the gospel according to luke(skywalker)....

as sacrilegious as that title may sound to some, it certainly sums up my thoughts the last month or so.

spiritual warfare...God vs satan... good vs evil....luke vs darth vader.

simply put: there is a war waging here on earth...the king of this world is battling for souls that belong to the King Eternal. this worldly king with a little k hates you. he wants to destroy you and steal from you. he wants to rob you of all joy and peace and loves to see you suffer and wallow and ache. this little k king loves nothing more than to see you doubt and question the big k King and would love to see you denounce His lordship over you....once and for all, or even in the small moments of the days and weeks of your life...

if you call Christ your King, then your battle has already been won. He fought it for you on a tree long ago and while the Victory is His, he bestows it upon you if you accept it, to share with you and betroth it to you as His gift and symbol of love for you....ahhhh, exhale. release. no more fear or fighting? WRONG.

it seems to me over the last year or so, i have come to realize that some of us, me included, have thought as long as we have the big k King in our corner, then we are set. fold hands neatly in lap, sit back and obey and be still and trust....we are protected, we are covered. praying, fasting, trusting...going to church, tithing, attending bible studies and serving...trying to grow more into the image of Christ, grow our faith and fight the good fight...right?

yes. and no. yes, the battle has been fought and won for the prize of our eternal Home, but this little h home right now here on earth is ruled by the little k king. God has allowed it to be so. we will fight this enemy here on earth to maintain our eternal focus, our promise of Hope and finding joy in all things. the enemy will distract us, he will deceive us and he will try in all the power given to him by the authority of the big k King to take our eyes off the Banner, the Cross and our Jesus. the enemy wants to make you forget that you are redeemed. the enemy wants to fill your heart with doubt and fear, envy and jealousy, bitterness and anger and selfish desires....all the things opposite of that which the Holy Spirit offers to fill you with....the fruits of the spirit....love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

and as long as we allow the enemy to have that influence over our minds, we will let the dark side win...now, he won't win our salvation. that is sealed with THE blood, but he will win our days and our nights and our relationships and our witness and our mission and our purpose. he will have victory on this earth if we continue to give him the key or password to our mind. he will win over seasons where God could have turned ashes into jewels, when we gave in and gave up instead, convinced there was no hope.

when we let this dark side win, whether in seasons of our lives or even day to day, our dark side comes out, our hearts become ugly and hard. we are born into sin. we are born into a fallen world. and on our own, apart from Christ, we will always be on the dark side, of the dark side and live the dark side life. one full of doubt, despair, worry, fear, regret, pity, anger, bitterness, envy and hatred, full of selfish desires and pleasure seeking. Christ did not come to sacrifice His life for ours so that we would live that way. we waste His gift when we chose those other things over His promises, we waste our life and mission here on this earth when we let those dark side things rule our world instead of Truth.

all of that to say, is that i have lived too long letting my dark side control me and my heart somedays. i am preaching to the choir of one, me. i have experienced deep depression again in the months following the lost of our third child..i have struggled with wondering if our family will ever have hope again for another little one..i have tired of hearing liam somedays tell me that he wants a real baby instead of two angel babies..i have been overwhelmed with the story of matt and found hope in his story but struggled with saying goodbye to yet another little one so soon....i give in to fear and self pity and began to believe the lies that the enemy feeds me...totally forgetting TRUTH and even the times i do remember it, i ironically push it aside on my plate for later, because this other feeling is more intense right now so it must be real. even though it is not a real or rational thought, somedays i chose to believe that crap over what i know to be True.

somedays i give into the dark side of me ... my impatience comes out on my husband or my son in the form of anger or being short. my worry and fear of feeling abandoned by God sometimes comes out in my whining or complaining and being negative. my envy and jealousy towards others and seeing them "prosper and multiply" while i keep losing children can make my heart bitter and hard in seconds...without me having to give it any thought, this dark side mentality can come out and take over my mind and make me feel so defeated and despaired...so left alone and overlooked...so full of self-pity and sorrow...and then i remind myself of what we have been through, what we have lost and i begin to think, well i AM justified, right?. i feel this way because of what has happened to me, the circumstances have made me this way? WRONG, big ole' fat NO. my reactions and giving into the dark-sided-enemy-led-boot-camp in my mind has tricked me into thinking i am forever doomed to live a life with my heart feeling this way and that way. nevermind the fact that i am a child of God and i have an instant defender on my side. too often i forget or get distracted about a compassionate Deliverer that is standing ready to not only take my mind to a place of peace but also stands ready to help prevent me from even going to the dark side in the first place....and most of all He promises me that one day, there will come a day when there will be no pain, ever, again... that one day, because of His grace, i will step into an eternity, a redeemed world and restored earth...and the healing will be complete.

