Desperation

The Spirit Filled Life.    C. Stanley

When we are desperate, we can't do a thing----we are willing to do anything.

Here is the point we might fall off of the track with God. We are so desperate and upset that if we do not fight to grab our Bibles, Bible studies, phone a Christian friend, we just might fall off. I think that it is more likely to happen earlier in our Christian walks, because we have not learned that there are times you physically must force your body to pick up the Bible. 
I do not know in those times if we are fighting a spiritual warfare, and that is what is keeping us from wanting our Bibles, but I do know that at those times when it is hardest to pick up the Word....those are the times that the instant those onion-skin thin pages fall open is the moment the Word beings shouting at us. Not in a "you did this wrong!!" shout, but the shouting of love that we use if someone is lost in the woods, the shout to call a loved one back when we want to give that last hug goodbye. The shout of the Word is love, and at those hardest times, the times when it seems impossible to even consider reading it, those are the times tears fall so freely as you read and the Word shouts love at you that you can literally drown. The shout of the Word is love.

Yes, there are commands in the Word, and we need to work on our puny best with God's help, to follow them for the good reason they are good advice...but as Timothy Keller likes to say, religion is advice. And we all know that what we have with God is not religion, it is faith, a relationship.

Now, while I say that I think it is less likely that we are tempted by those other things during times of desperation---divorce, deaths, illnesses, job loss, friends moving on, whatever it may be today---does not mean it is impossible. Each new battle we come across is harder than the last, but, and remember this, we are not alone in those battles, nor do we NOT have the strength with God to take them on. We think that, we poison our minds into believing it, but it is not true. There is nothing stronger than God, for if there were, there would be no battle at all---He would have been defeated (!) and can you even picture that? No, of course not. The idea is so ridiculous when we really ponder it. Randy Alcorn says in his book, "If God is Good" that we tend to consider the battle between the devil and God to be equal....and that is a ridiculous idea. God created EVERYTHING. The devil, accuser, liar of liars, was created by God before he made the choice to leave and fight God. Alcorn says that the devil's equal is Michael, not God. There is a passage in Daniel I find fascinating, for it is Michael speaking of fighting the Prince of Babylon, which is often a reference to Satan. 
However, we are getting off topic....Even with many years of battles behind us, if we do not watch, the liar can and will whisper such lies to us as to poison us away from God. He may use other people to poison you--anything, really. We must test what is before us---and you know when it is right, what is said is correct. You have that sense of ease of the Spirit. Now...if what you pick is not right, is not good with the Spirit, you will have that sense of squirming embarrassment.Watch out! If you do not attend this quickly, and change away from following the false shepherd, back to the pen of the Good Shepherd, you will be poisoned into a satisfied glow of delightful evil. A satisfaction of "fixing" someone, without knowing it....you have helped the prince of the world "fix" God, which is as horrifying as it sounds. Alcorn mentions that the only way demons have at "getting back" at God is by deluding us...and we are remarkably stupid about being lead astray, if we are not watching and testing what is told us and laid before us. That evil glow of delight so quickly feels right, and so quickly poisons us. 
So in those times of desperation, reach out to God, and as I say, He will more than likely answer back. Maybe not in shouts, because there are times we are so busy shouting ourselves that we do not hear Him until we are quiet...but I find that those times of desperation are times of quiet. Reach out and hear Him calling like a loved one, wanting one last hug, a Shepherd gathering you back into the flock after being led astray by the accuser. And oh! how good and safe we are in our deepest of troubles back in the arms of our Abba Father.