Zandolit

Attack and Exhortation

Dad and Marcia were here with us for part of the weekend. I was so thankful to have some help. I must confess that I am envious of people who have parents nearby when they are raising small children. I am so thankful for the Ebels, and Matt and Marion have moved to Rochester as well, but in the end it is easier to lean on family than anyone else. Josh and I went to Home Depot and grocery shopping by ourselves on Saturday morning and it was so wonderful.
One of the things that has been on my mind recently is spiritual attack. In my own family it has been Josh having migrains and breaking guitar strings during worship. He hasn't been feeling well and it is hard for him to press through and lead the church in worship. Last Sunday he broke a string for the second time and had to lead worship accappella. During the sermon he ran home for another guitar and then when he was closing the service the migrain came on and his arm began to feel numb so he couldn't play right. It has been discouraging for him. I have realized that one part of my personality is that I am passive. I hate conflict and when anyone comes against me my natural reaction is to cow myself in a corner and feel sorry for myself, or else try to appease the person. I can't have this attitude when Satan is attacking my family. It is so hard to fight though, I am so tired and I would rather feed and console my flesh than stand up and combat the enemy. The Lord is showing me to stop being so weak and tired, I have to stand up and fight for my family. So I decided to fast Sunday mornings until church is over for protection for Josh as he's leading worship. This morning was the first Sunday and the Lord blessed it. I'm thankful to say that worship was annointed and my husband felt supported spiritually. Fasting is one of the strong weapons we have to fight the enemy. I must say that I hate to fast. I love to eat. I have a high metabolism and I'm nursing. But there are ways that I can fast and press in to the Lord. When we fast and pray we unleash the power of the Holy Spirit in a stronger way to open our eyes to what is happening in the Spirit. We can see where we are yielding to the enemy instead of God, we can draw nearer to his heart without the distraction of our flesh, we are in essense mortifying our flesh so that our spirit can become more alive. Let's all take advantage of this weapon of warfare.

The other thing that I have been thinking of is (again) people who are not hooked into a church body in a complete way. Josh and I are very close right now with several people in this situation. The thought I keep coming to is that if you know the Lord then you have the Holy Spirit living inside you and therefore you have the ability through His strength to do what is right. The reason we still sin is because we choose to do what is wrong. I have been thinking we can choose to involve ourselves in a church body or we can choose not to. We can choose to build relationships or we can choose not to. It is frustrating to me because I love these people and I want what is best for them, but there is only so much I can do, they must choose to come into fellowship. I don't mean at all that they don't love the Lord or that they won't go to Heaven, but I do think that they are forfieting a good deal of the abundant life Christ came to give them. It makes me sad. I thought of an idea. What if those of us who are feeling lonely in the church or unconnected just walked up to a godly woman in the church, swallowed our pride and fear and said- "Hey, I admire you, would you mind if I came and visited you some time and tried to learn from you how to be a more Christ like woman?" It's true she might say no, but if she doesn't you are on your way to a real relationship that could profoundly affect your spiritual walk. The question is do we want to grow, do we want to expand our outlook? I say YES! I hope you do too!

In close, a poop annecdote, Emma used her potty chair yesterday and when she stood up she looked in her potty and said, "a snake mommy!"

posted by Liz @ 5:22 PM