Above the Clouds

The Lord gave me an opportunity to get away for two days this week and do a work/training trip to Raleigh, NC. When I left this morning it was a beautiful, sunny, 67 degrees day. I was excited to get back to my family, but I was not looking forward to arriving in DC where it was 40 degrees colder with snow. I was also glad for the opportunity to spend some time alone with the Lord.

My Pastor has been sharing an excellent message series with our congregation. He shared Sunday about the armor of God and how when James 4:7 tells us to resist the Devil and he will flee. That word resist does not just mean to hide behind our shield of faith and not be moved while we wait for the attack to subside and our enemy to flee. It actually means to press in and push forward with counter attacks to resist and drive back the advance of the enemy. That insight has change my perspective on the battles we face. So many times the enemy will come in like a flood and we feel so overcome that we just hide ourself and cry out to God to save us, then we wait for Him to come and drive the enemy away. As I shared before, this is when doubt becomes a powerful enemy if we allow it to be planted in our minds. God wants to teach us and train us. Many times He allows attacks to come our way because He is trying to train us to fight. He wants to help us learn how to pick up the Word and begin to push the enemy back. In the battles I have come up against lately, I have been diligently reading the Word, spending time in prayer, and listening for every Word the Lord speaks so I can thrust it forward and drive the enemy back until He flees.

So as I was flying up to 24,000 feet we passed up above the clouds and suddenly I got a different view of the storm front that was moving through the area. I knew I still had to come back down to the cold and the snow, but it was a beautiful view while I was there. God will do that for us in the midst of our difficulties. He will lift us up above our circumstances and give us a different view of power and strength and an overwhelming sense of God's authority in every circumstance. Sometimes we get so used to living on the ground and hiding behind our shield until the storm is over, but God wants us to use the sword in our hand and be lifted up above the difficulty to see things from a God perspective.

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