God's Umbrella

This morning was my puppy’s first snow. It was beautiful and white. She nosed around and mostly ran, clearly happy with her new experience.

I was thinking about snow and how beautiful it is. You know the feeling, when you wake up in the morning and it has snowed overnight. How wonderful the trees look, how quiet and serene it can be. I think that experience is not dissimilar to how we should feel about God.

Let’s think about Winter. In Winter the trees are bare, there are no flowers. There aren’t many birds singing, it’s cold and gray. There aren’t any barbecues, no fun games outside like tennis or golfing. You can’t go outside and go swimming and can’t sunbathe. The days are short and you long for more sunlight. It’s a long time until Spring, when you can enjoy the outdoors again and the days become warm and the daylight lasts for a nice long time.

Now think about how that relates to how you feel sometimes in your life. Things seem bland. Things don’t have any vibrancy in your life. You might lose interest in things. You aren’t having any fun anymore, you just feel so cold inside. Just like in Winter, only that’s what it feels like in your life sometimes. It’s not a fun place to be in your life.

Sometimes we drift away from God when we feel bland, cold, and dark. Sometimes it feels like our relationship with God is just dead. We don’t feel any warmth, we don’t see the beauty that is represented sometimes by God when He blesses us with the feeling of sunshine on our bodies, the wonderful fragrances and colors of the flowers, the sounds of birds chirping. We feel like we have to wait until things get back to where we want them to be.

The point of all of this is to bring to your attention that you don’t have to wait. You don’t have to wait until Spring to feel good about life and to have fun. All we need to do is to realize that Spring can be every day when we realize that God’s love is available to us every day.

All you need to do is pray and think about the awesomeness of His love for you. His warmth is always available in your heart. We only need to see it for what it is and realize that those cold days will pass if you have faith that He can make it warm and beautiful every day. We only need to look for him and feel His love. Spring can come every day, just keep your faith. You can do it!

As we swept past Thanksgiving (also known as Food Coma Day) society now prepares for Christmas. Christmas ornaments, decorations, pictures with Santa, toys, etc. The problem however, as always, is that most of the time the true purpose of the celebration gets covered up by what has become society’s perception.

I won’t bother getting on the soap box right now about keeping Christ in Christmas because you already know that part. But why do we have to wait for Christmas to have motivation to give to others and show appreciation for them?

There certainly isn’t anything wrong with giving! It is a wonderful way to show appreciation for those around us. The problem is that sometimes society has decided for us that Christmas is the ONLY time we should take the time to show appreciation for those around us. Society tells us that everyone should be cheerful and happy this time of year. People at the stores tell you “Merry Christmas.” Everyone is supposed to be so nice. The question is why do we need a holiday for the joy?

Every day we live under God’s Umbrella should be a day of joy. It certainly isn’t easy, but shouldn’t we strive for that? Shouldn’t we strive every day to show our appreciation for those around us? Should we just save up all of our joy for Christmas? Can you imagine a world where every day we were to be able to find the Godly motivation to try and appreciate those around us? Why do we wait?

I suppose that there are many ideas about that and many questions and there really isn’t one answer that right. We get tied up in life and a lot of folks just forget all about the holiday cheer and ultimately forget about what really makes the holiday special. We should strive to be joyful all the time. We should strive to have the Lord as a focal point in our lives all the time. Jesus was born once, yes, but every single day that goes by is thanks to His sacrifice for us. Christmas is every day, all day.

Can you imagine how much better society would be if we held to that concept that Christmas is every day? Please think about that as you go through the days leading up to the holiday. You can make a big difference in how people look at Christmas by holding its true meaning in your heart all year long.

Yield signs along the roadways are we see every single day. Those yield signs are so common that we sometimes don’t even really consciously register them. I mean, we don’t usually think to ourselves in a complete sentence “oh, a yield sign, it’s my turn to slow down and wait for traffic to pass” or “oh, they have to wait for me to pass.” For us as experienced drivers, we just register the sign and drive accordingly.

That being said, not everyone actually follows the rules with yield signs. You know the driver who has plenty of room to move over to let us merge easily? You know the driver who comes to a complete stop at a yield sign even if no one is coming? My mom used to say “it says yield, not give up!”

It occurred to me the other day that following the rules for a yield sign aren’t terribly unlike a spiritual walk. Sometimes we expect people to yield to us because we are moving so fast on our walk with God. Other times we feel like we have to yield to people speeding by because they are themselves moving so fast. Really though, the yield sign is really just a way to merge, to join, the traffic that represents people moving along in their walk with God.

