Fight like there is no tomorrow

After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! (Numbers 13:25-28)

The moment we let our eyes 'see' as only we can see is the moment the odds against us might seem a little too great to handle. We need to begin to see life through God's eyes, but how do we do that in the face of such great odds against us? There will always be circumstances that seem to be out of our control, beyond our natural means of handling or muddling through. When we only focus on the issue, we begin to feel a heaviness in our spirit that literally weighs us down. We soon lose any 'umph' to move forward when that weight becomes so heavy, don't we? We feel like we might as well give up, but that only serves to make us more and more vulnerable to the attack of the enemy in our lives. We open ourselves up to temptation at that point, giving into what seems easiest because the other choice seems way too hard.

Have you ever noticed that when you are experiencing deep discouragement, you are not open to God? You seem to trust anything or anyone other than him. It isn't because we don't know his promises, or have previously experienced his goodness and grace, it is just that we don't 'feel' like God is going to come through for us. One thing I have discovered in those discouraging moments is that no amount of 'positive words' will break us free from the fear that comes when deep discouragement grips our hearts, minds, and very soul. We are almost paralyzed right where we are. Why is that? We took our eyes off of Jesus and put them on the problem. We are rehearsing that problem a thousand different ways. Our focus determines our course.

So much energy is wasted on discouraging thoughts, isn't it? We have to remember that discouragement is really a well-oiled, frequently used tactic of our enemy, Satan. He puts out all this stuff that looks so overwhelmingly hard just so we can lose focus. In fact, he loves to use those things that we might label 'bigger than life' to bring us down a few notches. Once he has us there, he knows we are 'game' to continue down that path to a full-fledged melt-down. It is what people in religious circles call 'oppression'. We counteract oppression with a 'rehearsal' of a different kind. We rehearse God's promises, get into the Word of God, and times of worship. There we find God's touch that will recenter our focus. Remember this - faith is a fight. It isn't a passive thing at all. We need to fight even when all the odds seem like they are stacked against us, trusting that the one who fights for us is bigger and stronger than any of those 'giants' in our path. Just sayin!