stay alert

“Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”
1 Peter 5:8 (NLT)

It happens when I least expect it.

The room is filled with smiles and laughter as friends come together. Each one brings uniqueness to the mix. Lively chatter is flowing around. Yet, there’s something unsure looming in the air. And then it happens.

Or maybe it is a smaller gathering, just a few people around. Someone says something that strikes a chord, uses a similar tone, or a personality quirk continually surfaces. And then it happens.

Or maybe it’s in a personal conversation. A friend or a loved one is sharing a hurtful experience, asking for wise counsel. And then it happens.

What happened . . . ?

Minutes before, my heart was full of joy, and then I seem to be swallowed up by a torrent of hurt, painful reminders, a raging sea of confused emotions. Sometimes anger seems to well up and simmer inside me.  And when I see this happening in my life, I ask, how do these things happen to me?

So I pray.

On the surface, I’m sure these thoughts seem silly to others, and yes, at times, even ridiculous to me. I ask, am I allowing these outside coincidences to inflict such emotion in me?

And so I pray. I pray and I wait. I go to the One who knows my heart. I go to One who knows me better than I know myself.

In that place, I am reminded there is someone else who waits. Someone else lying in wait, hiding around the corner, prowling around looking for those places in my heart where there has been hurt and rejection. My great enemy, the devil, is waiting. Waiting for the chance to swoop in and hijack my emotions. He is looking for any opportunity to trip me up, to cause me to stumble, to fall back into the emotional wreck of the past.

The enemy scouts around like a roaring lion, prowling, looking for the perfect opportunity

• To resurface hurts caused by another through the personality of someone who crosses my path.
• To remind me of past mistakes.
• To rub me wrong causing division or discontent.

holding back nothing to get into my mind and my heart.

So I pray to be alert, asking for supernatural protection of those places when I see those red flags, detection of the enemy.

Alert. I can only be alert when I daily pour myself into the Truth that I am loved and adored and pursued by The One who loves me. I must trust Him to be the cushion, to be the distance, to be His Perfect Love in my heart.

So when the enemy comes with rejection or hurts or disappointments {which I know are going to come}, my heart and my mind will be less vulnerable to the sea of offense.

 

revival

2 Chronicles 7

The call for revival is echoing throughout our churches and our communities.  With the distorted, upside-down view of our society and culture, so many people are calling out for the “bad to be fixed.”  The “bad,” – you know the ones. Those with the “messed-up” values, those “down-right wicked” people, those “pathetic lost souls”. . .  You know . . . THEM!  

I’ve seen a lot of finger-pointing, fist-pumping, Bible-waving going on in the world around me.  And yes, I find myself guilty of the same.  If not in my actions, for sure in my thoughts.  Today was a turning point for me.  Our pastor, Gregg Matte, has been teaching a series called “Words with Friends” and today’s word is REVIVAL.

How many times have I heard the scripture from 2 Chronicles and said yes that’s what “we” need to do and then things are going to have to get better.  So what’s wrong with that?  The problem is for all my life I’ve focused only on that very familiar verse 14 . . . and My people who are called by My name humble themselves, pray and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.  

Go back and read the verse in the whole context and see the overwhelming sense of God’s presence.  That’s where this verse has taken me today.  It’s not the “we” or the “them” . . .  it’s me.  Revival has to begin with me.

I have to humble myself and pray.  Pray . . .  not finger-point at “them” but look inward.

I have to seek His face and turn from my own sin.  Confess . . .  not coddle my own sin.

The healing needs to start in my own heart.  Revival must start in my heart.

And so it must be with each of us.

Revival:  The church awake.  Lost saved.  Society changed.   ~Gregg Matte

And then we can come and see . . .  Come and see what God has done.