our pastor told us once in a message that those people who keep feeling downtrodden and full of self loathing pity (all of us at some point in life, right?) and hate on themselves all the time actually have a problem with pride. sounds like an oxymoron, right? prideful selfpity? if we just sit there and complain that we are always weak and "i am always going to be weak and my life sucks so what's the point? i am going to keep messing up anyway, so i will just stay stuck in this apathy"....WE actually act like we are WAY too MUCH of a mess for GOD to be able to save or handle. we actually think that God's grace is good but can't possibly cover us THAT much... which basically tells God that you have so much pride in your sin, that you aren't willing to be humbled to see that you NEED a savior to get out of it, the One who stands ready to save...

you know that person who you ask, "what's wrong or how can i help you?" and they answer, "oh i am fine" in a mopey voice and shrugged shoulders....showing clearly with their body language that they are NOT fine...acting as if THEIR problem is not fixable, it is too HUGE to even talk about it....we do that to God. we can sinfully sit in our pity and fear and hold it like a proud medal and flash it in His face, as to say...."here it is, God. but i am SURE even YOU can't fix it.".. why do we do that? haven't we all done that at some point in our lives? because the enemy deceives us into thinking that our problems are permanent and we will never be saved of them. we become enslaved to these negative thoughts and we serve those better than we serve our big k King. we feed those dangerous, irrational thoughts with more lies and irrational thoughts than we feed our soul with Truth...we listen to those voices in our heads more than we listen to God...and yes, painfully, underneath that sits pride.

enter, war of words and john piper. and God's grace.

john piper did a message, HERE, on the benefits and NEED of memorizing scripture. it was amazing. i was told it was amazing but didn't know i needed to hear the exact message until after it knocked me upside the head with conviction. it is so important that we "get" what john piper is telling us, but not only get it, but apply it...so that we can manage and combat the dark side moments. notice how i said manage and not conquer? i think pride comes into play again when we think we can conquer anything here on earth....we can't. we won't be truly victorious over sin until heaven comes to earth...until then, it's about managing it. combating it with Truth. where can we find that in a form we can study and cram into our pea size brains for battle and armor? certainly not in people magazine (for which i am guilty of loving the mindless distraction sometimes), not in a gym or a relationship with another person who can tangibly make us feel good...because we all known that we will always let each other down because we are imperfect. the only unconditional, pure and tried and true agent for fighting the little k king is in God's word.....His guide for survival here in this world where the little k king rules and steals and destroys daily. we cram for tests, we follow recipes, we research consumer reports, we memorize combinations to safes and we study driving directions for travel..we have the capacity to store up information, so why don't we store up an arsenal in our mind to prepare for those dark side moments? why don't i protect myself and my mind better?

war of words is a book that we just finished in our bible study home group. the basic premise of the book is that our words and actions are ultimately serving as PR or spokesperson for our heart. out of the outflow of our mouth comes our heart. so if we want our behavior to "be" better, our reactions to things "react" healthier, than we must always look at the heart first and foremost. this lesson was a really intense one for all of us in the group...for our marriages, our friendships and families and for how we raise our kids...it was really convicting but also moved us from a place of conviction to a place of wanting to break the cycle we see ourselves in day to day...giving in to our feelings and our false thoughts...and overriding them with truth.

garbage in, garbage out. i had heard that before but never before has it taken rest in my heart. if i am whining and complaining about how many babies i have lost or how an urn doesn't warm my arms or how much money we don't have or how ugly i feel, than i am pretty much showing how insecure my heart is at trusting God with His will for my life...telling Him, that His plan for me is not good enough and i deserve better....do i really talk to the Creator of ALL things like that? do i turn my nose up at my Savior who gave me a second chance when i deserved nada? you bet i do...sadly, i do. because i let the dark side win sometimes and i forget that the Light(saber) i have on my side, and within me, the Holy One who is ready to arm me with His strength and His wisdom and His power is mighty to save me, even in those little moments...that i can chose to call on Him to save me from myself over and over, all day, every minute if i need it....and i need it....because i know desperately that i need THee every hour or i am doomed to live the dark side of life that comes out with my human nature...i can sit in that gloom all day, all week sometimes..months even..totally forgetting or ignoring that God is standing in my corner and ready and willing to pull me back to the Light.

