THE ENEMY CAN GET US TO DEFEAT OURSELVES !!

Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." – Galatians 5:16 (KJV)

Sometimes the greatest spiritual battle we will ever fight isn't against what someone did to us. It's against what rises up inside us because of what they did: the urge to retaliate, the desire to defend ourselves, the temptation to give someone a taste of their own medicine, the need to have the last word. Sometimes the enemy doesn't need to destroy our faith. He only needs to provoke our flesh long enough for us to forget who we belong to. The enemy knows that if he can control our reaction, he can distract us from our calling.

This is something I struggle with too.....especially as I am getting older it is harder for me to let go, and I see that I need to go back to surrender. There is a kind of strength that doesn’t look like fighting back, and it’s the one we need : one that looks like a woman on her knees when everything inside her wants to stand up swinging, one that looks like choosing prayer when our flesh is begging for revenge, holding our tongue when we have every reason to speak and trusting God to handle what our hands were never meant to carry.

Not every accusation needs our defense, and we don’t have to respond to every offense...some battles just aren’t worth giving up our peace for. Jesus was falsely accused, mocked, betrayed and wounded, yet He never allowed the cruelty of others to change the holiness of who He was.

We can be mistreated without turning bitter, misunderstood without getting defensive, and hurt without becoming cruel. We can even walk away and still keep every bit of the strength God has put in us.

Sometimes the powerful thing we can do is lay the sword down that one we were never supposed to pick up, and let God fight the battle we were never meant to fight alone. The enemy wants a reaction but God wants our surrender. When we choose Spirit over our flesh, we say our emotions are not our master, our circumstances are not our authority, and our peace is not up for negotiation.

So before we respond, let us pray, before we retaliate, let us surrender and when anger wants to speak, let’s remember whose Spirit lives in us. We don’t have to prove how strong we are by fighting every battle.

Sometimes victory is refusing to become what tried to hurt us!!

ny heart is still not right

A Cake, a Smudge, and My Heart

Something happened this week that I want to share, because God used it to show me something.

I was icing a cake to celebrate my husband’s PhD. I’d been on my feet for hours. The house still had to be cleaned for today’s prayer meeting, and the list of jobs felt endless. I didn’t have a box for the cake, so I asked him to help me with it. While he was helping, his hand touched the icing.

And I lost it. I got really angry and shouted at him, over a cake that was meant to celebrate him.

Afterwards I felt awful. Then I read a devotional by Paul Tripp on Genesis 3, and it described me exactly:

I spoke as if I were in charge. In that moment it was all about my plan, my effort, my perfect cake. I wasn’t speaking as someone under God’s authority.

I believed a lie. I was completely sure I had a right to be angry. The truth is the tiredness and the pressure were already in me. His hand just touched the icing and they came out.

I blamed. Like Adam pointing at Eve, I made it his fault, when the real problem was my own heart.

What stayed with me most: our war of words isn’t with other people. It’s a battle in our own hearts. The smudge didn’t make me angry. It showed what was already there.

The good news is that God’s grace is enough for me, and His power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Cor 12:9). I’ve confessed it to God and to my husband, and I’m grateful that in Christ there’s forgiveness and a fresh start.

So this is my prayer: Lord, guard my words, especially when I’m tired and stretched.

Maybe some of you have had a “cake moment” too 😊 Let’s pray for each other 💛