Rising Up

I woke up ready for battle this morning.

I could barely make it through my workout, I was already so pumped up I wanted to get going. I feel like I’ve woken up the last few days. Not from a night of sleep, but from this fog, and have become aware of God on the move.

The last week or so I’ve done some battle. As multiple friends have shared some deeply hard places they are in, and I was able to encourage them with the words that I always wish that I could say but don’t, and speak life and truth boldly without apology.  I feel like I just got to the place where I was so sick and tired of Satan stealing my friends’ hope, relationships, energy, passions, and marriages.  I was so sick of it, that I just started talking and saying words that I think but I’m usually to hesitant to say.  It was amazing.

I’ve joined a prayer group. It’s a group of women who are also writers and love Jesus, and feel the battle of getting words of encouragement, truth and love out there and feel the enemy targeting their families, their marriages, their children, and their hearts as they spread the gospel. We aren’t saying anything new. We are just clarifying who the enemy is (and it’s not each other) and reminding people of who they are in Christ over and over again and how he forgives, he heals, and to spread the hope of these truth-battles.

I’m hearing battle stories. I’m participating in battle stories. While I often feared a battle, feeling too weak, or it wasn’t the season, or I’m just too tired, this group is reminding me that we are on the winning side. We are not in a battle of equal forces, where good and evil are hashing it out, and it could go either way. We are in a lopsided battle where good is so much greater than evil, and the name of Jesus holds immense power.  And I’m in the battle, the thick of the battle, like it or not by the very nature of being a mother, having these beautiful children, having friendships, and holding up what is good, beautiful, and true makes me a target of the evil one.  So I’m either going to get kicked around by Satan, or I’m going to stand up and fight.

I was watching my 4 year old the other day, twirl in her pink skirt while singing a song from one of our favorite albums (this one) and the lyrics as she sang was:

You forgave me, all my guilt is gone.  

You forgave me, all my guilt is gone.

You forgave me, all my guilt is gone.

I know it’s out of fashion to have truth in worship choruses repeat like we’re going all Psalm 136 in our worship.  I find that my heart has such amnesia to God’s goodness, that I don’t need to come up with something new and fresh all the time, but I need to repeat the old truths over and over and over again.

He forgive me, and all guilt is gone.  That’s the crux of the gospel.  It’s the truth that changes everything.  I hope my 4 year old will always be singing that to herself, her whole life.  They are words that empower.

I feel the need to repeat to myself something I told a friend of mine recently who is battling for her marriage: “I know the voice that you are hearing. It’s a voice of hopelessness and a voice of fear. I’ve heard that voice myself many times.

I want you to know right now that God’s voice doesn’t sound like that.

That’s not God’s voice. If God is leading you to a divorce, it will sound like: ‘That is my precious daughter, she is under my protection and you will not hurt her heart any longer.’ But that’s not the voice you are hearing right now. You are hearing the voice of hopelessness and fear, so call it what it is: the voice straight from hell. A voice sent to discourage you, disarm you, and push you down. Call it a lie, and listen to the voice of God. Let God speak to you through his Word, and ground your identity in him, so that your husband’s sin cannot shake it. That’s step #1.”

My friends, life is crazy and chaotic. We all have things to do, people to love, and interruptions that drive us crazy. Hopelessness and fear are a lie, and in the midst of today’s chaos, find out where Satan is breathing in hopelessness and fear and shut it down. No one has time for that.  Tell him to get out of your house, in Jesus’ name. He doesn’t get to do that. You belong to someone far greater. Some days the lies that “It’s never going to get better,” or “I’m stuck,” or “Stop doing this before you do some real damage,” (homeschoolers, anyone?) or “You’re failing at this,” or “Did God really say…?”

Satan just has the same ol’ lies on repeat.  Listen to some worship music on repeat instead.  2 Corinthians 10:5 talks about taking captive every thought to obey Christ.  You have the ability, through the power of God, to make your brain dwell on certain things.  This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot, as my brain tends to cycle over past hurts like a broken record that I can’t seem to thought.  I’ve started praying now, whenever that cycle starts.  Sometimes I start saying memory verses, just to force my brain to stop going down the path it’s going down.  I’m learning that this is the battle I’m called to fight.  The battle for truth in my thoughts.

For we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.  For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.  We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.  Look at what is before your eyes.  If anyone is confident that he is Christ’s, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we. (1 Corinthians 10:3-7)

Friends, remember who you belong to, and who is fighting for you, and find some rest from the weary.