This is so amazing…

A friend emailed this to me today.  I just had to share it. 
God never ceases to amaze me with HIS wonderful creation.  Clink
on the link below for a wonderful photo documentary of baby
hummingbirds being born, nurtured, and taking flight.

Enjoy!!
Julie

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!

Psalm 27

¹ The LORD is my light and my salvation—
       whom shall I fear?
       The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
       of whom shall I be afraid?

My
husband and I had the honor recently to pray over a couple who has had
a rocky marriage ever since it began.  He has struggled with
alcoholism, gambling and drugs.  She has struggled with control,
bitterness and suppressed anger.  She has filed for divorce
several times and was close to actually being divorced before stopping
it just days ago.


Why?  You may ask.  What changed that a woman who has had to
act as both father and mother to her two kids for many years would want
to “try again” with a physically absent and emotionally unavailable
father?  Well, the change can be summed up in one word…JESUS!!


JESUS radically changed this man's heart.  It's taken a lot of
broken relationships, hurt feelings, mistrust and deception to get to
the place of turning his life over to Jesus but he has done it. 
And I want to be one of the first to say just how much this man has
changed.  A different man walks into the room now.  Someone
who's heart is devoted to Jesus.  Someone who's heart desires
nothing else than to earn his family back. 


He holds two jobs now.  As long as I've known the family he has
had no job.  He rarely came home at night.  And when he did
he was drunk or high.  He rarely contributed to the family in any
way that was constructive.  On occasion he would give his wife
some money if he had won any gambling but that about summed up his
contribution to the family.  His family didn't trust him. 
His wife didn't love him.  His children didn't understand why dad
was never there.

But now…..

This man is being transformed into a warrior for Christ.  His
entire demeanor has changed.  He's different.  He's
new.  He's now a child of God. 


Last week we, along with two other couples, anointed them with oil and
prayed over them, begging God for the resurrection of their marriage
and the reconciliation of their family.  They have already made
great strides in reuniting but felt as if they needed the spiritual
boost of others praying for them.


It was such a privledge to come before God on behalf of these two
people.  I have prayed with the wife for nearly 5 years for God to
change her husbands heart.  When He did it came at an unexpected
and tremendous cost to both her and her family.  It's been a tough
road for these two but after our prayers the other night I know God is
going to use this couple as a testimony to HIS own power and strength.


Our prayers were sweet, broken and right before the throne of
God.  We prayed believing in God's miracles for this couple. 
The Spirit swooped into our broken huddle and transformed not only
their lives, but ours.  All of us left the circle changed. 
Most of us praying realized we had done a very poor job of loving the
husband in his sinful life.  It's so much easier to love someone
when they are acting the way you think they should.


I'm so thankful Jesus doesn't love me that way…only when I act the
way he wants me too.  I pray I will be able to love others as HE
loves me.  I know it's impossible in my own strength.  Love
like that can only come from Him. 


We, along with the angels, cheer this couple on to victory in Chirst,
reconciliation for their family and a testimony that God will use for
all eternity. 


Do we quench the Spirit when we stay in control?  Yes.  Do we
need broken hearts to be healed?  Yes.  Does God do more than
we can ever imagine with the brokenness?  A resounding YES.

JESUS is all about the business of love.
And for that I am so very humbled.

Julie