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a different perspective, be encouraged, breaking the enemy's traps, encouragement for the weary, getting the right perspective, God's love, God's Word, how to recognize a miracle, miracles, more love than we could imagine
My husband travels a lot… A LOT.
You would think this makes the time we are together fun, happy and exciting.
What actually has started happening though is a ticking time bomb.
Expectations you try not to have develop anyway.
Stressors you try to eliminate rear their head anyway.
Conversations you wish you could keep putting off must happen anyway.
Get the idea?
All of this played into a really bad weekend in the recent past… a REALLY bad weekend. It was so bad that on Sunday I almost stayed home from church because I just didn’t want to have to fake smile at people and I certainly didn’t want to vomit all of my emotions on friends who had innocently come to church to worship Jesus. I truly wanted the focus to be on the Lord.
I did end up going to church. Yes, I was still mad. I didn’t even want my husband to bump into me accidentally. I didn’t want to deal with him, but I still wanted to worship.
Towards the end of my pastor’s sermon, he stated that God will even break the traps the enemy sets for you. He said it was in Psalm 91, but didn’t give the exact verse. I wrote down the thought in my notebook and decided to look it up later.
A few minutes after the service, my husband and I were on our way home when I asked him if he could give me a few days to be alone with Jesus so He could teach me how to not put up walls in our relationship. I was asking to not have to text, video chat, etc. while he was travelling that week …at least for the first few days. We talked a little bit more about how things were going in our relationship and went home to have pizza in the bed. Yep, you read that correctly. As stated before…it was a pizza in bed kind of a day.
About an hour into the afternoon, a swarm of termites decided to make their presence known. As we were scrambling around trying to take care of things, I told my man I may end up in a hotel that week and he asked me to travel with him instead. I calmly…ahem…explained that we had not scheduled for our dog to be boarded… and it was Sunday. There was no way we could find a place to board Brutus.
He asked, “If I can find a place to board Brute, will you go with me?”
I said, “Sure.” Not thinking for one minute it would really be possible.
That man of mine made one phone call and had our dog boarded within 40 minutes. I started packing and spent the week near Indianapolis. So, instead of a week of turmoil, anger and frustration, we were able to reconnect and set things on a better path. All I could think of for days was the verse our pastor had shared. God had truly broken the trap the enemy had set for my husband and I’s relationship.
A few days later I had a further epiphany. If I had chosen to not go to church that Sunday, I would not have been reminded of Psalm 91.
If I would not have been reminded of Psalm 91, my perspective would have been completely different. When the termites swarmed, I would have thought I was being punished for not going to church. I would have thought I was being punished for not sucking up my emotions. I would have thought I just needed to put my wants and needs to the side when in reality God still would have been breaking the trap the enemy had set for us. Everything would have been the same beautiful miracle, but I would have felt condemned instead of loved. I would have actually fallen into a different trap the enemy had set for me if not for the right perspective of God’s Word.
It really made me wonder how many times I have looked at a miracle, at the breaking of the enemy’s trap, and seen punishment instead of protection. How many times have I seen a trap of the enemy be broken, but I fell into another trap right beside it because I simply forgot to remember what the Word of God had to say about it.
How many times?
I pray in the days ahead we can hear the breaking of the traps easily and realize the miracle it is, realize the love it shows and see the perspective God’s Word shines on it.
Hear the breaking of your trap today.
Here is the link to the sermon I mentioned… it’s so good….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrIAS8n3sVs