The enemy attacks in all sorts of ways. Some ways are more obvious than others, but each way is just as capable of destroying a person or ministry. After having had such an awesome time of prayer and discovery last Friday the devil knew he had to do something to stop my learning, to stop my peace and rest that was coming from the Lord. He planned his attack for Sunday. It started with the small seed of doubt. “When people get sick, or see a demon people say it means that Satan is attacking them because he is worried about what they are doing for God. Since I’m not sick, and I haven’t seen a demon, does that mean Satan isn’t worried about me because I’m not really doing anything worthwhile for God?” While Angie reassured me that no, this wasn’t true, the question still lingered in my mind.
That night Andi and Kim had planned a special service for the evening church service. It was all about prayer, and there were 4 different stations that the people of the church could work their way through, the first was surrender, then identity, reflection and praise and worship. I was really excited about this evening, because I have been continually been feeling the need for rest in the Lord and prayer. My time going through the stations started out well. I was able to hear God speak to me (see the end for what He said). At the identity station a couple of verses stood out to me that don’t normally strike me, and all was going well. The reflection station had many laptops set up with different creation pictures on them. This was nice and I could pick out different attributees of God in each picture. Then it hit me. Station 4. Write a love letter to God.
Ok, that’s easy. No problem. I started out well, God you are powerful, God you are faithful etc etc. All the things I know God to be. Then the inevitable came. The time to say I love you to God. WHAM. Nothing. I couldn’t do it. I felt like I was saying that to the sky. I felt ridiculous even thinking such a thing. Now I was in full doubt mode. Does God exist? How can I see Him so evidently so often and still question that? What is the matter with me? Why can’t I tell God I love Him? Then the clincher. No WONDER Satan isn’t worried about me if I can’t say I love you to God.
Over the next couple days I proceeded to worry about why don’t I love God, and why do I still doubt His presence in my life, and ok, so I want to love God, but I don’t know how. How can I love a Father and a romancer at the same time? It just doesn’t make sense! This is why my mind was telling me, what Satan was telling me in order to distract me from God’s love and peace and the ministry I was supposed to be doing.
All I could think about was needing to find God again. I needed to get back what I had lost since Friday. I felt like there was something wrong with me, that if I felt like this I shouldn’t even be on the World Race and I either wanted it fixed or to go home. So yesterday I said enough is enough, I have pushed through this long enough, I am staying home in the quiet, while everyone else is at ministry and figuring this out. God is so good! He desires us to be close to Him, even more than we want to be close to Him. So yesterday afternoon after listening to worship music for a long time He spoke to me.
This is what He said to me, taken from my journal:
I don’t need to try and love God in different ways. AT different times in my life I might need different things from Him. Different seeason I mighht need a Father- provider, protector, comforter, and at other times I might need a more intimate love connection. My mind cannot handle too many ways at once anyway. I also do not have to worry about whether I can say “I love you”. Love is not a feeling. I do not need to seperate God Himself, from God in His works. I see God as powerful in a storm. I see God as gentle in flowers etc. When I say I love YOU it implies who God is. I love God for who He is, and who He is is powerful, gentle, loving, creative etc etc. The completeness of God is the culmination of His attributes. He can not be separated from them. By praising Him for His attributes, and loving those things about Him, I in turn do love Him. I don’t need any special extra feeling of love- love is an action, not a feeling.
Wow. God spoke. I love God, and I don’t need to make it complicated. After hearing that from Him, I felt so much more at peace again. I felt back in line with God, and I was excited again about having time with Him. I could now write my love letter to God!
*Side note: What God had me surrender. I was in the process of thinking of all the good, normal things that should be surrendered when I all of a sudden felt like I needed to surrender my jeans. ‘What? I like my jeans’. But I felt like I needed to surrender them for God, and that Crystal (our translator) should get them. So this is a little strange, and a little awkward, so the next evening I take her aside and ask her if she wants my jeans. She said ‘well, I only have 2 pairs here, and well, it just so happens that today one of the pairs got ripped beyond repair.’ So God told me to give her my jeans, the day before she even ripped hers, but I didn’t mention it until after (little did I know) her jeans ripped. How cool is God to know our needs and provide for something seemingly so small.
