And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. Luke 9:23

Jesus did not promise us a life free of trials. Just as all men are sinners, all men will encounter trials. It is a misconception that if you act “good” God will reward you in the form of blessings and abundance. God does bless us but He does not promise us a life free of trial. We know we live in a fallen world and that there is an enemy who stands against us. Satan uses temptation to cause us to stumble with the ultimate goal of leading us away from God and His plan for our lives.

Without God we will fall into temptation; with God temptation is a trial we can triumph over.

With this in mind, the first thing to realize is that not only are we fighting our own sin nature but satan is using it against us and he is bent on our destruction. We can be victims or victors. Christ tells us to “take up our cross…” and to expect persecution, tribulation, and suffering. Through this process we are refined and made stronger. The enemy will attack using our own weakness against us, tempting us when we are most vulnerable. Under these pressures we may be tempted to abandon God’s ways as they require strength and perseverance on our part: strength to do the thing that we feel too weak to do, and perseverance to endure the thing that is most difficult to endure. How can we stand strong?

There are many ways we can fall into sin. It may look like drinking too much when our bodies and minds are tempted to use it as an escape. This imagined relief is a lie. It may look like taking comfort in another’s attention when your spouse is treating you poorly or neglecting you. This imagined love is a lie. It may look like taking something that does not belong to you. This imagined prosperity is a lie. It may look like leading a group of people and being convicted everyone needs to know you are the reason it is successful. This imagined superiority is a lie. You can recognize temptation by the principal that satan seeks to give us a good thing in a bad way. The bottle of wine is a good thing, consuming more than we should is a bad thing. Love and intimacy is a good thing, seeking it outside of your marriage is not. Having needs is good, stealing to meet them is not. Being a leader and enjoying success is good, craving recognition and credit for the things you’ve done is not.

“…He (the Devil) has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies” John 8:44

A good liar makes the lie believable to the one hearing it. What may make sense to us when we are tired, hungry, angry, or lonely, is clouded by the condition we are in. We seek to meet our need in something other than God.   The truth we need to be constantly aware of is that ONLY GOD can truly meet our needs; all other attempts to do so will always and ultimately meet with devastating consequences and total disappointment. Like dominos lined up perfectly in a row, satan knows he only needs to knock the first one down to begin a chain of destruction.

The lie is the catalyst. Satan and our sin nature both whisper lies; “you should have what you want, you deserve better, why should you wait, other people do worse things…”, and on and on. This is the road to denial and temptation. The best way to fight off an attack is to first, know your enemy, and second, expect him to be true to his nature. Whether or not we want to do battle, we are in a battle so we either fight or surrender. Satan will try to get us to believe the lie, cover the lie, and then lose hope of ever leaving the lie. He wants us to believe we are the bad choices we have made. More lies.

“…I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me–and I in him–bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing” (John 15:1, 5) 

 The truth is we are who God says we are; God gave us  the truth  (His holy word- The Bible), Christ IS the way  the truth and the  light (John 14:6). God speaks life to  us: trust in me, you are  more than conquerors, I will  never leave you or forsake you, you  can overcome, I  will forgive you, redeem you, and deliver you  from evil.  The good in us is God. If you believe in Christ, you  have the Holy Spirit in you to guide you and give you  strength.  It cannot resist temptation for us. We must  make our own choices.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1  

Think of your sins as dominoes set to fall one by one, each piece numbered and marked; pride, envy, greed, gluttony, sloth, lust, wrath. Satan comes like a thief in the night but we need not fear. As the tenacious Sherlock Homes would say; “the game is afoot!”.   The devil has set the stage and put the pieces in place. We know what happens if the first domino falls, if we do not stop them, in the end there will only be destruction. Be prepared.

I give you the three “R’s to help you stay on the path of righteousness and defeat the devil; Resist the temptation, Remain in God’s word, Remember who you are. You are a child of the almighty God!

Help me God to see the sin in my life for what it is. Give me the strength to persevere when things seem too difficult to bear or push through. Let me be ever faithful and obedient to your word and call on your name alone when I am weak. Thank you Father that WHEN I am weak, YOU are strong. When I am tempted, Lord, deliver me from evil and remind me who I am. Show me the path you would have me walk, oh Lord, that I may set my feet upon it, in the name of Jesus I pray, amen.

