When we suddenly fall and find ourselves hurt physically, we are at first startled and then in total disbelieve that an accident could happen in a split second that would change our whole day or days ahead.
However, there is something far worse in the spirit that can happen and if not changed could lead you in a direction that the Lord did not intend for you to go down. In fact it seems to entrap you when you are overwhelmed with life. It seems to happen when you are struggling to just keep your head above water in some area of your life or on your job.
This happened to me with a new principal, new staff, new class, new demands. Suddenly you begin to think of former days when life seemed a little easier. Perhaps the pace of the school was easier and you begin to miss the people at the former school. Sounds o.k. doesn’t it. Then you think about the church you used to attend and the wonderful time you had teaching children. You start looking backwards instead of forwards and you begin doing it a lot. You begin to look at all the prayer journals you have written prayer after prayer in and wonder if your prayers will be answers. (Mind you that you are not at this point looking for all the beautiful answers God has already given you.)
Then you begin to begin to be disgruntled with where you are now. If anyone feeds your scenario you swish it around in your head again. It is like Satan takes a big wooden spoon and whirls the ideas around and around. You begin to feel you’d like to run in the opposite direction of anything you are currently doing. You become dissatisfied with the future and wish for the past. Your mind thinks you are on the right trek – your thinking of teaching Sunday School again. This in itself seems godly. You convince yourself your on the right path. So what if you leave everything you have worked for years and prayed for years. So what if you leave friends in ministry. Satan is there convincing you its alright you are thinking godly.
Satan knows he’s now got your undivided attention. He thinks he has won. In less than two weeks he has been the victor with half truths.
Before you know it you feel like you are swimming in the wrong direction with a 150 lb weight on you. You feel the loss of God. You try desperate to get back to before when all this started. How can you get back! How can you get out of the whirlpool of self thought that doesn’t seem to want to stop for a second. You pray, you plead to get back to God. You are trapped! Or so you think! You find out you have to walk away from the whirlpool but how. You say in the name of Jesus I walk away from you Satan, what you are saying is an absolute lie. You may hear him say – really!? You say it over and over and over again – in the name of Jesus I walk away from you Satan you are a liar. You read the word and you play all the anointed music you can get your hands on and just sit and listen. You open up the promises of God and claim every one you read. Finally you feel and having a knowing within you that you are free of the whirlpool. You had gone from walking with the Lord to a sudden free fall that could have you going somewhere you would not want to go. You thank God and ask God never to leave you. You pray this will never happen again because it’s far worse than a broken leg or a bump on the head. How could this have happened so suddenly! One moment walking with the Lord and the next week suddenly pushed to a path of backward self talk, free falling at a rapid speed, out of control. Suddenly caught in the arms of Jesus reversing the swim back to Him. Praying never to go that path ever again.
thedailylily.com 
Rena, Our hope is that what satan has meant for evil, God is turning to the good. As these perverse surmisings are exposed in a time of distress we thank God that you are able to identify them, see them for what they really are….a deception and a fraud. Just like Eve who had EVERYTHING in the world…literally!! who reigned with her husband over the glories of creation; who had need of nothing; who was created in a holy, pristine environment with all that her heart would or should ever desire. She was beautiful, skilled, talented, knowledgable, loved by God and had a legacy to leave to the human race. She was already in paradise. What else was there? But the enemy convinced her that she needed SOMETHING ELSE. Suddenly Paradise wasn’t good enough for her….the highest calling for a female, for a woman wasn’t enough. Satan does that to all of us. He entices us to think we know better than GOD what we need, want, should be doing. And though ths world we live in is far from Paradise, yet the true Christian, living according to the Word of God, praying, seeking, proclaiming, should conduct himself/herself as a citizen of the KINGDOM…the Paradise of GOD.
