STRONGER-PART 1 | KNOW GOD IS FOR YOU

STRONGER PART 1 GOD IS FOR YOU

Has anyone had a smooth sailing life without a struggle? Has anyone lived a problem-free life where it has been a bed of roses, no conflict in relationships, always been in the pink of health and the sea of life is calm and placid? You might be chuckling at this and saying to yourself I’d like to meet that person! Me too!!  

Or like many others, maybe right now, you are facing a storm, you feel like you are drowning in and over your head with whatever situation that is encumbering you. You feel that dark tunnel does not seem to end and you have no strength to go on or no will for you have lost hope of it ever-changing. I have been there my friend and I’d like to urge you to hang on. Go through this series and I pray that you will find HOPE and Strength again.

 For me personally, 2017 was a very tumultuous year. There was relational strife and I just could not get my head around it. It felt weird. It was energy-sapping. It was paralyzing in many ways. I am not one to look for a devil under every chair or chaos that I encounter. However, I began to have a sneaky feeling there is more to this than meets the eye. I knew I had a choice to either give in or fight. Have the clouds blown away you might ask? Yes and no. We face different and new challenges every now and then. The point is not to get you to a place of being trouble-free but to be stronger than the struggles we face.

We need to know how to deal with the struggles and trials that we face, and in a biblical way. In the next few blogs, I will be sharing what I shared with a group of ladies at church. They found it very useful and so I thought, “why not blog it?” Here goes.

Firstly, you do not have to have it all together for God to use you. That is a lie from the pit of hell to stop you from being effective. God uses our weakness and turns them into opportunities to be a blessing and for His glory. He takes our failures and makes them a springboard for success. He takes our brokenness to bring wholeness and healing to many. He takes our trails and makes them trophies of His grace in our lives. He has done that for me over and over in my many years of knowing HIM.

What Satan planned for your destruction, to wreck your life, to derail you from God’s purpose and destiny for your life; God can take and make it a lasting testimony and evidence of His goodness that will never leave us but pursue us all the days of our life.

So how do we learn to be overcomers? How do we face these battles of life?

Fight, I did and with the best weaponry on the planet – the Word of God and trusting in His goodness.

I came across a book early this year by Havillah Cunnington titled “Stronger than the Struggle”. I strongly recommend you read it. Much of what I am blogging here is from that book. The blogs in this series are reflections and a summary of what I got from this fantastic book that I recommend you to buy.

 Do you know that God has a purpose for your life i.e not to drift from one day to the next, rather each day building upon the next toward something?

The enemy knows that you are a powerful weapon in the hands of a mighty God and He will try every trick in the book to trip you up.

 Remember that God and the Devil are NOT equally opposite powers. The devil is a created being. He is not as powerful as God. He is defeated. So remember you fight from a place of victory and not for victory.

In the next few blogs, we will examine some of the schemes the devil uses to try an defeat us and I will share with you how to gain some skill sets, to how to recognize where the attack is coming from and defuse these bombs he throws at you.

We are all called to fight the good fight of faith. This is not a few specialists. It is not just for the pastor to lay his hand on you and “ command” all your problems to disappear. No! Every Christian can and must learn how to fight because we do have an enemy that is waging a war against our souls and is trying to keep us from our destiny. And we are all equipped to fight. We are all more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. Therefore, we need to be alert for He prowls like a roaring lion looking for who he can destroy.

In this battle, one of the first things we need to come to terms with, without a doubt is that God is for us. God is 100% for you. His plans for you are always good. We need to trust that. Trust will be reflected in how well we YIELD to His sovereignty in our lives without doubting, getting anxious, getting back in the driver’s seat of our life. In this age of hyper-independence, we don’t like to yield to anyone or anything. Yielding or surrender requires complete trust, to give up the need to want to control everything and everyone. We have to trust that his intentions toward us are always good. God can manage your diary, timeline, relationships, finance, and a job far better than you.

Satan has always wanted us to doubt the goodness of God. This is an old trick. It is oldest in fact.  We need to remind ourselves of what God says to us in Jer 29:11. ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Satan will take what God has said and make you doubt it or twist it as he did with Eve. Satan knows what heaven is like and what it is like to have a relationship with God. Remember he is a fallen angel. He once lived in the presence of God until pride got the better of him. He wanted the glory that belonged to God alone. This caused his downfall, and being cast out of God’s presence forever. Now he does not want you to enjoy that either.

So what is the source of our struggles? We need to be clear what we are battling, and who is our enemy. As the saying goes, is it the world, the flesh or the devil? If you battle against the wrong enemy, you will never win!  “You must understand your enemy for you cannot defeat what you do not understand”~ T.D Jakes.

For now, reflect on the goodness of God and what that really means? As I pause to ask myself, ask yourself do you truly believe that God is eternally GOOD and always for you. That He will work it all out for your good. HE will take you through this struggle and you will come out stronger and victorious. (To be continued. Part 2 The Source of the struggle)