Tag: Ephesians 6:12

HOPE

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Psalm 119:73-96 says God is…

Creator,
a Hope giver,
Faithful,
a Comforter,
a Promise Keeper,
Trustworthy,
Merciful,
a Life Giver,
Savior,
my Help,
Eternal
He knows no bounds.

These words reminded me of a song we sing called “Waymaker.” Click to listen.

green-leafed-plant-on-sand-1438404Do you believe our God is a Good God? Do you believe He will not leave you or forsake you? That God is your Waymaker? Miracle Worker? Promise Keeper? Light in the Darkness when the wicked want to destroy you?

Sometimes this is hard when you feel like you are in a pit that has been dug for you, when you have been waiting a long time for help in a situation. Even when you don’t feel or see Him working, do you trust that He is, and do you Worship Him through it? Sometimes we try to handle the situation that we see on the surface on our own, but we need to remember our battle is not against what we can see, but as Ephesians 6:12 says, “…against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this [present] darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) places.”

To be strengthen to fight these battles we daily need to take up the Full Armor of God. Part of our Armor is our Sword of the Spirit, (the Word of God) and prayer. I hope you take up your Sword and delight in the words you read. In prayer, I hope you take your situations and struggles directly to God. He is what you need Him to be in your situation. It is all in His timing.

Psalm 40:1-3 says,

“I waited patiently for the Lord, and he turned to me and heard my cry for help. He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay, and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and they will trust in the Lord.”

Worship Him because He sees you, cares for you and is everything you need in all situations! Share your Hope with others.  Be a light for someone else in their darkness. Psalm 119:74 says, “May all who fear you find in me a cause for joy, for I have put my hope in your word.” Others see us and how we react to our situation. Let them see evidence of us putting our hope in the Lord.

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Practical Peacemaking

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A Hoscotch Approach: 10 Hops in the Right Direction

Our most recent “Construction Zone” article touched on peacemaking. We asked you to coment your practical tips that would help us all in this area. Today we continue with a few practical tips of our own. Feel free to add other tips in the comments at the end of this article. We said that peacemaking started with loving God and loving others. Today will focus on that latter phrase: loving others. In particular, loving others in the midst of conflict.

1. Listen. Really listen. When you find yourself in a difficult discussion, allow the other person to fully express their concerns and fears. Listen to understand. Too often we listen just waiting our turn at replying and therefore we never truly hear what is being action-adult-advice-1120344said. In fact, we may be planning our next volley of words in our own minds and therefore we literally do not hear a word the other person says; we only hear our own inner thoughts. Listening is our God-given way of taking in the facts. Use this gift.

2. Try to understand the reason they are upset. Often the reason they say they are upset is not the true reason. Are they operating out of fear? Guilt? Anger? Hurt?  Revenge? Jealousy? Insecurity? Ask questions to try to get to the root cause. Once again, listen carefully. Be discerning and trust your intuition. Notice what escalates their strong responses, this will lead you to the real issue; it shows you’ve hit a nerve with them.

3. Examine the anger being thrown at you. If they present with anger, you can usually be assured that there is more to it than that. Anger is generally a secondary emotion displayed instead of a primary emotion that is harder to deal with, such as hurt, fear, sadness, etc. Anger feels powerful, while hurt and other emotions a person has can make them feel vulnerable and in a weak postion. Anger can also ignite within a person the fight or flight response, a physiological response to what they feel is threatening them. Thus, they may lash out at you and attack you verbally or physically (fight) or hang up on you or run away from the challenge of dealing with the conflict (flight). Another form of attack is a more passive-aggressive approach where they do something covertly that is detrimental to you. These things will never bring resolution to a situation. They stall bringing true resolution and healing to a difficult situation.

4. Choose not to allow others to incite you to anger. You are in control of your feelings. Exercise self-control. Many things a person in conflict with you may say or do will feel like bombs being lobbed your way. Whether their behaviors are aggressive or their words are hurtful, cruel, or alarming, choose to remain calm: take deep breaths, follow scriptural principles, realize your fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, powers, and spiritual forces of evil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12 KJV

5. Try to diffuse a voltile situation. This will include things like:

  • Speak calmly and gently.
  • Talk with them in person if possible.
  • If you’re talking in person, maintain a non-threatening, open body language.
  • Rephrase and reflect their words back to them to make sure you understand correctly.
  • Even if you don’t agree with their point of conflict, try to understand why it is important to them.
  • Express your understanding and willingness to come to reconciliation.
  • Don’t belittle or speak down to others.

woman-1708105_12806. Ask for God’s wisdom to understand the meaning and what is often left unsaid behind their spoken words. Pray, pray, pray. As you find yourself in this type of situation begin immediately to pray asking for wisdom, for eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart to understand and a will to obey. Ask God to give you clarity and understanding.

7. Allow God’s love to flow through you to the person opposing you. Human love is imperfect even with our best efforts. God’s love is perfect. Through prayer and putting our own self-will aside we can allow His love to flow through us. Through His love we can love people who would otherwise trigger us to hate them.

8. Keep the lines of communication open even if you are rejected. If you are hung up on or abandoned in the discussion, pray for and seek ways to continue reconcilation: a gentle non-threatening appeal, a call or kind gesture, enlisting the help of a pastor or spiritual mentor. (Note: Texts and emails are too easily misunderstood. Tone and individual differences in word meanings often make these written approaches more harmful than helpful.) 