I think that’s really the point with our walk with God. Certainly some people are further along in their walk. They are well ahead of us on the road. Sometimes there are people behind us in their walk, they are coming up behind us to the yield sign.

I have found that it is easy at times to be intimidated by the speed of the traffic sometimes into which we need to yield. Again, in this case the traffic represents other people walking with God. When we see so many people going so fast it is so easy to become intimidated and slow down, sometimes even stop, waiting for a break to finally speed up and join with that traffic.

Wouldn’t it be great though if the traffic in the merge lane would slow down a little and we would speed up a little and meet each other in the middle? Encouraging each other to merge into the same highway that represents out walk with God. The people moving fast moving over to let us bring ourselves up to speed. The people merging to speed up a little bit to let everything keep on flowing.

So the question becomes, what kind of driver are you in your walk with God? Are you moving along at highway speed, keeping up with the traffic? Or are you taking it more slowly, waiting for a space to open up so we can then speed up?

I think it is best to not be intimidated by the speed of others, the people who are really moving fast in their walk. Let’s use their speed to motivate ourselves to keep up, to accelerate into the highway that is leading us on our walk with God.

Maybe if we all cooperate on the highway we could all move along a little faster, a little more efficiently, to get up to speed. Just like God wants, take turns. Help each other. Move along. Accelerate in his glory.

Today’s post is a study of an analogy for a well as it can represent our mood when things go dark.

Sometimes life seems to be just such a drag. Everything seems like a burden. Simple tasks seem like you are trying to climb a mountain. Depression can set in. Frustration at every turn. It is easy to fall into a well of despair where it is dark.

The enemy loves the dark. It is where he can hide and ambush us. In the dark we can’t see straight, we don’t know what is up, down, or sideways. The light of the Lord can fade because we are so focused on the dark that we don’t see the light. Life seems darker and darker. We fall deeper and deeper into the well of despair. We lose focus that the light is indeed still there. The voice of the Lord fades because we get ourselves into a place where we can’t hear. It is when we get in this state that is is easiest to drift away from the Lord and the enemy starts to dominate our lives.

I know you’ve been there. We all have. We don’t always know the precise moment we start to fall into the well but we know where we are when we get to the bottom. The question then becomes, what do we do?

The first thing to do is to take a look around. Do you see the walls of the well where the walls represent what is confining you from leaving or is the bottom of that well so dark you can’t even see them. When you look up do you still see a glimmer of light that is the Lord or are you so far down that you just can’t see? We know that we need to get out of the well and back to the light but what in the world can we do?

Once we know just how deep we are we first need to cry out. We are in that well and all there is around us is cold and those stone walls that we can feel but maybe can’t even see. Cry out to the Lord. “Father, I have fallen into a dark well and I need help. Please rescue me.” If God is in your heart (and it is in us all) he will help! We only need to look for the help he gives us. You see, at the bottom of the well there is a little dry patch. On that little dry patch is a match. Look for the match, feel it. Strike the match against the cold stone. In that instant of striking the match there is light. Hold the match, use it to look around. The Lord heard your prayers and gave you the tool to start your journey out of the well, back to Him.

Now you can see around you with just a simple match. That little match allows you to see the stone walls and now you see that in the corner is another dry patch. Your continue to pray to the Lord for help and you realize that He has placed some nice dry wood there. Use the match to light the wood. Now that cold dark well is starting to get warm, and you can finally see. The wood burns brightly and with warmth. The Lord is rewarding you for your faith.

We have light and warmth and we can see the walls. The walls are made of stone but look at that stone. There are some gaps in between the stones and maybe, just maybe, we can get hand holds and foot holds.

So we start to climb up those stone walls and we realize that as we go farther up, the walls start to even out. The walls start to become less steep. It becomes easier and easier to climb. We keep praying and asking for help and now we can see that there is light above us. A bright, warm, beautiful light. We now can hear birds chirping and can feel the warmth of the sun. We keep on climbing and climbing and the walls become more and more flat to the point that we are walking up a hill. We realize it wasn’t a well we were in, it was like a funnel. The shape becomes so clear now!

We finally step out of the top of that funnel and look around. The world is bright. God is right there, running to you with open arms, loving you just as he always did. He is so happy with you that you kept your faith, said your prayers, and used the tools He gave you. Your prayers and faith brought you out of that dark place and now you are free again!

