Imagine
that a student fails a course and has to pick one of the options below:
A. Remain
in one spot and continue to lament about the failure
B. Register
for the course again and continue to do what he/she did that earned him/her the
failure
C. Register
for the course again, analyze to find out what he/she could have done better
and do all within his/her power to avoid the mistakes
D. Register
for the course again, take time out to review with the Holy Spirit what went
wrong, learn from Him how to fix the issue and then take the steps required.
Which
option will you advise him/her to pick? I guess your answer is 'D', right?
Sooooo.....why
are you sitting there all downcast? You claim it's a spiritual attack; that the
enemies are stronger than you are. Uhmmmm...
Let's read
the story of some people in the Bible. They were not Israelites, yet their
story inspires me so much.
"And
the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the
Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Eben-ezer: and the Philistines
pitched in Aphek. And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel:
and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and
they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men. And when the people
were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD
smitten us to day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant
of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save
us out of the hand of our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh, that they
might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which
dwelleth between the cherubims: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas,
were there with the ark of the covenant of God. And when the ark of the
covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout,
so that the earth rang again. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the
shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the
Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the LORD was come into the camp.
And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And
they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. Woe
unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are
the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Be
strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants
unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and
fight. And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every
man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of
Israel thirty thousand footmen."
(1 Samuel
4:1-10).
There are
many lessons to learn. I'll like to focus on one - the courage of the
Philistines. They realised that the ark (which symbolized the presence of the
Lord) was in the camp. These men were afraid. Inspite of their fear, they
pressed on. It is said that courage is not the absence of fear. Courage means
that you forge on inspite of your fears.
My friend
says rest if you need to; but don't make that your final destination. Don't be
like Terah that set out for Canaan and stopped at Haran. (Genesis 11:31-32)
"If
thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small." (Proverbs
24:10).
If you fall
to pieces in a crisis, there wasn't much to you in the first place. (Proverbs
24:10, MSG)
I heard a
preacher on TV say 'Even if it is a spiritual attack, get back to God's
presence and launch a counter-attack'.
Have a
blessed and productive day.
No comments:
Post a Comment