9. Go the extra mile. Do everything within your power to bring peace and resolution to the situation. Operate in the fruit of the Spirit with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.   Romans 12:18

10. Don’t post anything on social media. Period. (We shouldn’t even have to say that.)

What are your thoughts and tips?

Nathaniel Mckenzie

The Day the Racoons Came to Town

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And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

by Lisa Greene

Have you ever had an unwanted guests just show up and decide to stay for a while?

On top of that, did those guests have four legs, fur, sharp teeth, and long tails?

We had not one or two, but five of those guests serve as a welcoming committee when we arrived at our home.  Since country living is new to me, and I am just a city girl from Florida (and most recently Alabama) hoping to adjust to transplanted life amidst the corn fields of Ohio, when these four-legged, furry guests took up residence in our home, it was a shock!

But God is ever purposeful!  Nothing He does is without a plan and goal in sight. As finite beings with limited vision into today and even more limited into tomorrow, we can often find ourselves struggling with the unwanted events that we feel God allows to enter our lives. I didn’t want those raccoons in my house!  I didn’t want the disruption they were bringing to my life. No sooner had we gotten the moving truck unloaded, they showed up!

raccoon-202675_1920.jpgBut wait!  Upon further investigation (i.e. crawling through the basement duct work, removing the basement ceiling, following the traces they had left behind) we found that they had not JUST shown up – they had been there long enough for momma raccoon to do some nesting, have a full litter of babies, wean them, and begin to train them in the habits of nightly scavenging hunts.

What we were actually hearing was not just one or two, but a momma and her four babies, night after night, crawling out of the house for their hunting adventures, returning in the early morning hours a little playful and energetic from their adventures, and then finally getting quiet by mid-morning and through the remainder of the day. They had actually not just showed up when we moved in but had been there for several months at least!

As we saw it, we had two options – live with and accept them as permanent guests or find a way to clear them out and claim our new home as our own.

Life is about claiming what is ours. Sometimes that requires clearing out a space or two, sometimes it requires doing a total overhaul.

In our spiritual life, it is also about claiming what is ours – ours through the power of God. Though we might think the daily struggle we face with unwanted issues in our lives is brought on by this person or that person, this situation or that situation, the reality is that our real struggle is far deeper than what we see with our human eyes. Our struggle is against those forces of evil and darkness, spiritual wickedness that we can’t see with our human eyes (Ephesians 6:12). Those are the unwanted guests that take up residence around us, interrupting the lives that God has planned for us, causing us turmoil and unrest, unbelief and anxiety. We have two choices – live in defeat and despair while we allow Satan to rule and reign in our lives, or claim the promises of God, put on the whole armor that He has provided for us, and defeat Satan through the power of God!

Satan is real. He wants nothing more than to steal our joy, kill our desire to serve God, and destroy our testimonies (John 10:10). He is at work! He is someone you can’t see, but who is at work underneath the surface of our lives, our homes. He’s working to cause whatever disruption he can orchestrate.  But the choice is ours as to how effectively he works in our lives.

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We had a choice to make with those raccoons – let them stay or get rid of them. Getting rid of them was a time-consuming, difficult, sometimes nasty job. It even required help from others. Each evening we set the traps, baited the critters with sardines, peanut butter, or some such tasty treat, and went to bed hoping to find the trap occupied the next morning. Some mornings it was, some mornings it wasn’t. Some mornings we woke to find that the critters had actually figured a way to remove the treat we had so carefully placed for them, without setting off the trap! Go figure!

Finally, after days and nights of endless effort, and great perseverance on our part, we caught the last one (at least for this season). Then the rest of the work began. We had to clean out and repair the damage that had been done, making sure to close off the entrance they had created for themselves.

Getting rid of and banishing Satan and his minions from the occupancy of our thoughts, our homes, our lives, is only the beginning. We must secure our hearts, our thoughts, our actions to ensure that he is not able to take up residence again. Putting on the full armor of God daily, along with the power of prayer, forces him to know that we mean business sword-790815_1920.jpg(Ephesians 6:13-18).  The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4).  With the spiritual weapons we have been given we no longer allow him to wreak havoc in our lives, destroying our homes, our families and our relationships, but rather we take action and stand firm against him.

While we know that those raccoons are only gone for this season, and there are many more raccoons out here where we live, we are prepared to face them again in the future.  We know that our home is ours, we have sealed the entry way that they used, and we know the signs to watch for when they try to enter again. In our spiritual lives, God has sealed our hearts with the blood of His Son through the redemptive work of salvation.  Though Satan cannot touch our eternal security as believers, he can still battle for our joy and peace.  Be prepared! Know what to watch for, those schemes that Satan uses.  Stay battle-ready every day with the weapons that God has given us.

As I said at the beginning, God never does anything without a plan and purpose in mind.  What we thought was a disaster, turned out to be a huge blessing!  Isn’t that just like our God?  In finding the damage the raccoons had done, we also found some leaking water issues when the repairs were being done.  The repairman said that the leak was serious, but we had caught it in time. If left unfound it would have created a serious mold and bacterial issue.  So, even though that meant a longer and more detailed repair time, we were praising God that it had been discovered.  If those racoons had never come to our house, the issue probably would have not been discovered.  Can we claim, all things do work together for good to those who love and serve Him (Romans 8:28)? Yes, we can!

Now, can someone please tell us how to get rid of the pesky hole-digging moles?

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