These descriptions are of a tool that the enemy uses against us with great strength and power and too often, success.
When I lived in Nebraska, we had the terrible experience of having one of our elderly citizens ravaged and beaten in her own home. This is small town living. People didn't lock their doors. Everyone knew everyone. How could such a thing happen?
Of course it was the topic of many conversations as we met in town for school activities. Many spoke of having nightmares about it, of feeling paralyzed by fear. I had my own experience of waking up with a bathroom call in the middle of the night. I found myself afraid to swing my legs over the side of the bed. So I just laid there. But the call was significant enough that sleep wasn't going to happen. So I decided to take a chance.
I slid my legs over the side of the bed. Nothing grabbed them. Nothing happened. But I was still afraid. I got up and slowly, slowly made my way to my bathroom. As I came to the doorway, I felt a wall of fear. It wasn’t a physical feeling. It was completely emotionally experienced. I felt like there was great harm just in front of me. It felt so strong as to make me take a step backward.
But for whatever reason for the timing of it, grace came pouring into my soul with the understanding of power and I simply refused to cooperate with the feeling. I confidently walked straight through the wall to find the relief I needed. As soon as I was all the way through the doorway, the feelings were completely gone.
What was this understanding of power? In a split second, the realization came to me that this was a demonic experience; this was the enemy trying to intimidate me and manipulate me and torment me; Jesus has stripped the enemy of all real weapons to use against me when He went through His crucifixion, burial and resurrection; Jesus always leads His children in triumph; He has more power than the enemy; He has given me this house and authority over it; so I get to access every part of this house whenever I want to.
Truth led me straight through that emotional wall so that I could meet my need.
We all experience having many needs. The more significant the need, the more significant will be the enemy’s activities concerning that need.
You know how a child simply raises his voice when he really wants something and you are not cooperating with him? He doesn't care about your logic. He doesn't care about your authority and rights over him. He just wants what he wants and uses emotional weapons to get it. I mean, really...you know how emotionally draining it is to have to hold your line when that child you love is hounding you for something. Even if you are strong and don't give in, its a draining experience.
In the same way the use of emotional power is one of the most effective weapons that our enemy uses against us when we are in the fight to believe in our God-given, God-ordained identity.
We all grow up believing in wrong conceptions. Everyone does. It can't be helped. When we are born again to a new and living hope, a new way of life, a new position as a beloved adopted child of the God of the Universe, the new life in us begins to grow. It is fed with truth being embraced by our choice to desire it and to embrace it and to pursue its depths.
Our enemy doesn't like this. He is obsessively driven to destroy the children of God. He is merciless and has no conscience whatsoever. He is pure evil. Every intention of his is evil. And he delights in our destruction. It is our salvation to trust what our Good Father says which helps us to understand our enemy’s methods.
We have to understand that emotions are driven by ideas. It is why Truth frees us. Truth is an idea that is based in reality. Lies are ideas based almost always in half-truths so as to manipulate.
Consider waking up to memories of poor choices, poor actions and hurtful results. They are real. They really happened. They are memories based in truth. Along with the truth comes the emotions of grief and regret. But it doesn’t stop there. Without realizing what is happening, we begin to feel the overwhelming emotional feeling of being too messed up for words. And therefore, my value is non-existent. I am worthLESS. Worth LESS than most everyone except maybe the child molester, rapist and serial murderer.
These thoughts that address my value came sneaking into the depths of my feelings about the past and begins to twist the experience of the emotions of grief and regret based in reality . The emotions are now all tangled up with self-hatred, self-contempt, and can often lead to blaming others with great bitterness and resentment.
This is how the enemy lays a blanket of emotional oppression on us. It is so important for us to recognize it for what it is!
Our Savior has all we need for the regrets and the grief but it isn’t self-hatred, or resentful blaming. We have to call out to Him for His truth and then we have to choose it and embrace it and pursue the depths of the truth He gives. If we just lay there the enemy will just gleefully continue to torment us until he gets bored.
We don’t want to just let him torment us. We want to live in the joy of forgiveness, of hope, of restoration, of redemption, of being astounded by the re-creative work of our Good Father.
Right?
Press through the walls, the blankets, the torments with Truth! with Jesus! He has a really big sledge hammer and loves to hammer those damning lies into iddy bitty little pieces and throw them to the wind. All He needs is your permission. Your choice to trust what He has said. Your humility to admit your need of Him.
And then, katy bar the door!!
Hallelujah!!
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