Hello everyone!
Vacations are wonderful! We pack our bags to leave – and leave our “burden baggage” at home for a few weeks of freedom, peace and light-hearted fun. Wouldn’t it be great if we had it the other way around and just had two weeks of “life as usual” and vacations the rest of the year?
Why is it that we let the enemy rob, steal and destroy our peace when we are home doing business as usual? What he tries to rob most of all is our peace. He sends outside distractions that affect our peace, he sends fears and worries, he sends busyness, for the battle is in the mind.
If he can distract you enough to get your eyes off the Lord, to steal your time with Him – then he steals your intimacy with him and therefore, your peace. His weapons aren’t conventional ones that are easily seen, or that can even be identified with him doing it! These are circumstance weapons, unexpected things that have to get done weapons, sleep deprivation weapons – which cause such tiredness he knows that that you can’t think straight when he attacks, or have the energy to fight him or pray. It gives him great pleasure to rob you of rest and peace. It gives him great pleasure to steal your time with the Lord, for he knows that if you spend time with the Lord, He will give you His joy, which is your strength.
The Lord gives us rest in mind and spirit, which is how you have supernatural energy arising in you. Prayer energizes! The devil comes to wear you down so that you are deceived easily. Little by little, inch by inch, he steals so that you don’t even realize it’s happening. A little sleep here, a little stress there, a little more work, another burden to carry – until we are weighed down and bent beneath our loads.
Although we can’t get away from every day life, we can take our eyes off it when we start our day, focused on the Lord in prayer. We can ask for His plans to be worked out and if we listen, He will give us His plans, purpose for us and peace.
So take some time to pack your bags of burdens and unpack the joy of the Lord, His energy and strength, and be on that “new vacation” every morning in prayer. It’s the breakfast of over-comers!
Blessings, Evelyn
PS For more, see Chapter 4 titled, Intimacy in Lessons I learned from the Lord.
Amen, Evelyn! And well said that the enemy will do his best to distract our focus away from the Lord and back onto that earthly (and even some hellish) baggage that he wants us to be burdened with.
David learned that he simply had to lift his focus to the Lord and His Word in order to function well. He got to the point at which he wanted nothing more than to see the Lord in all his beauty and glory.
“One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.” Psalm 27:4
Some would see David’s perspective as being “too Heavenly minded.” David knew better. He drew strength and peace from the Lord which made him the very best he could be as he carried out his God-given responsibilities in this world.
What a great God we serve! If only we would allow Him to lighten our load the way He desires to do for each of us as His children, how much freer and more joyous the journey would be. Thanks Evelyn.
Dear Barry,
Thank you for responding and for your wonderful insights. All I can add to them is – AMEN!
Blessings, Evelyn
Thank you, Evelyn, for being so in tuned to the Holy Spirit that you can share with us. This blog was very timely for me. I need to call upon the Lord, early. I love the title you used. God bless you.
Dear Linda,
Thank you for sharing. God knows exactly what we need at exactly the right time. He loves us more than we could ever imagine and we will only know the magnitude of it when we get to heaven.
Blessings, Evelyn