Where Are You Most Vulnerable to Satan's Attack?

We have an awesome Men's Ministry at our [old] church.  (I have to start clarifying...because if everything goes as planned this coming Sunday will be our last Sunday there.)  We typically have a monthly 4M (Men, Meat, Message, Movie) night with anywhere from 15-30 guys.  I attended last night's 4M and the message was on the armor of God.  They're having an Advance (because we don't want to be retreating in our Christian life, we should be advancing) in November where they will be talking about individual pieces of the armor of God, so last night was just a generic discussion of the armor, or more specifically of the Christian life as a battle (one of my favorite metaphors for the Christian life, by the way).

Pastor Jeff led the discussion with several questions and most of it was just "hoohaa, I've heard this before, now I actually have to work to try to figure out how to apply it....." type stuff (if you've been in the church for anything close to a long time you probably know what I mean).  However, there was one question that really stuck out to me and grabbed me.  Jeff asked "Where are you most vulnerable to Satan's attack?  Where does he most often strike you and where do you most often fall?"  This is a question I've heard before thought about many times, but he put the question so directly that it really hit me.  I thought of it another way "What thing(s) in my life keep(s) me from obeying direct commands from God?  What ways does Satan tempt me so that when I have a decision for right or for wrong I will choose wrong?"  This is a great question to ask yourself as well.  What is it in your life?  (feel free to comment)

As soon as he asked, I knew my answer.  My biggest area of weakness (and she knows this and I think would be comfortable with me sharing it) is Dana.  And no, its not what you are all now thinking.  Yes, sexual sin is a weakness for any man, especially an engaged one, but that's not my biggest struggle.  My biggest struggle is when there's something that I think/know that God wants me to do but I also think/know (although in my mind I always KNOW it for a fact) that Dana would not be a fan.  I don't have any specific examples, typically they're too embarrassing to share...because when it actually comes around to it and I admit it out loud I realize that Dana wouldn't have cared one way or another and I was actually being very childish.  But it happens with enough regularity that I would consider it my weakest point.  But its not just with Dana, its with others as well.  I just have this tendency to fear what others think (or so I always thought).  But as I tried to articulate this to the men last night, I realized that that's not what it is at all.  Because the fact of the matter is, I don't really give a hoot about what others think of me.  I mean, to a certain extent any one of us likes to be liked, but when people fawn over me or tell me how great I am, it actually irritates me, but when people correct me or say things they dislike about me it is actually invigorating to a certain extent (not in a weird type of "I like to be hated" way, but in the sense that I like when people see that I'm humanly imperfect).

So as I grasped for words last night to explain this, to make sense of why I am so vulnerable in this type of decision making, it all of a sudden hit me.  It's not that I care what they think, its that I care what I think!  Its that, in my mind, I have created my perceived role in the situation and I must live up to that role, otherwise I feel that in some way I have failed.  And for the most part, this is actually a strength of mine!  It causes me to be self-motivated, it actually helps me make difficult decisions that may offend people, it causes me to be relentless in pursuing my calling, but it creates a problem when my view of my role is not God's view of my role, or even worse, when I think that it is my job to be God!  Ultimately, for me, it comes down to a pride thing.  At times I think that I have to do XY and Z, not because I really do, but because in my mind I am the only one who can do it, or because in my mind I need to do it or I will be disappointed in myself.  And now that I realize this, I feel like it is very freeing, very liberating.  Because, before, if I felt like God had something for me to do that interfered with my idea of what I needed to be/do for Dana, I would cave to my preconceived view of my role instead of to God's desire.  And in my mind I justified it by saying that this is what Dana needs.  But now, when such a situation arises I can ask "Is this really what Dana needs, or is this what I think Dana needs but in reality God (and possibly even Dana) see the situation differently?"

I thank God for this question that was asked last night that helped me to realize these things.  I thank God for our Ministry to Men at church that gave the platform for me to think about and voice these thoughts in my head.  And I thank God for Dana and all of the rest of you that put up with me when I try to be God for you instead of submitting to His will and design for our relationships.

Now I would challenge you to ask yourself, "Where am I most vulnerable to Satan's attacks?"...

Weed Control - Thoughts on Strongholds

Yesterday I was working in my flowerbed (for about 10 hours…) and came up with an illustration.  I wrote it out for Dana and thought I would share it here.

So, yesterday as I was working, I came up with an illustration of what a stronghold is.  I don’t know how well this will work writing it out, I feel like I talk better than I write…  But anyways, so I was actually working through the dirt, under the surface, which a lot of gardeners don’t do, and like, you come across these clumps of roots, and from experience I know what roots belong to different plants.  So, I know which are the good ones and which are the bad ones, and one reason that my flowerbed is so weedless is because when I’m working in the dirt I ALWAYS pick out the bad roots and toss them.  But then I got towards the back of the flowerbed, where I don’t work as often, and some of the roots were really thick, so I pulled out the clumps, but there were still bits of roots left.  So this is what I realized.

Sometimes there’s things that take root, through a little seed here or a little plant there, and it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.  Some things get pulled out, but others get left.  At first, we barely notice, but then it starts to not look that good so we start to pull the weeds (the things above the surface that are noticeable).  What we don’t realize, though, is that under the surface there are roots forming, and so it seems that while we’re pulling so many weeds, the more we pull the more that come up.  And so, what we need is to have the dirt completely turned over, to have what’s inside revealed, and pick through keeping the good and tossing the bad.  And what I realized is that those roots that build up over time are like strongholds, and we can have divine strongholds and evil strongholds.  They start with an unchecked thought here, or a bad attitude there, and then they become a way of thinking, they become ingrained, and if they go unchecked they will soon take root and create a clump, so that when one little weed is pulled it doesn’t even begin to reach the problem.  Once the stronghold is established, then, it’s not enough to turn the surface and pull out the roots, because there are so many little pieces of it that we can’t possibly get it all out at once, so what it takes is the removal of as much as possible, and then every time a weed appears we must once again turn the surface, look inside, and find the root of it, pulling out as much as possible, and with much care and precision and work, overtime the stronghold will disappear.

Another side to it is that when there are good roots put in a place where the bad ones are being pulled out, they choke out the bad.  So if we are careful to add good in the places where we are pulling out the bad, while also pulling out the bad, we will create strongholds of good thoughts and attitudes.

This should be our desire in working with children.  We should be quick to point out to them, not their wrong actions or behaviors, but instead their wrong ways of thinking and feeling.  If we were to get less annoyed with their unsightly weeds and instead be more concerned with their wrong beliefs and attitudes we would be much more loving, caring, and nurturing in the way that we treat them, much more understanding when they do wrong, and see much more fruit in their growth.  We should become less concerned about weed control (controlling the actions) and much more concerned with root control (changing beliefs and attitudes, pulling out the harmful and planting the good) so that our children (and us) may become places of divine strongholds in our thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs, and then when the summer comes and the plants are all up, we will see the fruit of the Spirit rather than the fruit of the flesh and we will be able to use our time to harvest rather than constantly tiring ourselves in the useless and fruitless pulling of weeds.