Satan hates you. If you have Christ in your heart, dwelling in your spirit then Satan hates you. He wants to tear you down and make sure you have no way of spreading the name of Jesus Christ.
This month I realized that I had not truly abandoned everything from home. I was still holding on to my friends and family. I was seeking them out for comfort, instead of seeking out the Lord. Last week, I was spending time with Jesus and I asked him what I needed to do to completely surrender my life to Him.
“What do I need to abandon?” I said.
“Your family.” He said.
“What does that look like?” I asked in return. While on the Race I am trying to do my best to fully surrender my life in ways that Jesus wants me too. This looks like me asking questions that I maybe do not want the answers too.
“Do not speak to your family for the rest of the month. Come to me for comfort. Seek me. Trust me.”
Not speaking to my family was going to be tough but I wanted to give up everything to have a closer relationship with Jesus. I seriously thought that it would take me about three days of not speaking to them and then it would be normal. I thought, “This month will fly by and then I can tell them everything about Romania. No big deal.”
Satan cannot read your thoughts. He can only see your habits. He can see by the way I speak to my family that I am very close with my Dad. He can see that and he used it against me. The day I started my fast I had a spirit of fear come over me like a thick blanket. I had a thought that my Dad would die during the month of September. Satan put thoughts into my head, “How bad would you feel if he died and you hadn’t spoken to him in a month? You would never live that down. You can’t do this, you need to talk to him. He loves you more than God does so you need to spend time talking to him not Jesus….”
You can only imagine the guilt that then flooded my body. What if these thoughts were right? I would feel terrible… Y’all. I seriously began to second guess eveything the Lord had told me the day before. Can I really trust Him? Do I really need to seek Him? Once these thoughts entered my mind I stopped seeking Jesus. I looked to my own strength. I seriously thought, “If I am not close to God, then He can’t take my Dad from me…” It took one day. One day of leaning on my own strength for me to breakdown. I was so exhausted and worn down from one day of fighting for myself. I was defeated.
The next day was my inner healing. (A time for me to ask the Lord where the root of my issues come from. To bring those dark memories to the light and allow God to turn the bad into good. To use our “baggage” as a gateway to freely walk with Him.) My squad leader and mentor were there to intercede in prayer for me and to give me questions to ask the Lord. Before we began, I told my mentor what had been happening the last few days. She reminded me of how Satan schemes against us. And that it is normal for Satan to use losing a parent against Racers. He knows that leaving them behind is so hard for us to do. He knows that we are doing a great work for the Kingdom so he hits us where it really hurts. For me, he was hitting me with fear of losing my Dad. She also reminded me of what the Lord had told me in my time with Him a few days before. That I could trust Him. My mentor asked me to ask the Lord what he had to say about my relationship with my dad. This was the response.
“You love him. And he loves you. But y’all will never love each as much as I love you.”
That brought so many tears, as you would imagine. I was reminded that my Heavenly Father loves me way more then my earthly father does and that was hard for me to wrap my mind around. I was also reminded that God has me. I can trust Him and I should seek Him out, daily! I was also reminded that Satan has no place in my thoughts. I can only combat Satan when I ask the Lord to assist me. When I ask the Holy Spirit to take the thoughts that Satan puts in my mind captive. Those things come through spending time with Him. Everyday. No matter what.
Satan will take you to your deepest fears. He will make you feel like God has left you. Satan makes God seem like the bad guy sometimes. But that’s what schemers do. They hit you where it hurts. They make the good seem ugly. But we have to remember that… That Satan is a schemer and that God is always on our side. Always.
Please pray alongside me that this spiritual warfare will subside. That Satan will flee in the name of Jesus. And that I can rely on God more than ever before in the rest of this month and into the rest of this journey.
With love,
Sav
