We are living in a world at war, currently situated in enemy occupied territory. Has he noticed?

This has been one of the most intense weeks spiritually ever in my life. I have been constantly bombarded by lies and deception and temptation. And i reacted with stress, anger, bitterness, and cynicism towards people that I love greatly, and could never imagine treating the way i did. And for that I want to tell you all that I am deeply sorry for my actions the past couple of weeks, and pray that you will forgive me for wronging you.

God has been steadfast with me, and was undoubtedly carrying my sorry sack of bones (which he greatly values) through the past week. I believe full well that if God wasn't watching out for me, that i would be dead right now. My life right now is in a position of great authority to speak into people's lives for the Kingdom and Glory of God our perfect maker, and frankly... the Enemy is pissed. He has been trying so hard to destroy my life, to destroy relationships, to damage trust, to have me "dragged away and enticed" as it says evil does to us in the book of James. He has tried throwing so much at me and under no circumstance am I, as a spiritual being, strong enough to withstand that assault. Only by the overpowering grace of God am I alive right now to share how GOOD He is, and hope that this serves as a testimony to that grace I was shown.

So far the school year has been really good. For the most part I love my classes, and the professors are exponentially better than mine last year. It is as if these professors were not simply found on a street corner and offered a job, but were bred for this very purpose! As far as the course load goes, it is much lighter this term than first year was. I don't have 35+ hours of assignments to do EVERY WEEK. But somehow, the devil was able to convince my mind that I don't have it 'under control', and must stress about my state of being. Even as i talk about it, i feel the weight trying to retake the ground which has since been reclaimed. This wasn't JUST stress, it was an entire state of being. A state of total and utter confusion, and doubt, and worry, and then unbelievable stress ontop of that. My mind felt like exploding at the best of times. This ongoing onslaught of evil against my life caused me to stumble, and I became something that I am not. I became a person who was prideful and snobbish, who made snarky comments to wonderful people in my life who deserved none of it. Honestly i had a lot of anger and resentment towards people, and seemed to just be jaded and bitter about anything and everything that was happening. A friend would make a comment about their life's struggles, and immediately i would be thinking "Well of course your life is like that!! You're not trying very hard" and the accusations were just flowing into my mind. I don't think those things! I don't judge people, or hold grudges!! It's just NOT who I AM. But it was everything that I in essence became the past week. As Paul said in Romans 7

"For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do... I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out... Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it... What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! "

Not I, but the sin living in me? That's an interesting perspective! So I kept giving it all over to God, and praying for strength, and praying for a breakthrough. For hope. For that glimpse of light at the end of this impossibly long and dark tunnel.

As I was standing in church on sunday worshipping, I was asking God for an encouraging word, and to place a scripture on my heart. Preferably something that I wasn't familiar with (although knowing a scripture intimately is a powerful thing as well!) on one hand to help me know that this is God speaking to me when the verse matches up perfectly, and isn't just my mind making it all up. However as i JUST mentioned, having scripture 'written on the tablet of our heart' is another way that we allow the Spirit to minister to us, is by having that arsenal of Scripture on the edge of our mind that it can then use to encourage, rebuke, and instruct with at all times. So i was asking God "What verse would you have me read?" "2 Peter" "Okay, which chapter?" "Three." *turns in my Bible* "And which verse(s) in that chapter?" "*silence*" Okay so He wanted me to read all of 2 Peter 3, that I can do. So I sat and started reading....

"Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking." Wow! Wholesome thinking. This is exactly what i needed to hear right now with all the other thoughts that are very much unwholesome being shoved into my brain at the moment.

"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." So that's another reason He hasn't come back yet, is that the LORD is still waiting for more to turn in true repentance, I get it. In God's perfect will I think that we all would be one with Him and everyone would gain that eternal life. But of course, our free will let us choose which faction to back. "Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed." ( John 3:19-20)
We cannot blame God for our condemnation. "For the wages of sin is death". We actually EARN death. We work towards death through committing sin, just as we work towards holiday time, or a paycheck with a career. Luckily for us, that verse has a part b, "but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." So where does that leave us? Back to 2 Peter 3.

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming."