But we are not ignorant of the wiles of the devil and thank God you found out in time. As the world grows madder and colder and sadder and older, this kind of pressure will be put upon God’s saints. But He will not allow you to be tempted above what you can endure and will make a way for you to overcome. And when you do, the peaceable fruits of righteousness will abound in your life. He will give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. When the victory is complete, the angels and your brothers & sisters in Christ will shout for joy. Way to go, Rena! Like the Lord told Peter, “when you have overcome, go, strenthen your brothers!” AMEN
I would like to say above all else,”Rena, I am so sorry that you have suffered but rejoice that you have overcome.” The scripture full of Hope that comes to my mind from a man that knew this suffering well, the apostle, St. Paul: 2 Corinthians 4:8 (New Living Translation) “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.”
I think Rena’s blog helps show us the importance of heeding the advice in Sara’s blog “What do you think?” from Oct 25. Destructive thoughts are seeds that can find root so quickly if we allow them entrance to our minds where they then can fall on ground and have conditions that nourture them.
And following the scripture in Sara’s blog from Phillipians 4:8 on what thoughts we should think on, Paul reminds us of the lesson of not looking back to yesterday …”but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil 3:12 NIV
And I think he models an attitude that he had to learn that can help us stay on a path of spiritual health…”for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content…” Phil 4:11 NKJ
If it be any modicum of comfort I have heard similar stories from a couple of other teachers, recently. The field has become quite difficult to navigate, true, but praise God that we have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to constantly pull us back into sanity that the helmet of Salvation affords us. I agree with Sara, Rena. We rejoice in your victory. When one part of the BODY suffers all the members suffer. When one member of the body rejoices in victory, we all rejoice in the victory.
And in rejoicing also for you Rena, I give God thanks that though the ‘free fall’ , God was your refuge and His everlasting arms were there underneath to catch you as is written in Deuteronomy 33:27. And that He brought you up out of that whirlpool. The Psalmist David must have experienced a horrible pit, but rejoiced also when God heard his cry and brought him up out of it and set him on the Rock. (Psalm 40:2)
MG mentions she has heard stories from others of similar situations. It would be nice to hear from others their stories. We can read and hear but when one tells their own story it has such deep meaning for others. I think it is very helpful for us to share our personal stories.
Rena, in reading the struggling you were going through it sounds like you allowed the mind to wonder into territory you knew to be unhealthy. Did you? In reading the scripture below it says God has given us the power of self-discipline. Therefore, my question would be did you have control over these thoughts or were they coming full force without any control of your ability as far as you could tell?
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (II Timothy 1:7, NLT)
It felt like everything was dumped on me and it took everything to come to the surface again to see God was still there. Usually there would be one thing at a time and you would stand and say NO WAY in Jesus name GO. This time it seemed everything came and half truths were confusing. NEVER want to go there again or for it to happen again!
I guess when Satan comes to you with half truths you better tell him, You might think I’m not doing much, but LITTLE IS MUCH WHEN GOD IS IN IT, I’ll not look back, but look forward to what GOD can do.
I suppose when we start looking around us and thinking that our efforts for the Lord are puny compared to the pastor or the prophet or the apostle
we become frustrated, thinking we should be doing more and esteeming ourselves more highly than we ought. The hidden intercessor of the Lord is one of the highest callings in the Kingdom of God. For that is what Jesus was and is…ever making intercession for us at the Throne of God. The intercessor is the big sword of the Body of Christ, with the Word of God, in the Spirit iand is totally awsome, a real threat to the enemy and a terror for the devil to be dealt with.
LOVE IS NEVER TOUCHY,FRETFUL or RESENTFU. When we see ourselves getting that way, it is a signal that the enemy has us in his sights and that we must do what the the Bible says and that Sara mentions above…self-discipline. Instead of giving in to the enemy we gird up our loins against the spirit of fear. This is for every person who works in God’s Kingdom.
I just read a “joke” that tells about visitors to a monastery on a high mountain have to be taken up in a basket drawn up by monks at the top of the mountain. When one visitor in the basket noticed that one of the ropes holding the basket was frayed, he asked nervously of the monk accompanying him up the mountain…..’when do you change the ropes?’
The monk replied…’whenever it breaks!”
I thought immediately that that was a good lesson for us. Why wait till the rope breaks? When we see it frayed, when we see it worn, when we see it starting to unravel…..WE CHANGE IT !