Satan is a liar!!

I was talking with my dear friend (my sister in Christ) the other day, and she was graciously listening to my moaning; depression has crept back into my life. She reminded me of Satan's job description, and she has continued to help me get my focus off of my emotions and on to God's power, and his love for me.

Satan is very good at what he does; lie, steal and destroy. He knows just how to use our weaknesses to work his way into our hearts and minds, and try to convince us that the lies he is trying to sell us are truth. He has no problem with working overtime, either. When there is something in our lives that goes against what he wants for us he will invest what ever time and effort it takes to get us on his path.

I think he might be a bit upset about my book. Tapestry is now in the production stage; it is actually the only thing in my life that is moving forward, right now. Unfortunately, I have fallen for Satan's tricks and I have let his lies rule my emotions and I have let my emotions rule my life. It becomes this vicious cycle, and I usually forget that it is him doing this. Instead, I start to blame myself. I start to feel defeated and chose to wallow in my misery.

Thankfully God does not give up on me. His Spirit is always hard at work, nudging me back onto his path. He provides me with all of the tools I need to succeed. I am especially thankful that he puts people in my life that help me stay on track.

My friend gave me an assignment to make a list of God's truths to use against the attack of Satan. This is not a new exercise for me, but I want to be obedient to God, and sometimes that means doing something over and over again (no matter how tired you might be of doing it) until it becomes second nature.

I spent some time yesterday working on this list, and when I came to the six item, I hit a road block. The verse I tried to pull a truth out of was; "Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act. (Psalm 37:5)

I could not understand the emotion this verse brought on, I literally got a headache from trying. So I spent some time today in Psalm 37, and this is what I was reminded of...

Satan is a liar!

I love this quote from Sue Birdseye in her article (If You're Struggling to Trust God in Your Trial, Read This; Charismamagazine.com); "If I can lift my eyes, even just a bit, I can see beauty in the beyond. If my view is only of my circumstances, they will overwhelm me. If my view is of my Savior, He will overwhelm me."

And Jan Smith said in his devotion (What the Devil Does Not Want You to Know; wordblessing.com); "What the devil does not want you to know is that EVERYTHING he says is a lie. Oh, he'll tell half-truths, mixing in a little bit truth with a lot of untruth. But those statements are like a pan of chocolate brownies...with dog poop baked into them! You would NEVER eat that if you knew what was in it. Neither should you eat the words of the Devil."

Now, I am a bit embarrassed to have to admit that I have been eating dog poop. But I am thankful for this little visual to help make Satan's future attempts very unappealing. And I am not going to let the fact that he succeeded into tricking me to taste such a thing cause me to beat myself up over it any longer. God give us free will and we make mistakes, and God allows us to make those mistakes sometimes so that we can learn from them.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says; "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others."

"God allows trouble so we can show by way of our real-life examples how he works in the life of a believer...so we can be an encouragement and a comfort to others." (Jan Smith)

Through all of this, my eyes were opened, again, to the fact that that Satan has these little victories in my life because I am not putting my trust in God. That is a hard pill to swallow. That is a truth I don't want to face. God respects my free-will. "You (I) are the 'rope' in a spiritual tug-of-war." (Jan Smith) God is not going to force me his way, he wants me to want to, but he will not stop tugging, and he will honor whatever amount of faith I have to give him. He understands where my doubts and fears come from; he's been there and done that.

So, today I am choosing to get back on track. I am choosing to give God all the faith I have to give and trust that he will honor it. I will remind myself that God understands and he will not the last few weeks go to waste. I am human and he is patient, and he loves me, and I AM NOT THE PERSON I USED TO BE!
PRAISE GOD!