When I was a child my father gave me a set of dominos. Not knowing the rules of the game or how to play I would make up my own version and imagined it was not far from the truth. I quickly grew tired of arranging them by the dots and began to try to build something with them. I noticed that if you stood them in a row, and tipped the first one, they would knock each other over one by one. I would set up row after row, tip the first domino and watch the rest helplessly fall in turn. We did not have the internet or “youtube” in the “good ‘ol days” and I had never seen it played before. I was fascinated. Black dots on shiny ivory, one through six, seemingly endless combinations and patterns to create. They fell and I re-set them, only to watch them fall again and again.

As I grew, choices and consequence fell before my eyes like unstoppable dominos. I knew actions had consequences but despite this, throughout my early years I would make several very bad choices that I would have to live with for the rest of my life, choices that haunted and tormented me. I wanted to be “good” and to make good choices but no matter how hard I tried, I could not live a perfect life, void of bad choices; One day, in desperation, I cried out to God and asked him to save me from myself; “Why God, if I am good, did I do that? Please help me to be good!” My heart was ready to listen to what God had for me. I turned to my Bible and prayer for answers.

“For I know that good itself does not dwell … in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” Romans 7:17-19

We are all sinners; “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23  Not only this, but there is an enemy, the enemy of God, who desires our destruction. When Eve believed the serpent’s lie in the Garden of Eden and ate of the forbidden fruit, we were forever marked by sin and separated from our loving God. God had given us every good thing we needed and more but the serpent convinced Eve that it was not enough. God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden for their disobedience. Because of this man was separated from God by his sin. Are we doomed then to forever make bad choices and live with the consequence, always asking God for forgiveness?

Not if we believe the Gospel. Hope came to earth in the body of Christ. He paid the price for our sins and offered us salvation. He died, was buried, rose again and is now seated at the right hand of God. (1 Corinthians 15). Through His sacrifice we are redeemed and reconciled to our loving God if we surrender our lives to Him. Though we are saved by faith, until Christ returns, sin is part of our daily lives. It is our nature. I do not want to yell at my children, crave more money, or tear down those I should love with self-righteous judgment and criticism, or worse. So how can we contain our sinful natures? Everything we need to know is in the Bible; God’s word is complete.

“Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground….” Ephesians 6:11-13, NIV 

 As believers in Christ, we are to take up the full armor of God  (The Belt of Truth, The Breastplate of Righteousness, The  Shoes of Peace and Preparation, The Shield of Faith, The  Helmet of Salvation, The Sword of the Spirit, Prayer). I have  known that since the early days of becoming a Christian. For  those growing up in the church it is one of the first lessons  taught in Sunday school. As believers in Christ, we are  soldiers in God’s army and yet we can become frustrated, angry, and full of doubt. I have learned through trial and tribulation that those are exactly the moments when the enemy is waging his war in our hearts and minds, to keep us down and defeated. It is critical to know your enemy before you go into battle. We must PREPARE ourselves to fight!

Lord give me strength and conviction to fight for you.  Let my actions and my words honor you. Let me be salt and light.  When I am weary, renew my mind and soul, remind me who you are.  I commit my life to you, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

We are all on a path. As Christians our desire is to seek God’s will in our lives so that we can be on the path He desires for us. We pray and ask God for guidance. We read the Bible, the Word of God, for instruction and confirmation of our choices. We seek the counsel of believers who have more knowledge, wisdom, and experience than ourselves. When all three of these are working together (prayer, the Word, wise counsel), we have the best possible chance to find the path that leads us to God’s will. Have you ever felt that you are trying your best to follow this formula but something keeps going wrong? Do you know someone who can not stay on God’s path, or any path for that matter? How do believers find themselves lost, alone, and confused far from able to navigate life God’s way? The answer may be right before your eyes, hidden in plain sight.

Human nature is one of the elements that is constantly threatening to interfere with our progress. Perhaps the greatest danger on the road to our destiny is the very will God has given us which allows us to make choices in the first place. Our pride and natural reactions often mislead us into thinking we know what to do next, or convince us that we know more than we do.

Imagine walking down a beautifully paved walkway clearly marked and outlined. Rimming the edge there are beautiful flowers and shrubs placed perfectly in complement to the winding stone path you are confidently walking. In the distance you can see the horizon, like a promise, hovering above a sea of shimmering possibilities. You take comfort in the appearance and design of the surrounding landscape, it appeals to your senses visually and instinctively. In our minds, there is an order to how things should look, sound, smell, taste, and feel. Our instincts tell us that we should walk only on the paved road and follow it to the beautiful conclusion we can see before us. The danger here is that in trusting our senses or our instincts, we fail to recognize that God’s order is not our order and that His way is not our way. When God would have us leave the path and trample through the manicured plantings, we freeze. “That can not be right”, we think. Our mind begins its biological and cognitive duties to keep us safe and unharmed. It urges us to choose the “safe” logical direction. It looks for patterns and predicts the outcome. Past experience provides data on positive and negative triggers that are potential warning signs. Sorting this information often takes place subconsciously and without our awareness.

