A Post from Dena’s heart…Just too good not to pass along!!!!

I read
this post this morning from October 31st on Dena's blog and just felt I
just had to pass it along!!! It's wonderfully TRUTHFUL and
BLESSED. Please take a moment to read. It's all straight
from the heart of Dena at Dena Deliberations!!!
Check out her blog!

Satan is Patient
Several years ago I was in a small group working through the study Experiencing God. I remember repeatedly reading the line, “Your experience is not reality”
and saying “WHAT!!??” How can that be? It happened, I experienced
it…it's reality! Right? No…not really. I finally “got” what the
author was intending to convey.

Though we have many experiences in life, they are not the reality that God has for us.

Last week two friends and I began Joyce Meyer's, A Battlefield of the Mind. Joyce
worded things very differently, but I interpret it largely the same
way. She shared how Satan is patient. He will orchestrate the
experiences in our lives to cause us to set up “strongholds” or ways of
thinking that hold us captive. If our stronghold is “no one can be
trusted” then he use experiences in our life to “prove” that. If my
wrong thinking is that “I'm of no value”, he will “prove” that.

I
really appreciated reading this. You see, I've often been irritated and
offended by some of the psychological training that teaches that you
will live trying to find a mate (or whatever) like your father in
order to “work through” that damaged relationship, or that we are
unconciously determining to receive the worst because we are expecting
the worst, etc. Many aspects of my life have been difficult. Yet I've
been aware of the appropriate psychological responses and have gone out
of my way to avoid similar situations, rather than placing myself back
in them. Yet, my experience continues to affirm what I knew
(Biblically) to be false teaching and my fears to be accurate. Why?

Because Satan is Patient! Since
a very young age he has been orchestrating situations in my life (and
yours) to “prove” me right in my areas of negative thinking. My
experience is such that it is nearly impossible to choose TRUTH and say
that my experience is a lie and God's word is TRUE!

Now,
that, to me, is freeing. I can realize that yes, I have experienced
this, but that does not make it real. I can realize that “someone” is
working to ingrain in me such a negative pattern of thinking that it
cannot be broken. If he succeeds I will no longer be
effective as a worker in God's Kingdom. I will be “held captive” by my
thoughts and fears, unable to love and give and live in the freedom
Christ has proclaimed for me. And, since I'm a fighter, there's no way
I'm gonna sit back and let that happen!

I had no intention of writing about this today, but visited my friend Patricia's blog and was struck by her powerful message. “Yes!!” I thought. “Exactly!” (Thank you so much for sharing that)

Satan
is using something in each of our lives to cause us fear, hold us
back and to incapacitate us. It's different for each of us, but
just as powerful. And just as “unreal”, regardless of our
circumstances. Does Patricia have valid reason to fear dark nights?
Yes! Do I have valid reasons to distrust others? Yes! But are they
REAL? No. They are strongholds set up by “principalities and
powers” and we must strike them down.

Patricial used Psalm 27 to begin her post and I'll share it again her. Let us make the LORD the stronghold of our lives!