In this analogy the funnel is representative of the wide road that leads to destruction. It is so easy to take that wide road and let ourselves get to a dark place. I want you though to realize that the darkest, coldest of places can never take you too far from the Lord. There is a way.

Find the match. Light the fire. Climb the walls. Find your way back to the Lord and realize that he never left you. He was always there and will always give you the tools to find your way back to him.

Now, this post isn’t about dogs but the lead in is that I’m reading a very good book by Zak George called “Dog Training Revolution.” Highly recommended if you have a need to train your puppy or dog. His entire philosophy on training a dogs is to reward the the behaviors you like instead of punishing for the behaviors you don’t like. As I read this book from cover to cover (literally multiple times, highlighting as I go) it makes perfect sense. A puppy when starting out has no idea what is right or wrong. When we bring it home it is in alien territory and has no clue what is going on. If we train by punishing that puppy it is going to live in fear. All the time. Only able to focus on how terrible things are when it does just about anything. The fear doesn’t allow the poor animal to understand at all what it should do to make us happy.

A puppy will learn so much more and bond with us so much more readily and more deeply if we reward the good things. Maximizing strengths while minimizing weaknesses.

We really aren’t any different from a puppy. Let’s think about this. If we were to be punished, I mean literally punished, for all of our sins, I’m not sure we would even be alive. If you literally got hurt you every single time you uttered a curse word or argued with someone then you certainly would learn but it would be learning out of fear. If the person you got into an argument just punched you in the face every time you argued with them, you wouldn’t do it any more but it would only be because you were afraid of being hurt. You’d get to the point where you’d be afraid of saying much of anything to that person for fear of getting punched. You’d live in fear and would ultimately come to resent that person. You may even have someone in mind right now that you feel that way about.

So let’s look at the Godly principle here. If He punished you every time you did anything wrong you’d be in the same situation as I outlined above. You would avoid doing the bad things but you’d be living in fear of doing the wrong thing. You may eventually come to resent God because all you would see are the punishments, the terrible things. Would we really be learning on what to do right or would we be learning what happens when we do wrong?

God does not want us to live in fear. If we were punished for everything we do wrong it would be never ending. I’m not even sure we would be alive if all he did was punish us. We would live in fear and would be afraid every time we did something we thought was even remotely wrong. God doesn’t want that. He wants us to live in love, enjoying this life knowing we are doing the right things and learning all the time how we can use doing good can minimize the bad. He wants us to sometimes go out on a limb to do good things, not avoid doing so because we’re afraid of being punished.

So we have to look for the things we do that are good in ourselves and not focus on the bad things we do. I’m not saying at all that we should just ignore the bad things, not at all. We should always be looking at ways to improve our situations by understanding that what we do wrong has consequences. I am suggesting that we try to minimize the negative impact those things we do wrong have on us and instead think about how wonderful things are when we do the right thing. Maximize the good strengths to minimize the weaknesses.

Unlimited rewards are available to us. All we have to do is focus on the good things God wants from us and learn how to maximize those things to, in turn, learn how to minimize the bad things we do.

I want to mention here at the end that I have no affiliation with Zak George and don’t receive compensation in any way from mentioning his book. He’s not a sponsor and probably won’t even ever know that I mentioned him here. It truly is just a great book that I recommend for training your dogs.

My fiance and I just got back from vacation. We had an amazing time, every day was a blessing. We didn’t really do much of anything, we just spent time together experiencing life and loving each other.

I found myself though at times struggling to disallow stress to creep into my mind. I found that the thoughts of things that will need to be addressed when I return home just kept hammering away at the door to my relaxation. I knew I didn’t need to be thinking about the mundane things I need to do at home but it was just be so hard to let go of the stress of life. It was like a radio just kept playing in my head, reminding me of all of the things I would need to do when I got home and the things that maybe I should have taken care of before I left.

I sat day after day analyzing things, telling myself to just enjoy my time away from home, convincing myself that there was no need to be thinking about things that were otherwise stealing my relaxation and enjoyment of vacation. I knew I just needed to focus on enjoying myself but sometimes it was hard.

I realized that sometimes vacation can make things I find irritating or unpleasant about day-to-day life seem much larger than they really are. I think my mind gets so focused on the daily grind that I fall into a rut that perpetuates in my thought pattern even when I’m away from that grind.

Hmm, sound familiar? If not, give it some thought. You will remember a time when you were just trying to relax away from home and you managed to get yourself into at least a little bit of an upset about something you were trying to leave behind.