Most of us are programmed in ways we rarely acknowledge. When we have seen what we imagined to be our goal and have longed for it, we resist God’s urging in the opposite directions. The mind is powerful. It can be convincing, compelling, insistent, and sadly, completely off-track. Our feelings work in concert with our mind, as they are chemically connected, and further confuses our ability to make a decision in the moment. But decide we must and knowing how to navigate the urgings of the body, mind, and soul will help us to follow God and avoid the slippery slope of self-reliance.

Recently I had the privilege of attending a study by Max Lucado entitled “You Will Get Through This.” In it, Max Lucado beautifully illustrates the clarity that comes with simply obeying God. He tells us to ask ourselves, before we make any decisions, if our choice will be pleasing to God. If the answer is ‘yes’ then we can have peace that our decision will not have damaging results. This, of course, assumes that we know God and what His word says. If you do not, the good news is the Bible is waiting with the wisdom of the Lord and thanks to the modern conveniences of Apps and the internet, we are just a “search” away from truth. Along with this, God desires for us to be in fellowship with other believers so that we can counsel and support each other. If you make these things your first line of action when making decisions, you are far less likely to fall victim to your own emotions, urges, and short-term wishes. Max cautions us all “not to trade a moments carnality for a life’s legacy“. Ask yourself what you want your legacy to be so that when temptation comes you can be very clear what you are giving up if you decide to give in.

When we let go of what the world says is valuable and cling to what God says has value, we open the door to blessings far better than any perfectly manicured path we could have conceived on our own. The paths we construct for ourselves tend to be marked by our goals and dreams, our desires and wishes.  God’s path ends in eternity, it produces perseverance and strength. You may have to struggle over thorny ground, endure a darkened pit, or trample across rocky terrain, but be of good courage, God will be with you and you will become who He intended you to be as a result of the journey and your willingness to trust and obey your Holy Father.

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”John 16:33

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Matthew 6:24

 Dear God, I surrender my life to you. Help me to obey and rejoice in your ways. Let me be a blessing to others and help me to accept the blessings you send to me. Give me a heart of gratitude and eyes to see what you see. I will not desire any earthly thing more than I desire to know and love you Lord. Help me to be committed to this path, give me strength to resist temptations and courage to stand for what is right in your eyes. In Jesus’ name, amen.

I think I was 9 or 10 the first time I read my King James Bible. It had been my dad’s and he gave it to me, or maybe I asked him for it, that part I can’t remember. I do remember it had barely been touched. The pages were crisp and unworn. The black leather cover was smooth and shiny. As I write this, I realize what that implies. It never occurred to me until now, but I think it is safe to deduce that he never read it. What is amazing to me is that it saved my life and looking back I am totally convicted that it could have saved his life as well, but that is another story. There are many testimonies from Christians who say, “the Bible saved my life”. It’s more than just a cliché’ or turn of phrase. From the first time I opened that Bible to the place God has led me to today, my life has been a testimony of the truth of God’s word. His word is truly living and powerful and it changes us in ways we could never imagine…

The spiritual warfare in my house growing up was overwhelming. I knew as a child the difference between good and evil. I could feel it, the presence of light and darkness. I had dreams that left a lingering terror with me even after I managed to wake myself up, as if the evil were still in the room with me. I had been to church enough to know that the name of Jesus had power; we prayed in His name, and we sang about who He was in Sunday school; “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…” When I had these dreams where I could feel the presence of evil, I would pray to Jesus to save me. Sometimes I would declare my faith, “I belong to Jesus”. In the dreams I could feel the hatred the evil felt at these words; it was a menacing, threatening, totally frightening presence and yet I knew if I could fight back with the only weapon I had (Jesus) the evil could frighten me but never harm me in any real way. How did I know this?

My family was not like the Christian families of the Greg Laurie and Beth Moore generation. We did not talk about God. We said grace, a few recited the Lord’s Prayer, and sometimes my mom or grandmother said prayers at bedtime. We went to church at Christmas and Easter and a few days in between. I never thought much about this or what it meant. I only know now, looking back, that God was with me all the time despite my spotty attendance in church or lack of instruction. I was aware of His constant presence.