So by living godly lives, we are taking the portion of Christ given to us, and living that to the world. In doing so we further the kingdom of God, and as this verse tells us, we speed His return!! The Invasion of this enemy-occupied territory. Hooah.

"So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him."

"Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen." Beautiful.

During this same time of worship, Hebrews 12 was also placed into my mind as a passage to meditate on. I'll highlight some key phrases that i took from this passage.

"let us throw off everything that hinders... and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross...
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

Jesus was thinking about you when he was tortured and beaten to a pulp. He thought about you when he carried his cross towards Golgotha where he was to be executed for, in essence and actuality, YOUR SINS. And when that Roman officer put those nails through the wrists of this man Jesus, all that was on Jesus' mind was doing His Father's will by taking on our iniquities, our punishment. And he faced that all with JOY?? Like, looking at my life, do I have joy? Do i honestly and sincerely radiate the hope of Jesus Christ through the joy-fruit in my life? Why not? Jesus faced all that for us, and He could do it because of the joy set before Him. I think we need a little of that in our lives! In Nehemiah it says that "the joy of the LORD is your strength!". How beautiful is that? How much more beautiful would it be to see that in action? To be living my life with the joy of the Lord as my day to day and moment to moment strength. It says to 'consider Christ who faced such opposition' and to therefore 'not grow weary and lose heart'. Keep pressing on. Through the battle. Through the Valley of the shadow of death. Don't lose heart! Christ has been here before. He has experienced it, and he can guide us through it now.


So I was trying to live every day this week, focussing on jesus, fixing my eyes on Him and 'making every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.' What a battle. And it was one that I feel Christ did 99% of the fighting during. I tried praying against it, but my mind was so clouded and confused that it was a challenge to piece together effective prayers. So i tried praying against the cloudiness then, and it worked temporarily, but soon the next wave of enemies was upon me. At many time it felt like a losing battle from my point of view... I thank God that Jesus didn't feel the same way about it!

So then yesterday I was in a computer lab at school working on an assignment, still feeling this overwhelming pressure, and i began to lose my breath. The heavy weight on my chest was an immediate indicator of the evil [still] present, and when it became that hard to draw breath i knew that something much greater than me being stressed was afoot. Then my heart began beating really really hard, and it hurt as it beat. It started beating irregularly it seemed, not in its slow steady syncopated rhythm as usual, but erratically and off-beat, which was mostly annoying to the obsessive-compulsive side of me =p. I thought i was experiencing some degree of massive cardiac trouble, and definitely considered going to get medical assistance. The incredible chest pains around my heart signified in some way the battle going on over it at that moment, and i began to cry out to God to be my defender in that moment of vulnerability. I knew that Christ would have victory in that battle, and that the pain and distress of the moment would dissipate when the evil spirit was gone... but i didn't know how long that would be. I actually thought that i was about to physically die. Right there in the ETLC. What a sad place to die (The Engineering Teaching and Learning Complex) hahaha. But I also had this very real idea that if the evil attacking me were to kill me, that Christ could just as easily bring me straight back to life. So I was praying that others would be interceding for me at that moment, so that triumph would arrive!

[I also decided to skip walking to the ER because i didn't want to wait for hours in the waiting room, and would rather go home early and die there if i really had to hahaha. Just being honest here! ER's are not something i want to regularly partake in =p]

So I felt Christ intervene and I felt that freedom and renewal of body, mind, heart, and spirit all come upon me. And that feeling has been coming more to fruition over the past day as i continue to just run after God, and seek Him with all that I am. It has been incredible. Relieving. Freeing. Encouraging. And a huge step ... nono, many huge steps towards the man of God that i so yearn to be.

By the way, Mere Christianity - CS Lewis, is incredible. We're studying it in my Tuesday night Bible study (to differentiate it from the other 3 studies i'm a part of right now haha), and today on my breaks i was reading far ahead of where we have gotten to during that time. It was so intruiging i just had to keep reading. Anyways, my next post will be thoughts from that. Today one chapter in particular blew me away (see ---> http://www.philosophyforlife.com/mc09.htm ). You can read this chapter (and the book in its entirety) on this website!


So all this to say. Carey's back.
And I'm better than ever thanks to my buddy, J.C.
Cheers Ya'll.