Look Again

How we view a situation, changes a situation. It changes your response, how you view the people involved, and your attitude. My church, Church of the Highlands, is currently doing our biannual 21 Days of Prayer. We meet at 6 am every morning for 21 days to pray and seek the Lord for an hour. I live roughly 25 mins away from my campus. This means I have to be up by 4:40 am to get there on time, and if you know me, you know I LOVE sleep. I participated some in January during our last 21 Days of Prayer, but God really laid it on my heart to be at every meeting this time around.

Today was day 2. Last night I had to close at my job. We were SLAMMED with school starting back the next day, and we were horribly understaffed. I was the only cashier, and I had not felt good all day. We close at 9:00 pm. I finished checking out my last customer at 9:05 pm. I had a pile of go backs that seemed to be at least a mile high, I hadn’t gotten to finish putting away my hangars or hard tags, and the whole store was trashed. I knew we were going to be there for a while, and all I could think was “I have to be up at 4:40 am tomorrow.” I didn’t leave the store until 10:03 pm, and I have a 30 min drive home. The whole way home I kept hearing, “just sleep in and go again the next day. You can miss one day. It won’t kill you.” I didn’t listen to those thoughts. Instead, I set my alarm and prepared everything for the next morning. I awoke this morning in a half-conscious daze. I checked my phone. 5:16 am. I rubbed my eyes and checked again. 5:16 am. I needed to leave by 5:30 am. Every single instinct I had said to roll back over and give it another shot tomorrow. Instead, I leaped out of bed, got ready impressively fast, and was out the door.

At 21 Days of Prayer, there is always a devotional lead by one of our church leaders. Today, Mark Pettus lead a devo about Daniel praying for 21 days. He had not heard an answer back, but on the 21st day an angel came in response to his prayer. The angel told Daniel that God had heard his prayer from the very first day he began praying, but the angel had gotten tied up by some other spirits on his way to Daniel. (Daniel ch 10) Mark focused in on the fact that God has heard your prayers and the answer is on the way. God spoke to me specifically about the angel getting caught up by some other spirits causing interference. You see, I have been praying all summer asking God about my calling: where I need to go and when. Satan didn’t want me to hear the devotional Mark spoke on today. He didn’t want me to know or to realize that my answer is coming, but there is some spiritual interference in the way because once you know and realize what you're fighting, you can fight back a whole lot better.

When we begin to go through life realizing that Ephesians 6:17 (For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms) is true, we will become dangerous to the enemy. In the flesh, it would appear like I had just had a rough work day and bad luck waking up. In the spirit, I can now see that all those things were the work of the Devil trying to keep me away from a place where God could show me things, teach me things, and use me as a weapon. Don’t let the things going on around you steal what God has in store for you. Realize that that person causing you trouble is not who you’re fighting against, that situation you’re in has a bigger meaning behind it, and your reaction to the pressure can make all the difference. Satan always attacks when he feels threatened or scared that he’s losing ground. Stand firm and know that he wouldn’t be attacking you if there wasn’t something in store for you worth attacking.

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