The more time I’ve spent in God’s word the more I am convicted of the truth that God chooses us as He chose Joseph in the book of Genesis. He chose us, each one. It did not matter that I did not go to church every Sunday, or that I was not in a youth group, or that I did not go on mission’s trips, or experience service projects. That was not my path.   But my walk with God as a child was no less miraculous, awe inspiring, or legitimate than the young believers who did have that type of experience.

During the height of these dreams I came home one day at age 12 to find out that a 10 year old girl who I loved deeply had tried to commit suicide. She was part of my family and I felt responsible for her. I pictured her in my mind; her hair was cut to her shoulders with straight bangs, her eyes were sky blue and her skin was perfect, complete with rosy cheeks and a small innocent smile. She was only just beginning to lose that little girl look. “She slit her wrists”, they said. No one knew why. It was a miracle she did not succeed. Someone found her and stopped her.  I don’t know who it was.

I was devastated and for many reasons that day, at the moment I found out, I was struck with the absolute certainty that I could not go on. That I could not go on with the life I was living; good little girl in the midst of chaos, getting good grades, setting a good example, trying to make everything ok for everyone else…I was not contemplating hurting myself but on a deep level I knew I was about to change, forever. I could not experience this and remain the same and what I sensed happening was a shift in my soul, a loss of faith, a change in character. I felt the anger and shock like a poison slipping down the back of my throat, quickly threatening to consume every part of me. I was in a pit, instantly thrown into darkness. I prayed to God and told Him that I could not believe He was real if He could let this happen. I asked God how He could allow this. I told Him I could not love a God who would let a little girl want to kill herself. I prayed in a way I had never prayed before. I pleaded with God to save me if He was there because I knew that I was about to lose Him, and with Him all hope.

Just as suddenly as I had fallen into despair and doubt, I felt something fill me; it was like having boundless joy poured into my body. (I realize that this will be hard for many to believe. I also know that there are times when we cry out and get no answer. I don’t know why I was blessed with this experience only God knows that, but if we believe that God is who He says He is, then maybe this is not that hard to believe after all). I suddenly had an awareness that I was in the presence of God. There really are no words to describe this “joy” as I am calling it but beyond this I knew that it was Jesus. Like a blind woman feeling the face of her beloved child, I had instant recognition that this “joy” that filled me was Christ. He spoke into my soul and told me everything was going to be ok; not just this horrible truth I was facing, not just my life, this child’s life, but everything, and not just right then, but for eternity. It was a feeling/message that I, given my limited understanding of God at that time, would never have conceived.

 

In the moment the feeling was so great, I had to get up and run because my body could hardly contain it. I was like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music on the mountain top, face thrust toward heaven, arms thrown wide, spinning and smiling with elation. It made no sense! To go from lying on the floor weeping under the weight of a pain that was all consuming, to that, is not physiologically possible in my experience. I have never again experienced anything like it and I have had moments of equal pain and sorrow in my life since then. I believe this is because when God speaks truth to us it becomes part of us. I will have that moment always. The message God gave me that day was not just for me. It was for everyone who believes in Him. Later I would read it in His word; “We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end.” Hebrews 6:11 The full assurance of hope until the end.

I am happy to share that the child that tried to kill herself would grow up and become a Born Again Christian 10 years later and walk with God for the next 30 years. Sadly, the story does not always end that way.  This blog is dedicated to sharing what God has shown me over the past 35 years through the Bible, the people He has put in my life, and through my own trials, pits, and victories. I pray that my stories will bring hope and truth to others who long for the peace and joy that only comes from the one true God, and the living word He has left for us. Did God really tell a 12 year old that “everything would be ok”? Yes, he did, the Bible tells us so…

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:2

“Thank you God that you are close to the innocent, that your Holy Spirit comforts them and protects them in times of trouble. I pray that every man, woman, and child that has lost hope and thinks dying is the only way will be saved from the dark thoughts that burden their hearts and minds. Give them hope and open their eyes to see You Lord and not the ugliness that threatens to destroy them. I pray for the families affected by suicide, intercede where it is possible and give hope to their loved ones left behind, do not let them be crushed under the pain of their loss and devastation, give them peace. Have mercy on the souls of the lost Lord for we know that you are good and that it is your desire that none should perish. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”