Testimony Tuesday

This week's Testimony Tuesday has been a bit of a struggle.

After a lot of thinking/praying/meditating/obsessing over it, God kind of led me to share a personal story this week.

Last semester, I was struggling with my job. Not in a "I hate my job" kind of way, but in a "I can't seem to get ahead! Why can't I get anything done! I'm failing at my job!" kind of way.

I had these thoughts for several weeks and it seemed like I was constantly working and just not getting anywhere.

One of my staff members randomly showed up in my office one day to ask how I was. I was honestly fine. There was nothing going wrong that day, I hadn't been upset that day... everything really was fine.

So I told her that. She then proceeded to shut my door and tell me that God had a message for me.

To say I was confused would be a massive understatement. I actually thought to myself, "She must be mistaken. There's nothing going on right now."

But, she went on. She opened with a prayer. Then she took me by the hand and proceeded to tell me the following (I have left out A LOT because it just isn't pertinent to the message today.)

God wants you to know that you have been placed here at UALR for a reason. You have supernatural strength in family, harmony, and compassion. God opened up this place for you here to utilize those strengths.

God wants you to know that you are not failing at your job. There are evil spirits in this office trying to distract you and discourage you from fulfulling your mission for Christ.

God also wants you to know that when you feel those nudges from Him to pray with students, that He is providing the protection for you and stop ignoring Him. He knows you are leery of mixing work and religion but He will protect you and is providing you these opportunities.

Your office has been established as a place of peace. Sometimes people find themselves here not understanding exactly why they came.

As I said earlier, she went on diving into some really personal information that I honestly didn't even realize was an issue until she gave me God's message. I cried and cried and cried. And I was so encouraged.

I know everyone doesn't get that sort of message from God. I truly believe God communicates to people in many different ways depending on the person's needs at the time. And as I stated earlier, I didn't have the foggiest idea that I needed that.

What is my point in all of this? Other than... look how great God is!?

Spiritual warfare is real. It is kind of a taboo topic to talk about. But who am I to avoid a taboo topic?

We prayed together that day and rebuked the spirits from my office. I was then told this would be a constant battle because of the work God is doing at my job. Every day I am to come into my office, pray, rebuke any spirits, and go on about my day. And I am telling you, it has worked.

People do find themselves in my office for no apparent reason. They have since I've worked here. I just chalked it up to, "Well I'm pretty awesome. Who can blame them?"

Turns out, I am awesome, but that's not necessarily why they are coming. And I'm only awesome because God made me that way. Ask anyone, before I was seeking God, I wasn't a whole big hoopla of fun to be around. At least, "peaceful" wasn't a way to describe the experience.

---------------LONG PAUSE-----------------------------

The long pause was to denote a break in this blog post where I had a conversation with a friend. This friend has been searching for a mission opportunity for a while now. And was so very excited about an opportunity that recently presented itself. She had time to get really excited about it, only to find out she didn't qualify for that particular opportunity.

And this broke her heart. She was terribly upset about this "lost" opportunity. And she had just recently come around to begrudgingly trusting God and letting go of her disappointment.

Enter today. Today, I hung out with her for lunch, and we worked together on some things, and were working on some things via chat and I just got this sense that she was struggling. I couldn't put my finger on it, and she insisted she was fine (which she tells me when she isn't so I believed her).

All of the sudden God had a message for her through me. I typed it. It was simple:

God is telling you to trust Him fully. He has an experience beyond your imagination planned for you.

Now, to reiterate, to my knowledge, she had given her trust back to God and accepted that the "opportunity" wasn't the right one.

She cried. And cried. And realized she wasn't trusting God. And it was a beautiful moment to her. I'm so thankful for that.

Even as I type, God is revealing to me that evil spirits were bringing her down. That is the thing with the devil. He will use anything, even Godly matters, to bring down someone on their mission for Christ. Anything!

So while you may think I sound crazy, but I assure you, spiritual warfare is real. Is it something you are struggling with? When you feel frustrated for no reason? When you can tell something just isn't right and you don't know what?

The devil is scared of God given talents and missions. And he will use everything in his power to keep you from using those talents and completing those missions.

When you find yourself caught in this struggle, stop and pray. And pray hard. I was told once that when rebuking spirits, you have to be loud because they are hard of hearing. I think that just draws up the passion. But do it.

A few verses for encouragement:

Luke 10:19-20 "Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. But don't rejoice because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered in heaven."

Romans 8:38 "And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love."


Happy Tuesday!