Sometime last week a friend shared a verse with me that I felt applied to what I was going through in my life right now. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, (2 Timothy 3:12). I knew this to be true, especially with what's been going on in my life lately. It's just been so hard trying to focus fully on Christ because of all the lies that are thrown at me constantly. When I started to practice the habit of denying myself daily and allow Christ to reign in my life was when the enemy came back attacking twice as hard. Over the past few days I've lost precious items in my room, MS word wasn't working on my computer so papers where hard to write, and my phone went dead. So as you can see it's just been a horrible past few days, which I'm sure many of you have experienced before. Those days where it just seems like everything is going wrong and in the midst of it you are asking God where He is, and why it doesn't seem like He cares about what's going on in our lives. At this point we have two choices to make; either we give all things to Christ and rely on the fact that He works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28) or we can try and take things to our own hands and figure it out for ourselves. See there's one little problem with the second option, if we did happen to make that choice, how would we see what's ahead of us? Or before us? Trying to make things work in our own terms can satisfy things for a little while, but never fully. We don't know what's going to happen in the future, but God does. He promises to give us a hope and a future and never harm us.
This week Nick Vujicic came to our college to speak. His encouragement was exactly what I needed at that time. He talked about how just because it doesn't seem like there is hope doesn't mean that it's not coming. Or the fact that hope might be just around the corner, but we have to make that turn to see it. I can't imagine the kind of pain he had to go through growing up, having to face the challenges he did. Yet he spoke right before us with pure contentment and true happiness that comes from no one else but the Lord Jesus Christ. We all have a longing, we all want to be loved and be loved. But there is nothing in the world that can truly satisfy that except for Jesus! He said that he goes around the world just to see a life come to Christ, and that's his motivation to continue on living. Nick said that often times the enemy continues to attack us because he wants us to separate us from God's love. And the only thing we can do to fight back is by hanging on to every promise in God's word. We can run from Him all we want and stay in bondage for as long as we want to hang on to this world, but once you chose to turn around and face the Truth, that will set you free. Someone at our youth group spoke about something similar to that topic later that night. He said that "There is nothing good outside of God, for God is life and whoever seeks to find life outside of Christ will find death." It was hard to digest at first, but as I thought about it and living without Christ for all eternity was the ultimate death, knowing that I won't be with my Creator forever.
It was then where I realized that I no longer had to believe in the lies the enemy throws at me! I have already been given freedom! Why do I continue to live like I'm still in bondage? Why do I still think that the lies are the truth? Why do I continue to convince myself that I will only find my worth in the things of this world when I know Christ loves me for who I am just the way I am? So then I prayed. I asked Him to take the lies away, for I didn't need to listen to them. Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. (Luke 10:19). I prayed that no matter how much the enemy attacks that I would surrender it all to Him, and that when the oceans of my life rise and the thunders roar, I will soar with Him above the storm. For He is the King over the flood, so all I have to do is be still and know that He is God. :)
After I chose to fight all the enemy's attacks through prayer and constantly focusing on God's love for me, things started getting better. I found the things I lost, I took my phone and computer to get fixed in another town. I didn't even have to pay for the repairs. See, God is good and He cares, not just cuz we see the evidence of His goodness right now, but cuz His love for us will never change and that's the ultimate promise of His goodness that we should never let go of.
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