We know that the enemy loves to attack us when we are sick, tired, confused, down, and generally out of sorts. However he also loves to attack us when we’re feeling great. He loves to attack us then so that we get sick, tired, confused, down, and generally out of sorts because that is exactly when he knows he can influence us the most. So what are we supposed to do?

I found myself focusing on making vacation a powerful experience full of such great memories. I made it a point every day to fill my head full of new memories. I made my head so full of great things that there just wasn’t any room in there for anything else except goodness. I made it a point to go above and beyond what I normally do for my fiance to increase my focus on making her feel so great. I made it a point to enjoy every moment of vacation from watching the waves break over the rocks to noticing how the birds flew through the sky (reference Matthew 6:26).

My point to this somewhat disjointed post is just to point out that we should enjoy life as it is laid out before us. We should take every opportunity to be able to put things into perspective, to relax, to leave our cares behind. So go forth and fill your head with all of the good things you possibly can! Fill your head so full of goodness that there isn’t any room for anything else. Don’t let the rain storms of the world interfere with anything. Put up God’s Umbrella and enjoy yourself! (Especially on vacation.)

Bear with me on this one.

Recently I had an acquaintance lose his best friend to a car accident.  Let’s just call him Andy (not his real name).  Andy was a smart kid and had been through a rough life.  His mother was not faithful to her husband.  There was a divorce and the father ceased to be in Andy’s life.  The stepfather beat Andy regularly.  Andy frequently stayed at his best friend’s house just to get away from a very bad situation.

For the week leading up to his death Andy was sending texts to friends and family telling them how much he loved them all.  There were clear signs that he was reaching out but no one was receiving the signs.  He went out the night of his death and had a few beers then went to a friend’s house to hang out for a while.  He left the house to go home.  He never arrived.  He had slammed his car into a tree, killing him.  The car was completely engulfed in flames when rescue teams arrived.  He was only 20 years old.

Family and friends were obviously shocked.  The questions started pouring out.  Why?  What was wrong?  Was he using drugs?  Did he have more to drink?  Was he mentally ill leading up to this?  The questions went on and on.  The grieving was powerful.  Then they made a visit to a family member.  This family member “reads beads.”  Now, I don’t know exactly what is involved in that but I think it reasonable to assume that it is something similar to how people read bones.  I researched this a little bit online and found that it is an ancient practice of divination where a person throws bones, stones, and in this case beads, onto the floor or onto a table and “reads” the patterns in order to see the future or get answers to questions.  This family member read these beads and told the group of people a few interesting things.

1. The best friend’s girlfriend’s father had committed suicide.
2. Andy wasn’t killed on impact and was instead killed in the ensuing vehicle fire.
3. Andy’s girlfriend is pregnant.  Interestingly enough the people who were there immediately stated some things that suggested that if she’s pregnant she should consider abortion.

Now, #1 is true.  We will never know about #2.  We don’t currently know about #3.

Some people who relayed this to me were in wonderment about how this woman could possibly have known all of this.  The question was asked why God decided to let them know these things.  Uh-oh, there’s the problem.  They were thinking God was telling them the truth of things they could not readily see.  To these people I pointed out some things.  Let’s go back through in order.

1. The best friend’s girlfriend’s father had committed suicide.  This is a very dark thing to bring up.  Suffering, pain, death.
2. Andy wasn’t killed on impact and was instead killed in the ensuing vehicle fire.  We won’t ever know but what a horrible thought to have.  Suffering, pain, death.
3. Andy’s girlfriend is pregnant.  We don’t know yet but let’s think about this.  The people present immediately suggested abortion.  Suffering, pain, death.

You see the pattern.  Two of the things that this “bead reader” said were completely evil.  The last thing the “bead reader” said immediately cause a reaction of evil.

This clearly was not a Godly intervention to help clear the truth.  This was clearly a demonic act that has some people thinking this woman can provide answers to questions.

We know that satan prowls like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8, NIV).  Lions are predators, hunters.  They don’t hunt healthy, fit, strong prey.  They hunt small, weak, and/or tired prey.  Satan does exactly the same thing.  In the example I provide here the enemy was on the hunt, as he always is, and he found a group of people who were hurting and used this “bead reader” to spread doubt, pain, and more grieving.  She didn’t answer any questions like they thought she did.  She was a conduit of the enemy, spreading evil and causing more pain.

