Pray for me.
Last night was an interesting night. I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, when I began to feel depressed. I felt like I was backed up and behind in my school work, I didn't feel like I knew what I was supposed to be doing, and I felt overwhelmed in my spanish. It was so powerful that my stomach churned and bubbled and loudly announced its presence in my body.
After a period of this going on, I realized that the enemy was doing this, and I was letting him get away with it. So I began to pray, in my mind. Didn't move a muscle, just spoke to the Lord in my thoughts. I rebuked Satan, cast him away from me, and asked the Lord to send a legion of angels to protect me and shelter me underneath his wings. Shortly after I did this, I lay in bed, looking at and listening to the fan, and I realized that I even though the fan was loud in my ears, the world was quiet to my soul. My soul heard the loudest silence that it had ever heard, a silence so loud that I heard it even though the fan was running. I felt a peace so strong, and I don't believe I have ever felt a peace like that before.
Now you may think me crazy, but this is why I titled my title the way that I did. While I was lying in my bed, I heard a voice. A voice speaking to me that was not my own. It came with the fan. It was very dark and evil, and it was laughing at me. And after I prayed, I saw flashes in my eyes that looked light bunches of light descending from on high unto the earth. I knew that that was God's answer to my prayer.
As Christians, I think we don't give Satan enough credit. We ignore his existence.
What penalty is there in prayer and rebuttal of the devil? So what if he's not there? What if we are mistaken? Are we going to be punished because we thought the evil one was there and he wasn't? I think not.
I do not think that I have ever been mistaken in treating everyday normal seeming things as works of the devil or one of his legions. I was eating food on a break with a girl that I work with that suffered from heat exhaustion and had to go the emergency room once. She wasn't feeling well, so in my mind one day I prayed silently, and rebuked the presence of satanic forces around her. Shortly after my prayer, she popped her head up, and finished her cigarette, and seemed to feel much better. Coincidence? Again, I think not.
The Lord loves you. He wants you to succeed. He wants you to do well, be happy in your calling. He wants you to be well rested, well nourished physically and spiritually. He wants you to use your time efficiently so you can serve him and still be able to do your homework. Satan, being the evil force that opposes us, tries to keep us from these things. And by denying his existence we give him victory. That's right, we give him victory. Jesus gave us power over him, but how can we use it if we don't seek its source, and if we don't believe there are ever opportunities to use it? How can we teach others how to live in the freedom of Christ when we ourselves choose to live in bondage to routines, thought processes, habits, and obessions? What keeps you from God? What keeps you from being filled with the Spirit and recieving the blessings that God wants to pour on you? Jesus said blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled. What about those that are already content? They recieve nothing. God wants to give us gifts, but we have to open the door and sign for them, otherwise they will pile up behind the door. And even though God's gifts are free, they sometimes require sacrifice in order to use them. With everything comes a tradeoff. With every investment of your time, you are trading something for something else. If time is the most valuable thing a man has, then shouldn't time be the thing that we give most to God? Isn't your time really His time, since he bought and purchased you anway? Do you sit around and talk to your coworkers about non work related things when you are on the clock? You're not supposed to, that's not what you're getting paid to do. What are you doing on God's time? Is he getting his money's worth?
Comments are welcome.
This doesn't have to be us, yet it often is.
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