My last blog titled, "Devil's laughin" was posted almost a month ago. That's the longest stretch I've gone without a new blog post, know why?
Because I wrote and I quote, "When we are on the verge of breakthrough, at the precipice of breaking strongholds, he's going to come. When we are speaking loudly for Jesus and encouraging others, he's going to come. When we step out boldly in faith, he's going to come to try to snatch that baby faith away from us. When we take a courageous step on the path God has for us, he's going to come with fear to get us to run back to safety. Make no mistake that he's going to come."
And he did.
We had a big women's conference at church that our women's ministry team was planning and everything seemed to be going wrong. We couldn't get on the same page. Just getting together for a meeting seemed impossible- we couldn't sync our schedules, problems arose, even virtual meetings had to be cancelled due to tech problems. There were miscommunications, confusion, hurt feelings, and seven days out from the day of the conference, none of us knew what was going on.
This is very uncharacteristic of our group. We normally work very well together and have our act together long before a few days leading up to go-time! Even making copies of the program for the event gave me a ton of trouble and frustration- the printer jammed a minimum of fifteen times, the ink smeared, and I wasted a ton of time trying to get it figured out.
It wasn't just me either, it was all of us. The spiritual warfare was quite obvious. This event was going to be powerful for the women in attendance and he wanted to put a dent in the plans.
We did a lot of praying leading up to our event, had others praying for us, fasted for 24 hours, and went out to dinner to break our fast together. The event was a complete success. We had great feedback. There were hiccups, not everything was perfect, but God moved in the hearts and minds of women that day, and it was awesome.
One of the many ways that God showed up was very obvious to me- I wasn't prepared, and I wasn't nervous! I had a few notes written down on cards as talking points, but I didn't have a long speech memorized or written out. I told God that He had to show up because if He didn't this wasn't going to be a very good event. I wasn't nervous because I had complete confidence that He would take care of everything and of course He did!
Getting back to the part about the Devil laughing. He threw a lot at us. I'm sure he was laughing.. but we got the last laugh. We didn't cower, become timid or afraid, doubt God, or cancel the event. We just kept praying, praising, trusting, and moving forward.
That same week leading up to the event, I had a horrible morning before work with my pre-teen. We had reached a breaking point with his testing of limits and boundaries and it was a bad morning. I was exhausted and it was only 8AM. I had been crying so I arrived to work with red, puffy eyes. Luckily I was the only one in early that day so I didn't have explain the tears, but I couldn't stop them!
I suddenly got mad because I knew it was him coming at me. I looked outside and saw construction workers across the street hooking up electricity to the new crosswalk street lights, so I grabbed all the money I had in my wallet (about $70) and said, "Okay devil, you want to see what happens when you mess with me and try to ruin my day? You watch and see what happens." Then I walked across the street, walked up to the workers, introduced myself, and awkwardly told them that I wanted to give them some money to go out for lunch that day. They were reluctant (probably because I looked disheveled and crazy), and said they didn't need money, they make plenty of money. I said it's not about that, I just want to do something nice for somebody today, so I shoved it in their hands while trying not to cry and walked away.
Although I'm sure they talked about the crazy church lady, I didn't actually do it for them, even though I hope they were blessed by it. I did it because when I'm having a pity party for myself, getting my mind off of myself by blessing someone else is often the only thing that can pull me from that pit. It blesses me just as much as it blesses the recipient of the gift. That's why Jesus is quoted in Acts 20:35 as saying,"It is more blessed to give than to receive."
I did it to honor God through my trials, and change the tides of my day. I don't recall hearing the Devil laughing after that. He still comes. He came in a big way last Sunday again (imagine that!) but I know to just keep praying, trusting, worshipping, and moving forward.
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