Demoralization

There is this little insidious tool that the enemy has in his arsenal that he likes to use against believers. I have experienced this to a certain degree in the last few months and I can tell you that it is subtle and creeps up on you like a snake in tall grass. It's called "demoralization" and it can kill you if you let it. The definition for demoralization is, to undermine the confidence or morale of; dishearten. Let me explain what I mean with an example from my own life.

As you know if you have read my blog for any length of time, I am a Christian, a born again believer in Jesus Christ. This does not mean that my life is without challenges, not at all. Every life has its share of them, so to think that just because I'm a Christian will exempt me from problems is just not true. I have been walking with the Lord for a long time now, and I had, while I was in the shower yesterday this thought, (While coughing and hacking up a lung.) "Oh come on, are you kidding me? I'm going to have congestion and the mucus fun now? What the heck? It's just one thing after another!" And then my heart sank within me.

I'm no novice at this Christianity thing, I may not be a father in the faith yet, but I'm no novice. I realize that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, (Matthew 5:45) but for some reason I felt demoralized standing there in the shower. It seemed as if everything that I had ever wanted to do for the Lord was slipping through my fingers like the soap bubbles off of my body. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, and I wanted to whine a little bit. (Yes, you heard my correctly, I wanted to whine.) I finished getting ready for church and my bride, daughter and I left to go meet with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We attended both services yesterday and I am so glad that we did. The first service was good, and my friend Daniel Shirley brought forth a strong word from the Lord about how the stone had been rolled away and that we should stop living under the law, and live under the grace that Jesus purchased for us. But it was during the second service, while Daniel was preaching that he made a comment about something my Pastor David Emigh had taught him. He said, "Preparation time is never wasted time, unless you waste it." And that made me sit up and take notice.

For a while now, I've been trying to understand the movings of the Spirit of God in my heart. There is something on the horizon for me and my family, but I'm not quite sure as to what it is. I've been searching, and asking but as of yet it is still a little hazy, the clarity has not come yet. And while I await the clarity, it seems that there has been one thing after another that has assaulted my heart for quite some time now. The death of my son, business appearing to not go as well as it used to and my not knowing where it is that God is leading me and my family right at this moment, and yesterday the fact that God's provision for my health was not where I wanted it to be. All of these things have been sucking the life out of me, and the real problem is that I have allowed them to.

You see here in lies the problem, it's not really the subtle attacks of the enemy that are major issue, it's the response that we give to them. The Bible teaches that the power of life and death are in our tongues (Deuteronomy 30:19). So when the attacks come, what are "WE" doing with them? Do we take a que sara, sara, whatever will be will be attitude? Or do we look a little closer into God's Word and find out what His provisions are for the thing we find ourselves in and take action?

Daniel and I were talking last night at dinner and he made the comment to me that after the sixth day, God quit creating. He put His creative power in mankind, and it is now up to us to create using our mouths. We really do have what we say, so what we need to be saying is what God's Word says about our situations, and not what we feel like saying. I've heard people say quit telling God how big your mountain (challenges) is, and tell the mountain how big your God is. And if we'll do that, then the weapon of demoralization will not have any effect on our lives.

Okay, so there's that...get 'em up folks, let's go out and whip something for the Kingdom today!