My whole point to this rather long post is that we have to stay on our toes, especially in times of anguish.  When we are down, when we are grieving, when we are in pain, the enemy looks for any opportunity to hurt us more.  He wants to hurt us.  He wants us live a horrible life.  Heck, he doesn’t even want to see us alive!

So my friends, stay on your toes, be alert.  Listen to the right voice of truth.  Be aware of the enemy’s attacks.  He is a liar and a thief.  He wants to convince you that things are worse than they already are.  He wants to take a good situation and make it bad.  He wants to take a bad situation and make it worse.  He wants to raise painful questions that we can’t answer.  He wants us to think of answers to questions that cause pain.  He loves pain and anguish.  That’s who he is.

Use your power and your weapons to destroy his evil presence in your life.  Seek the truth and accept that some questions don’t have answers that we can find while on this Earth.  Maybe some questions shouldn’t even be answered.  Regardless of any given situation you will survive.  Live well and make the enemy mad by living well.  Trust in your faith in God.  Live your life under God’s Umbrella.

 

I think this every single time I go to the Doctor’s office. Every. Single. Time. You know the feeling, although maybe it isn’t at the Doctor’s office. You think you’re going to be late so you rush. Faster, faster! Everyone out of the way, I’m going to be late to my appointment! Then you get there, maybe just a few minutes late. Whew, you think to yourself, I made it! By then you’ve worked yourself up and you’re irritated because you had to rush but at the same time you are congratulating yourself. You go to check in for your appointment and maybe you even tell the receptionist that you’re sorry that you were running late.

Then you wait. And wait. And wait. Then you get a chance to wait some more. Then you get even more irritated because you rushed to get to your appointment. Then you wait.

You’ve had this happen to you. It’s a terrible feeling, isn’t it? The whole act of rushing is a terrible feeling. That anxiety that we get, that irritation because we are trying so hard to move so fast. We lose our concentration when we hurry so much. Ever notice that when you are rushing it seems that everything starts to go wrong? You drop your keys, the door won’t lock, you forget your water bottle, and you hit every red light.

What if Jesus rushed? Oh I don’t have time to heal you, I’ve got to go speak in Parables over there! What storm? It’s just a few waves, come on everyone, put your hands into the water and paddle! Move, move, move!

You see, He didn’t rush because He understood that only through patience can love be born. He understood and had it in his heart that he had to be patient with us. His patience was born through love for us and through his love was born patience. He didn’t rush anything at any time for anyone.

My point is that we’ve got to be patient. Rushing and hurrying are not God-inspired character traits. If we look at the concept of hurrying, couldn’t we say that the enemy is at the heart of hurrying? We hurry. Why? The root cause is that we hurry because we have anxiety or we worry about something. Being late, needing to finish a project, or trying to simply move on to the next thing we think is more important than what we are doing in the moment. Those all cause anxiety and worry and so our reaction is to hurry up and move through things too quickly. Unfortunately the hurrying up ultimately causes grief and/or upset on some level, either for ourselves or for someone around us. We forget things. We ignore people and situations that otherwise need our attention. Hurrying just isn’t worth it.

So the next time you feel like you have to hurry up, don’t. Think things through. Move efficiently, not recklessly. Don’t hurry up to the point where you work yourself into a frenzy and start to lose control like a destructive tornado. Take a deep breath. Trust in God and His ability to calm the anxiety and worry that are driving your need to feel like you should be in a hurry. Say a prayer. It doesn’t have to be long.

Close your eyes for just a few seconds. “Father, I am working myself up over this. Please help me to stop rushing. Help me to calm my soul and help me to focus, amen.” It really can be just that short. Acknowledge that you know He is the answer to everything. Move efficiently and calmly. Under God’s Umbrella.

We had a new admission last night to the facility in which I work. This was a gentleman 57 years old. His medical history was really unremarkable. Diabetes, COPD, and those things I see on almost every patient but he had two diagnoses that stood out to me. Alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence.

I met with him briefly as I do with every new patient who is admitted to the facility. I talked to him for a while and brought up his alcoholism. This gentleman stated he had struggled with the disease for 20 years. He would go for a period of a year, maybe a year and a half of sobriety but eventually would relapse and the nightmare would start all over again. He said he would drink a fifth or more of vodka. Every single day. He had been in and out of rehab a few times but clearly that didn’t serve as a permanent solution for him.

