Sometimes when we walk with Jesus and desire desperately to follow His will, God will give us specific instructions to follow.
God sometimes leads us to walk down a certain path and we don't even know why we are walking it because we cannot see the future {nor does He want us to!}.
But when you are seeking God and actively trying to follow His will, the evil one, Satan, will almost certainly come against you. Satan is God's enemy- a living fallen angel who seeks to destroy those who belong to God:
1 Peter 5:8
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The devil is a very real enemy of the Christian, and in my life he comes against me the hardest when I am trying to follow God's will. It says that the devil throws fiery darts at the Christian, and in my experience that is a very good description of what he has thrown against me.
When I was seeking to follow a specific direction of the Lord after much prayer, Satan came against me with the first of many fiery darts:
Fear.
I felt God had given me a specific path in the way that He always does, and after I acted on it, I was hit with fear. It was this deep fear that I was not following what God wanted me to do- that somehow I had made a mistake and that I was wrong about the whole thing. I slowly went from peace and excitement to see what God was going to do, to this unreasonable worry that I had made the wrong decision.
This was a paralyzing fear that made me want to turn and run from the path before me. It started small and grew and grew, and it drove me to the floor praying even harder that God would show me the answer- that He would do whatever He wanted with me. I cried, and cried, and prayed for direction, and He gave me an answer:
This fear was not from Him.
He showed me that fear is a mighty tool of Satan. The devil wants Christians who are trying to seek God to fear that they are doing something wrong.
Keeping Christians in their comfort zone is a very good thing, and fear of doing something wrong paralyzes so much that it drives many right back home to where they started. {Especially people like me who like having rules and directions to follow so they can do a good job...}
That was where I wanted to go when I felt this fear- back to what I knew.
But God was gracious and brought comfort and peace to my heart as He showed me that Satan wants me to fear to keep me from doing what I was supposed to do, and:
if God didn't want me to do this, Satan would be leaving me alone and even encouraging me to walk in disobedience, not trying to keep me from doing it.
Satan was trying to keep me from doing what I needed to do with fear. God promised that fear was not from Him:
1 Timothy 1:7:
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And God was so good to remind me of this:
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I was wrestling against the enemy- and he was sending me some flaming fiery darts. I needed a shield of faith for the battle- and God was so good to show it to me and give me faith to keep going, and he armed me with the truth of His word so that I could keep going forward.
Fear was not from Him- because:
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Prayer is the most amazing thing- God comforts me when I seek Him in the most amazing way. He is so good to me, to love me so much to show me the way to go- and to guide me when I feel lost and alone and afraid.
Seeking Him casts out the fear- because we know that God is love, and we trust that He will show us the right path to follow.
He is the God of the universe, and He cares so deeply for His own. It's incredible how much He loves His children. He doesn't want us to be confused or lost- He is our Rock, and a light to our path.
Faith in Him extinguishes fear. Fear cannot be from Him. He is our Father, to whom we can cry out as His children:
If you have fear today, run to Him. Pray, and tell Him your deepest fears- He knows them all. He won't turn you aside when you seek Him with all your heart. If you don't get an answer, keep seeking, keep crying out to Him- He will answer you in His time.
Email me, I would love to pray for you as well! We are not alone in this battle! Oh, praise God for His goodness! :D He is so merciful to us- to deliver us from fear. He promises us, sweet friends!
Psalm 34:4
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