Stop bullying me!

Has it been one of those seasons where no matter how hard you try to move one step forward, you feel like you are taking two steps backward? No matter what you do, you just cannot seem to break free of whatever it is that is keeping you in the muddle and trials you are in. Sometimes I think this 'muddle' is just my own doing - because I have bitten off way more than I can chew. My plate is overloaded and the only way to be clear of the pressure is to get some of the stuff off my plate which really doesn't belong there in the first place. There are other times when I just cannot tell you why I am feeling a little oppressed and pushed down, but it happens more than I'd like to admit. I think those times might just be when the enemy of my soul wants me to get distracted from what is important in life - adding muddle and mess wherever he can. How about you? Sometimes you just need to push some of the stuff back off your plate, other times you might just need to push back against the one who is "bullying" your soul!

God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels. (Ephesians 6:10-12)

The devil beats us up unnecessarily for he is already defeated - he is just doing his best to convince us otherwise! If we'd learn to put on the full armor we are given and actually use it to resist the attacks of the enemy of our souls, we might just be able to hold our ground against his attacks! Lest we think he doesn't know where to attack us in our lives, be assured of this - there is nothing "uncommon" in our struggles that others have not already struggled with. He just knows how we ALL struggle - so he uses these "common" areas as a means to get us focused on the stuff that gets us down and under the weight of life in general. Lest we think our enemy has no plan of attack - let me assure you, we probably give him some "hints" about how it is we can be attacked! Hints like us not being very kind in our responses when we are tired, or like when we don't plan ahead well and leave late for a specific appointment, then get all bogged down in traffic. We sometimes like to blame him for these events, but in actuality, these are common struggles for all of us, so if he can use them to his benefit, he will! He doesn't necessarily make us tired, nor does he send the traffic - but he will use them to get us to take our eyes off what really matters.

He will often get us to focus on what more can be added into our day, and this gets us into our trouble. If someone does something that we may not normally react to, but in our tiredness, we somehow "read more into it" than we should, we might respond with the feeling a bit of stress added to our day. We "add into" the situation because of our own interpretation of the circumstances viewed through already overextended and over-tired eyes! We know we need to spend time within our relationships - "quality time" - while not being distracted and focused intentionally on each other. Then we get this genius idea to just combine a little work with the pleasure and we somehow no longer have this non-distracted, intentional focus in the "quality time". He will get us to considering the "alternatives" to the way we know we should go, and we get duped again. We could do something this way, OR we could do it another way, often presented as the easier way. We could sweep the floor, or just kick the crumbs under the throw rug! The alternative which seems so much easier is presented to us, usually in such a way that suggests we were entitled to have it be this easy in the first place. Just a little advice here - what appears too easily accomplished or obtained is usually not the best plan!

Adding things into our day adds complications we didn't need. Taking the easy way presents short-cuts which really do little to simplify our lives and usually just delay the original plan. Since the Garden of Eden, our enemy has been using the same two tactics. If we become aware of how he operates, we might just be able to resist his attacks a little easier. God is strong and he wants us strong. What we do with the wisdom we are given will ultimately determine how strong we will stand. What are we given? "Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out." (Ephesians 6:13-18)

Be prepared. The only attacks which are successful in our lives are when we don't prepare well. If we did a little "up front" consideration of what we put on our plate, or what will impact our ability to finish well, we might take a little less into our grasp! We cannot handle this alone. We need others who will come along side, especially the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We want relationship, but we don't take the time to invest in it. We are robbed of one of our greatest weapons against his attacks whenever we attempt to stand alone. The value of well-developed relationships is best understood in the times of our deepest personal need. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation - weapons in their own right. Truth sets us straight, so we aren't duped into believing our own vain imaginations. Righteousness helps us stand upright when all of our enemy's hosts would want us to look backward at our failures. Peace determines the steadiness of our walk and gives us the assurance we don't walk alone. Faith keeps us directed on what we cannot see, but what we have come to accept and stand on as true in our live. Salvation is the anchor which holds us when we might want to drift.

We need to talk WITH God. Prayer is more than talking TO God - it is talking WITH God. Two-way conversation - open to receive what he gives. We sell ourselves short when all we come to do is TELL God and never stop to LISTEN TO God. Most of the time, it is in these listening times where we discover we have been giving into the "AND" and the "OR" tactics of our enemy. In these moments of being WITH Jesus, we discover we didn't need the "AND" and we cannot count on the "OR". Time to stop being 'bullied' into believing otherwise! Just sayin!

