Attack Attack!

No, this blog has nothing to do with the popular 2006 band, but my seventh grade self just couldn't pass up a title like that.

Recently God answered so many prayers for me, between the amazing friends that I have made to getting the news that I get the privilege to be a camp counselor, I have spent a weekend on cloud nine. I was overflowing with so much joy that I could hardly contain it. That's why I chose this picture, a picture I took after a group of friends and I watched It's All About Jesus (Breath on a Page) by Louie Giglio. This was the day my devotions changed forever, I also remember so vividly because this is the day the attack began. Monday morning two days shy exactly three weeks ago.

I'm not going to spend this blog getting into detail about what happened, but in general terms, we watched someone we love break all over again. After a weekend of rejoicing, satan came at our family with full force. But little did he know, he was messing with the wrong family. Satan came into our home, uninvited, knocking things over and wreaking havoc but he is NO MATCH FOR OUR GOD. Something satan doesn't want us to know is that he can't make us do anything, we have that choice. Satan is powerless. Satan told our family to be bitter and mad at God, but we chose to rejoice in our Savior even though things were hard.

Satan will whisper friends requests in your ear so that you turn to him instead of our God, but in Levi's book he says, "And let me tell you, if you think he's a bad enemy, he's much worse and much deadlier as a friend." That's the truth. Satan can never provide the joy that we can find in our Lord. He will tell you that he can offer things that God can't, but Isaiah 40:11-12 tells us of God's mighty power, "He tends His flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, or with the breadth of His hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?" Last I checked, satan can't do any of that, but he doesn't want you to know that.

Something that stuck out to me, after this attack is how perfectly Levi's book followed along with the encouragement that I needed. He continues on page 142, "God's not the only one who knows you're special. Your enemy knows it, too, and he is desperate to keep you from realizing it and reaching your potential. He knows that God wants to use you to save people from under his thumb, and he doesn't want that to happen." When I read that, I was reminded that if I let anger and bitterness take over me satan wins. That's where my witness of God's goodness through it all stops. Don't let satan do that to you, you are a child of God, you are being used for His kingdom and you have the greatest privilege of all... Inviting people to the greatest party there ever will be.

Out of these broken words of this sinful servant, I want you to remember something. As it says in Romans 8:31, "If God is for us who can be against us?", that includes satan. He is prowling around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, 1 Peter 5:8. He is clever, he won't always come in with a big bang, like this story. Sometimes he will bring an attractive man or woman into your life who is unsaved, but promises to come to church so you bend your morals. Sometimes he puts a friend in you life who is so similar to you that you automatically become best friends, but they shut you down when you speak of your faith. Sometimes it's setting a fear in you, to make you run from your calling. He doesn't always use things that are openly bad, but it's those little compromises that get you. It's when you stop reading the Truth, so you get muddled in the lies. It's when you start working so much that Sunday's become your sleep in days. And other things in between. I encourage you so deeply to run to your Saviors arms, even if it's hard. He is mighty, and HE LOVES YOU!