Battle Season
Friend, are you in a battle in this season of your life?
Perhaps you are walking through something that is very difficult and totally outside of your control.
Perhaps you feel fear and discouragement pressing in on you and you just feel totally overwhelmed.
Maybe it feels like you have been fighting one thing or another for as long as you can remember. Sometimes it takes everything you have just to barely hang on.
I’ve been in that place. I’ve been in the place where I felt the tension of it all through my entire body and actually ended up in the ER due to heart issues from the physical effects of trying to fight my battles in my own strength.
Have you spent nights awake with your mind racing, totally unable to sleep and stressing about how bad you were going to feel the next day?
Have you wracked your brain trying to think through every angle of a difficult decision?
I’ve been there. I’ve been in a place where all of the worries and cares of this life completely robbed me of all joy and peace.
A Spiritual Attack
If this is you my friend, then you are under spiritual attack and need to recognize it for what it is. Only God can save us during these attacks. He is our source for every need! Our trials will illuminate areas of your life that God wants you to surrender to Him.
In this season, God opened my eyes and revealed my lack of trust in Him; I was trusting myself more than Him. Click To TweetHow silly of me right? We all know that God is more powerful than us and far more capable than we are to handle every situation. We know this in our head but somewhere deep within us, perhaps hidden from ourselves even, is a lie we have believed that we can trust ourselves more than God.
That lie can make us feel that others are more important than we are and, therefore, more worthy of God’s time and attention. Withholding our trust from the Lord might sound like this for you: “I should handle everything I can in my own strength and only come to God about what I can’t handle.”
Some of us don’t know when to “waive our white flag” and will worry and work ourselves into the grave.
Reaching the End of Myself
These burdens were never ours to carry to begin with. For me, it took hitting a wall and reaching the end of any knowledge or life experience I had to reach this place. I absolutely got to the end of myself.
I had nothing left to give, and I was failing those I cared most for BIG TIME!
The things I would do in my own strength or through listening to conventional wisdom were pulling me back and forth, wreaking havoc and confusion on our home. I would try to do something only to see that I was making everything worse.
The result – Satan would tear me apart through his accusations.
The Real Battle
Truly, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but we do WAR against the powers of darkness; against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12).
We can not fight spiritual battles in our own strength or knowledge, but must cry out to God daily and ask his Holy Spirit to direct our steps.Click To TweetWe fight these battles on our knees. “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” (Zechariah 4:6)
The enemy of our soul (Satan) wants us to believe we cannot trust God. He wants us to believe we aren’t worthy, that God would answer the prayers of others but not ours, etc.
He wants to point out all of your mistakes of your past and cause you to feel unworthy to come to God, but all we have to do when Satan throws those accusations at us is HUMBLY come before the throne and ask God to forgive us our sins. Then we can put our petition before God.
As I was in prayer and praise before my Father last week, He gave me a Psalm. It literally flowed forth in the amount of time it takes to sing it. I pray it will comfort you and help you trust Him in a way perhaps that you have never been able to trust Him before.
As you surrender to Him, may your soul find rest and may the lies of the enemy be shattered before the might and power of His Spirit.
[Originally Posted October 26, 2016]
Song of Security and Surrender
Holy is the Lord Almighty
He is worthy to be praised
We live in a fallen world
Where sin and death abound
But you O’ God are merciful
And you love us and want your best for us
But we O’ God are so afraid
So afraid to surrender
Because the enemy of our soul deceives
Deceives us into thinking our way is better
We are like a man drowning in the sea
Fighting with all of our strength as the waves wash over us
And you come to save us
But as a drowning man often does
In our panic we fight and struggle
And we strike out at you
You who desire to hold us above the waves
And you say stop fighting. I’ve got you. I’m here to save you.
Let me pull you to the shore. You don’t have to struggle anymore.
And these waters are washing away the grime
There is safety in surrender
The fight is not yours to fight
Relax and float on the water
If you relax you will float
And I can pull you to the shore
Safe and secure in my arms
Rest in me all you who struggle
And I will lift you up above the waves
And I will carry you to a safe place
When we struggle in the waters
The waters produce resistance
And the resistance wears us out
But the very thing that can wear us out can lift us up
So we must lie back, relax and breathe
Breathe peacefully and let the waters support us in our surrender
And let the waters cleanse us and refresh us
And let the waters hydrate our thirsty souls
And let you O’ God pull us home to safety
You wrap your arms under our arms
And we lay our head back on your shoulder
As you pull us to our safe destination on the shore
Save us O’ God
When we are powerless to save ourselves
Rescue me O’ God
I don’t have to fight and struggle in the water
Not by power or by might but by my Spirit says the Lord
Scriptures for Meditation
This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay are those who gain riches by unjust means. When their lives are half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end they will prove to be fools. A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. Lord, you are the hope of Israel;all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water. Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise. ~ Jeremiah 17:5-12
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. ~ Matthew 18:18
For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” ~ Luke 14:11
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ~ Romans 14:13
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. ~ Ephesians 5:8-13
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ~ Ephesians 5:15
Thank you for these words of encouragement. They served as a reminder to give it ALL to the Father.
Wonderful!
I’m so glad you were encouraged!