Re-engaging the mind

Unprincipled really just says someone is lacking moral scruples.  Scruples are standards we live by - agreed upon as the "minimum set" of actions on one person's part which result in some type of restraint or inhibits some other form of action.  Is it safe to say that the "scruples" of our society have changed over the past twenty years?  I don't think anyone would disagree with this observation.  It would only take about one-half hour channel-surfing to get a flavor for how "low" the minimum set of actions has become.  We have housewives from somewhere out there acting like absolute terrors toward each other, their husbands, and their kids.  There are wives and husbands battling it out over how many photos she takes in a given day. Survivalists pit one against the other to get some coveted trophy and a little prize money, all the while changing up who they will "side" with based on who seems to be doing the best.  Divas galore flaunt their stuff and act like "unholy"-terrors on the big screen.  Sheesh - I wouldn't say these folks even have scruples anymore - I'd say it seems they live pretty "unprincipled" lives!

The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.  (2 Corinthians 10:3-6 MSG)

Our writer puts it pretty well - it is indeed a dog-eat-dog world out there and that "world" is trying to make an inroad into our hearts and minds each and every day!  If we are to guard against this type of "principle-shift" or exchange of morals, we really need to understand how the enemy of our souls fights! To wage war without a game plan is to walk into the enemy's camp without armor, fully exposed, and as a sitting duck!  Let's examine exactly what we can see about our enemy's attacks and how we can combat them:

- First and foremost, the enemy of our souls doesn't "fight fair".  If any parent has ever had their child run home to them to report one of their friends for not being fair, you probably had to take a few moments to explain what "fair" really looks like, right?  In the eyes of the child who feels their friend is being "unfair", "fair" usually looks like getting their way, having the last cookie, or being the one to pick the games they play.  When these things don't happen, the child proclaims life as "unfair".  Oh that our battles were this easy to handle in our adult life!  The enemy of our souls has more than the last cookie on his mind - he has our soul on his mind!  He wants company in hell, and he isn't going to be content until he gets it!  "Fair" isn't one of his tactics - in fact, he uses "fair" as a means of getting some form of discontent stirred up in our minds and hearts so we will focus on how mistreated we are, or how "unfair" life has treated us.  "Fair" is the enemy to contentment - learn this and you might just get the upper hand on some of his greatest weapons of warfare!

- He uses warped philosophies to get at our minds.  Philosophies are really just a set of principles set forth which explain something.  There are moral philosophies which set forth standards of conduct.  Then there are natural philosophies which spend a lot of time showing the relationship between things in nature, such as gravity's force and the way it affects those under its influence.  Add to this the metaphysical philosophies out there and you get all manner of beliefs about human knowledge.  No wonder we get confused with some of the stuff going around!  The enemy of our souls takes all of these and meshes them together in order to muddle our thoughts, affect our actions, or lead us into inactivity simply because we are so confused.  The truth about warped philosophies is the fact there is always some "truth" in them!  When we add or take away anything from what is "true", we get a warped philosophy.  For example, if we know it is the colors of red and yellow mixed together which produce orange, to present anything other than this would be an outright misstatement of truth.  But...if we want to subtly change the "hue" of orange produced, we add in other colors such as brown and a little more yellow to produce the color we call gold.  It is still an orange base, but now it is called "gold".  Truth still exists, it is just "changed" to a different "hue" by the enemy of our souls.

- The enemy is a master at erecting barriers.  Nothing speaks more clearly of his involvement in our lives than to be moving in the right direction, evidenced by God's peace within, and then coming smack-dab into a mess of barriers which just seem to block us as we attempt to move forward.  His goal is to obstruct our progress, or keep us from accessing what it is which is just beyond the barrier.  They put guard-rails up on the sides of roads to keep the cars from careening off into the canyon below - so not every barrier is necessarily from him!  We have to become proficient at recognizing the ones God places for our safety and the ones he erects in an attempt to keep us from making progress - they are totally different!

- Lose thoughts, emotions, and impulsive behavior are his final set of tactics with which he seeks to add mayhem into our lives.  Let it be known, we all have the capacity to act a little impulsively at times.  One of the things which we often see when the brain has been impacted by a blood clot or an event which limited the blood-flow long enough is this lowering of "inhibitory" ability, causing the person to act quite "impulsively" at times.  Don't gloss over that one, friends - it is when the brain is NOT engaged as it should be that our inhibitions are lowered leading to the greatest opportunity for impulsive behavior!  Learning to re-engage the brain is the primary defense against this attack!

We don't fight "fair" in this battle because our enemy doesn't fight fair!  We fight from the vantage point of "victors" - we already know his game plan and we are miles ahead of him in countering his strategies, friends!  We don't need to fear his attacks - we just need to stand up to his unscrupulous dealings and put him in his place!  Just sayin!