspective.
I was talking with a friend last night and she was reiterating that we have never “arrived”. There’s always an area of our life that we can be working on. I remembered learning that we are either growing or decaying. We don’t stay stagnate. That’s pretty intense.
I believe that God’s plan always includes growing. Changing to be more like Jesus. Impacting our world for the good in what ever way we are called. Satan’s plan is always about decay. It’s to twist and turn our lives in to something rotten. Something that will take from us and take from the world. Perhaps even take from those around us. We have to be careful. Sometimes growth can turn backwards if we don’t have our priorities intact.
I find that for me it’s easy to let things creep in. You know something good. Like helping people. I love helping people. I love to see people grow and change. That’s why I teach Grief Recovery. That’s why I want to do weekend workshops and large speaking engagements. I want to impact people. Yet, so many times without even realizing it, that thing that I want to do that seems so good starts to creep ahead of God as a priority. It starts to take stock in my value and my worth instead of the fact that I am a child of God. And there Satan is. The Enemy standing behind the mask of goodness just waiting to steal, kill and destroy. The Bible says that Satan masquerades as an angel of light. He takes what is seemingly good and twists it. Our culture is chock full of that.
Yet, I am always called back by that still small voice. The One that calls my heart to return to my only True Love. He is gentle and kind. He does not condemn and He does not operate through fear and manipulation. He is safe. He calls me to rest in Him. He is beautiful. No matter how far down the path of worth chasing I may go, I always recognize His voice. It is distinct and in it’s quiet subtlety, it is powerful.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve had several nights of torment. Waking up at 4am, heart pounding and unable (and sometimes unwilling) to return to sleep. Last night, my husband woke me because of the dream I was having. He said it sounded demonic. At first, that scared me. I didn’t remember the dream nor my husband waking me up. I only remembered feeling anxious and not being able to fall back asleep. It had been a few days since I had hiked and this morning I returned to get a fresh perspective. Standing on the mountain and looking around I realized just how big God is. I prayed and did a lot of rebuking. After coming down off of that prayer I saw that if demons are coming after me I must be doing something right. Otherwise, why would they bother? I also saw how easy it is to get off track. Outwardly, I’ve been doing so much right, I’ve been sharing my faith, I’ve been in Bible Studies, I’ve been focused on a great goal of furthering Grief Recovery for God, I’ve been helping people, I’ve had countless conversations and countless meetings.
Yet, where was my heart and who was I serving? The moment I put those things ahead of God and allowed them to compete for my worth was the moment I stepped in to the Enemies plan. Right at that moment. No matter how good the action, no matter how good the result it is all for nothing at the cost of my soul. No amount of success, no matter how “good” is worth decay. And ANYTHING can turn in to decay if it is given the wrong status in my life.
I am grateful for that still small voice. I am grateful for His grace, which allows me to fall, to learn and to run back in to His arms knowing that He will catch me. Knowing that He will sustain me. Knowing that He will deliver me. There is no other love like that. It is the love of a perfect Father. And though He gives me tools in which to fight the Enemy, the most powerful weapon is simply His love.
