Recognizing The Lies and Saving Your Relationships

Last week I talked about Spiritual Warfare.  Our family has been in the midst of warfare for 2 weeks now.  I so appreciate God allowing us to experience this with our eyes wide open.

I am going to share something with you that has happened a thousand times in 20 years of marriage and so I know that it will speak to some of you.  Mike and I were blessed with a date night, thanks to our oldest Allie.  She offered and we jumped at it.  All that day we had been fine, work went as usual for Mike and my day was busy but good.  He asked me where I wanted to go for dinner, I said that I didn’t care.  He said he didn’t either.  Seeing that one of us had to make some suggestion, I said that I would like to go to the little Mexican place in town.  Mike did everything he could to talk me out of that place so I said that again, I didn’t care where we went.  (I know you have been here, why does this happen?)

Anyway, he wouldn’t make up his mind but wanted me to and yet talked me out of the one place I did suggest.  So, up till here is just normal stuff, I suppose.  All of a sudden in my mind, I was this beat down wife who was never able to speak my own mind, who sacrificed everything for everyone with nothing in return.  O.K. well that is all a big fat lie! Where was all of that coming from.  I even had vindictive thoughts toward the love of my life.
 
Thankfully, the Lord opened my eyes and instead of becoming the victim of whatever was going on here.  I simply talked to Mike about what I thought was going on.  I said  “I think that Satan in lying to me”.   I explained all that has gone through my mind.  He agreed that I must be under attack but also admitted to being partly at fault. 

In the past I would have given in to the lies and pouted and ruined our night.  I am so glad that God helps us to grow and get stronger in our faith.  So, next time you feel beat down by someone or circumstances, reach out to the Lord and ask him to lead you through so that you can conquer those lies.  It seems like a daily occurrence for us, that we are seeking God to help us to be more than conquerors.
Rom 8:37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jeannie

Spiritual Warfare

From very small I was taught about the spiritual warfare.  My mom understood it and spoke about it in prayer or about different situations. 
I didn’t really have a very good understanding about what she meant until years later as an adult I read the book This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti.  This book gave me a visual, at least in my mind, of what the spiritual realm is about and how it can effect my life. 

Just recently I was reading Hinds' Feet on High Places [Illustratred] by Hannah Hurnard.  I started to read one version that was forwarded by Jars of Clay but I just got lost.  The book that I am now reading is the Illustrated version.(I am a visual person)  I started by just reading it to my children, but found it very interesting.  The book talks about things like fear and doubt as people.  It gave the spirit of fear a face and sort of opened my eyes a little more to the spiritual world around me. 

Now, I don’t see demons and things, I just see that the anger that may come out of nowhere in me or the unexplained fears that rise up in my children, are not just part of life.  They are a part of a life that we can not see, but affect us greatly.

The wonderful thing about all of this is that the part of Spiritual Warfare that I did understand as a child, was the fighting it part.  I was raised to know that, I as a believer, had power through the name of Jesus to get this evil out of my life. 

The demons shriek at just the name of Jesus. (I have not heard this sound.  I just read about it in the bible.)  If you say “In the name of Jesus, spirit of fear get out of here”  it has to leave you or the person you are praying for.  We see an example of Paul doing this in Acts 16:18.


I really recommend taking a look at these two books and researching from the word of God, to learn to understand the power that you have over things like fear, doubt and depression in your life and the lives of those in your family.

Jeannie