i have never really "loved" christian music. there have been some artists and songs that have won me over in the past, especially when i worked with youth and helped lead worship but i am such a prideful music snob and love quality bass lines and riffs and melodies that mostly are found in classic rock or oldies that most of christian music has me left wanting more and accusing them of cheesieness. that was until, lately when i really have needed to fill my mind with Truth to combat the dark side, the thoughts that the enemy plants in my head that can turn my days upside down. i started turning on the radio station to worship music while i am cleaning or cooking or driving...praying that my mind would be filled with things from above and that those things would scream louder than the dark side part in times of worry or doubt. funny how God works, because now that i crave those words and encouragement, the music seems to be in the background and the words are what i am listening to and i don't mind the cheesy melodies as much (c'mon, there are still some cheesy melodies)...my desires are becoming more like His desires so i am loving anytime when i can hear Him encouraging me through song, any song..even if it's not fleetwood mac or van morrison or ben harper. His words, His message are what is important and what i need to combat my daily routine of struggling with self. not that secular music is bad, well some of it is bad because it is filthy, other stuff is bad because it just plain ain't good....but a lot of it is as equally inspiring and uplifting as worship music...it just seems right now i need a constant battering of Truth found in worship to keep my mind afloat and not sink to the bottom of pity land. that's because worship music is created and written mostly influenced if not directly from scripture....it is good for me to get one of those songs stuck in my head (especially liam's little head) where i am repeating scripture over and over throughout my day...it arms me with truth to remember when i feel pride or anger or selfishness start creeping in....i can't conquer it but i am so much more aware of it when i have the mirror of the Cross to compare it next to...

i could sit in my sad world of no sydney and missing joybaby (liam named the last baby that today) and be angry and pitiful...i could let my envy of other women getting pregnant every second (believe me, facebook lets me know!) around me totally envelope me and rue inside...if i don't run, run, run back to the Cross and claim God's Promises then i will believe the lies the enemy tells me...the ones where he tells me it's a reproductive race and that i am in dead last...the ones where he tells me my body sucks at making children and i am of no worth as a woman...the ones where he tells me that any and every mistake i have made in my lifetime is why i deserve such sorrow in my family...the lies where i am convinced that i am the ONLY one who knows this pain ( i am clearly not) and that no one could possibly ache like i do.(yes, they do, i have cried with them)..the lies that God has abandoned me in my suffering, that my God caused me this pain on purpose, the lies that life will always hurt like this.....

ALL lies....

fear and doubt take root like a huge oak and start to spread to feed other things like worry and jealousy and envy and self-pity....satan waters my soul with his filth which feeds my ugly human nature to come out in full bloom...i am trying not to make a cheesy analogy about the Living water being the only water we should feed our soul with but it is true. if we get lazy or apathetic about what we put in our minds to protect us from believing the lies the enemy feeds us, than we are not prepared, we are not strong enough in Him to defeat the little k king of this world. nevermind that so many in this world worship that little k king in their hearts purposely anyway, always luring us to come see how the grass might be greener on the other side where people don't have to "follow the rules" like we do if belong to God. it's hard to "follow the rules" and abide in His ways and Love His laws, because even doing so doesn't promise us an absence of sorrow or suffering, it doesn't free us from the toll this world here can take on our heart, but it can help us to stay focused on Him and doing that first leads to blessings for sure and at the very most, He is glorified instead of us ...His ways, they are for our very good, for our own well-being and growth....and we are blessed beyond our knowing when we love His laws in our heart...

all of this to say, that i am fully and painfully aware now more than ever that i have an enemy who is against me. it is not my husband when we fight, it is not my child when i run out of patience with him, it is not my friend for whom i am jealous of for a day because her belly is growing with life inside it while mine instead just grows with rocky road...it is not the woman at the checkout counter that was rude to me and made me feel stupid or the person who made me doubt myself and made me cry because of hurtful words...the enemy is the little k king and he is always looking for ways to distort minds, kill Hope, destroy relationships and devour our spirit of peace that we find in God's love.

the minute i start feeling these dark-side thoughts eek into my brain lately, i am more than aware that it is the enemy on the prowl and i replace that thought with a verse outloud or a song or a prayer, even a prayer of thanksgiving because that is an antidote to worry for sure...as for me and the enemy, it's like a lightsaber war going on in my head..."really, satan-you are going to tell me that or this? really, because i am pretty sure God's taking care of that, or God loves me and His grace covers this or that..or He will heal this or that." i feel more prepared for the little moments when i am beginning to give into lies of awful body image or broken relationship status' or dashed dreams and hopes because i am constantly claiming that my big k King has it covered.....i am aware that i have to feed my mind with positive uplifting Truth that brings Hope, because there is a little k king sitting in the wings waiting to pounce on that with insecurity, worry, fear, revenge, regret and more....those dreadful things DO NOT come from the Lord. i am aware that i have to surround myself with people who encourage me, support me, and hold me accountable to all this i have spewed, to make sure i walk my talk and keep my head in the game and my eye on the ball.

i am weak, even weaker since losing a part of my heart to heaven, twice...i am vulnerable and open-wounded. the enemy can have a field day with that. ironically, it also makes me a great candidate for brokenness which in turn is always reminding me of my desperate need for a Deliverer and Savior and Rock. and if i am being honest, which i painfully always try to be, i will fall prey to the first most times....i am praying that the more i fill my mind and feed my soul with the ever sustainable unending Grace that comes when i chose God's Truth, that i will have far less temptation to believe the enemy and choose Truth instead...