He and I spoke some more and I probed him about his alcoholism. As I said before he told me he went through good periods of sobriety. He said during his sobriety he would absolutely love life. He would be active, visit with friends, go to work, etc. But all it took was a single problem. A fight with family. A loss of a friend. Then he would convince himself that he could handle a drink or two. Well then over the next few days he would think to himself that he could maybe handle half a pint. After all, he could handle a few miniatures. Then he could handle that half pint. No problem, he could handle a pint. Then before he knew it he was back to drinking a fifth of vodka or more. Every single day.

He was admitted to our facility because he needed to be able to better care for himself. He had just come out of a rehab (alcohol rehab) facility and wanted to come to where I work to get stronger physically. Then he said he wanted to admit himself to a psych facility to get stronger mentally. He had a solid plan to beat his addiction.

He discharged himself against medical advice from our facility back to his home less than 24 hours after first being admitted. I have no doubt that his first stop will be the liquor store.

We have to sometimes ask ourselves what we are doing that keeps us in a rut. We have to ask why we can’t stay on the straight path when we try so hard. We have to ask why temptation is so overwhelming that it causes us to fail. Fail again and again and again. Why can’t we beat the enemy when we know fully exactly how he is going to attack us?

Temptation is an ugly machine of war. The enemy knows all of the dark places in our minds, and that is where he sets up his fortresses. He builds up walls. Tall walls that we can’t see over and we can’t see what he is doing. He sends out smoke so we can’t even see the fortress sometimes, it is hidden. He is building a machine of war. He is in his library, studying us and laying his plans against us. The when we are depressed, sick, tired, weary, he sees his opportunity. The gate to the fortress lowers and his war machines come pouring out. He attacks us relentlessly and tries to pound us into submission, submission to his will.

Temptation is an ugly machine of war built by the enemy, but we have defenses that he cannot breach. We have powerful weapons with which we can use to counter attack. His walls are strong but God’s weapons can foil the enemy’s onslaught. We only need to ask for them. Oh we have the weapons but sometimes they feel like they are silent. Like the guns aren’t even loaded. God gives us the ammunition to load the guns and attack the enemy in full force and beat him back.

You know where the weapons are, they are in your faith with God. You can load the weapons. You can launch the counter attack. You have all of the firepower you will ever need and more. Take up your weapons. Advance your troops of faith. Win the war.

You can do it. Under God’s Umbrella.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (NIV) For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Something interesting happened today in response to yesterday’s Planning post. I was working with one of my patients and she was talking to me about her life. She has some serious physical difficulties and is going to be unable to return home. She became upset, tearful, and told me that the way her life was going was not how she had planned. How interesting is the timing of my meeting her?

She brought up exactly what I had been thinking yesterday. Sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned. In her case she had some medical problems and went to the facility in which I work to get better. She is working hard but her muscles just aren’t responding. Her insurance is likely to cut off her benefits in about 2 weeks. She can’t go home and so she will be going to an assisted living facility where she will have access to hands-on help when she has need. She is realizing that she is never going to have as much control over her own life as she once did. She is experiencing high anxiety because of her difficulties. She is retired and wanted to live her life traveling, working at her church, visiting with friends and family. None of that is going to happen. Things did not go according to her plan.

We talked for about an hour. She said she felt like she had drifted away from the Lord. She had stopped praying, was having trouble remembering what she read, and was trying to keep her faith but she felt like she just couldn’t hear God talking back to her anymore. The Armor of God came to my mind again like it did yesterday. She was familiar with the scripture and reached over to her Bible to find it. I was so happy to see her effort!

She was having so much growing anxiety that the noise in her head was drowning out God’s voice. I explained that His voice is still there, its just that the enemy was causing her to focus on the noise and not the truth. The truth I told her, is that God love her and wants to talk with her. He wants her to love Him even more, to use this challenge as a motivation to grow closer to Him than ever before. The truth is not in her difficulties, those are just temporary challenges that have been put in her path but they are mere bumps in the road are worldly. They are temporary.

God however is a different situation entirely. He is forever! The ultimate reward is to be with Him in true joy for all of eternity. I told her that the road bumps stay on this Earth when she passes. They will be gone. Completely, totally, utterly gone.

I told her that it is time for a new Plan. A Plan to use her challenges as a way to beat back the enemy and draw closer to God than ever before.

It is time for a new plan for all of us. Fight through the challenges we all face. Fight hard. Give the enemy a strong kick in the teeth. Rise above the noise. Focus your plan on living life more fully. Under God’s Umbrella.