When the Enemy Knocks

When the Enemy Knocks

I enjoyed this gentleman's post for a variety of reasons.

First of all, it is written with an honesty that I often aspire to, but rarely duplicate in this blog. I often worry that my postings won't be profound enough, or that they'll be horribly boring if I spend too much time on my everyday challenges and concerns.

Secondly, he is becoming a priest. I'm still in awe that people have the calling at such a young age. The thought of me even considering the Priesthood in my 20's would have been laughable to say the least.

Finally, his description of spiritual warfare is right on. Satan piles up as many cumulative little things when you're tired. He prays on exhaustion and worry. He tries to convince you that you're not good enough, that you are incapable of being successful. That you in fact don't reflect God's glory...perhaps even that there is no God.

Enjoy, Thought I'd share. Much Love.

Battling Worry

I am amazed, when I really consider it, how God provides for me EVERY day. My job keeps me very busy and is often filled with unexpected turns of events and challenges. There are some nights I don't sleep well for worrying about what tomorrow will bring. I do this despite scripture's warning that it is a serious waste of energy. And at the end of every day, here I am perfectly OK. I need to get in the Word more and stay there!

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Matt 6:25

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life ? Matt 6:27

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matt 6:34

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:6

But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. Luke 21:14

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Phil 4:6

Satan is a robber and a lier. He weighs on your conscience and tells you that you're not good enough. He wants to deprive you of your life giving sleep, so that your performance in the waking hours is as close to you're nightly worries as possible. Whenever your plagued by self doubt and worry, you can be sure that those whisperings are not born of your relationship with the father.

Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Mark 4:15

Lord, let me be a fertile field where the seed of your word is planted and grown. Let me embrace and nurture your loving assurance, that in you there is goodness and protection. Let me rest well knowing that  I can put my trust in you. 

Amen.

Gearing Up for Another Long Week

One thing I'm starting to slide on is my commitment to prayer. It's amazing how 'real life' will interrupt your prayer attempts. Honestly, I've never been this busy in my life. Hosting the Keller study, Working 60 hours a week, volunteering in other ways at church, Singing in the group at church...being a loving and attentive father and husband...etc. Wow. Now is the time that I really need to be in prayer. But there just doesnt always seem to be time.

When I'm not in the Word, and I'm not in prayer...I become very distracted. I get overwhelmed by stress and worry. Christ tells me not to worry. But how can I rest assuredly in Christ when I'm not living in Christ?

I'm off to pray.

Much Love.

Sunday-Day of rest?

Today has been incredibly frustrating. I couldn't sleep last night at all. I wasn't dealing with any particular anxiety concern...I blame it mostly on a dinner of coke and junior mints. We had family movie night last night. I took the wife and kid to see the new Narnia movie.

So I was up very late, probably fell asleep at about 2am. Then the wife, being th gem that she is...(I'm incredibly blessed to have that woman in my life)..allowed me to sleep in until 830. Church starts at 10am. I muddled around a bit and finally was ready to go at 9:40. Perfect timing.

Then I couldnt find the car keys. Anywhere. I have to admit, I lost my cool a bit. I wasn't the prefect model of Christian temperance and patience. I started blaming everyone around me for why they had disappeared. Everywhere I looked that was a pile of something. This drives me nuts. Piles of magazines, bills, papers, food, trash etc. When I do set something down somewhere, it can get sucked in to a black hole of piles. Why is it so hard to throw things away? So mostly it was my wife's fault for the lost keys. Had I been able to see a counter or table top, I probably would have been able to find the keys that I had placed somewhere I shouldn't have placed them.

Then it became my son's fault, because he had probably run off with them or stashed them in an insane place in the disaster area of a room he keeps back there. So for over an hour, I fumed around looking in impossible places, digging through a disgusting bag of garbage, and generally cursed my lot in life. I began to wonder how I was going to make it to work the next day. To top it off, I'm driving a rental car because my car is in the shop. (I forgot to put on the parking brake and it rolled through two neighbors yards into a copse of trees. I like to say the word copse.) So then I started thinking..if I've lost the rental keys I'm really in trouble. We have a single car driveway, and I had blocked my wife's car in with the keyless rental car.

Things were starting to look bleak.

Then I found them. Someone had put a loaf of bread on top of them right next to the sink.

OK...I calmed down...I moved on with life, I finished cleaning the house since I had started to organize our lives whilst going room to room trying to find the keys. Thankfully, my son had been an angel all morning and pretended he was a ninja outside in the yard.

So I rolled to work. I had some catching up to do. I wasn't meeting any clients so i dressed like a thug from Baltimore. Deep down, thats what I am. A street smart white kid from B-more. I wore some urban jeans and put on a hoodie. I had to close a deal, but all that was getting done over the phone. I rolled through the back door at the office and set the alarm off. No big deal...I just needed to click the remote switch I keep on my car keychain. I looked down at the rental keychain I had in my hand. The alarm kept going. The 30 second mark hit and the place went nuts. In about 3 minutes the police had arrived, hands on glocks, and I was dressed like I just broke into the place.

The day just kept getting better.

Well, I'll spare you the details, but it took showing the cops the pic of me and the wife I had sitting on my desk to calm them down. Now I'm home and I want to make two points from this story. The first one is this. I went from happy to victim mode in all of one second today. I was so mad at the world for making me miss church, when in reality, I'm the only person responsible for not putting me keys on the table by the door. I had just read recently, that one of the greatest obstacles to holiness is discouragement, and an exaggerated sense of anxiety. Man did I go there fast today. I need to do better.

My second point is this. I don't know who is making these CS Lewis movies, but I'm so happy and pleased to watch a Christian theme on the big screen. In fact, every time I sit through one of those flicks I tear up. It's very emotional to me to watch Lewis' work come to life in a way thatI think he'd be proud of. You know, I read those books as a kid, and even made believe that I was in Narnia etc. but I never understood the depth of the Christian theology at work in those stories. As an adult, it blows my mind. For example, Edmund and Lucy are told that they have ourgrown their time in Narnia, (which always made me sad as a kid when I read those books), so Aslan comforts them saying: "In your world, I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." That's the kind of stuff that makes me cry a bit in a kids movie. Because someone in Hollywood was brave enough to put that in there. It was nice. But I drank too much soda.

For a great article on Christian references in The Dawn Treader, check this out:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Narnia_Voyage-Dawn-Treader.html

Spring is here?

I walked out of court today and the weather was almost warm for the first time in months. It made me harken back to the days as a child when I would play outside for hours and hours. There's something about childhood that makes it possible to be filled with Joy at the little things...so often. It seems harder to come by as an adult. I think kids live nearer to the intersection of Heaven and Earth because of their lack of worry. It's easier for them to be filled with God's joyfulness.

"Pan, who and what art thou?" he [Hook] cried huskily. -"I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg."

Peter Pan is the image of youthful joy...but so often that Joy gets lost as we age? I wonder why that happens? It seems our ability to get lost in our imagination diminishes with time. Once that is lost, life becomes drudgery and toil...filled with worry.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?’” (Luke 12:22-26, NIV).

"Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. (Luke 18:15-17)

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:1-5)

Lord, I pray that over the next couple weeks, as I deal with my own personal challenge of boarding airplanes...not to mention all of the regular challenges that come with balancing work and family...Lord I pray that you continually harken me back to the days of my youth, when I felt your nearness everyday...and I reveled in the Joy of knowing you.

Much Love

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