Easter Monday
When I was born again, I learned a lot about spiritual warfare and I’ve engaged in a lot of it. I suspect a lot of it was probably necessary. You come under a lot of attack when you take a leap forward in your commitment.
I think it was Yancey who wrote about how the battlelines of the war in the heavenlies are drawn right down the centre of the human heart. We are at war with ourselves and this puts us at odds with others.
Over time, I’ve come around to the conclusion that most of Satan’s weapons are forged from the broken pieces inside ourselves. The best way to avoid attack is to have those broken pieces healed so Satan can’t use them against us.
That healing takes time and only God can accomplish it, but you have to co-operate. Sometimes God has to do a lot of surgery and that kind doesn’t have anaesthetic, so you avoid it, sometimes for decades. It can’t be avoided forever though.
Speaking of broken pieces, I was watching a very teen-agery movie last night called ‘Beastly’ which was a modern take on Beauty and the Beast. The lead was the very epitome of the high school cool guy and is exactly the type that I would have had a huge crush on when I was a teenager. The type of guy who would never look twice at me and never has and never will. Even if he had, I would have been so terrified I would have run for the hills, so it’s just as well that I’m so ordinary that guys like that never knew I was alive.
I still dreamed about him all night (no - not those sort of dreams, pretty innocent actually), but when I woke up I realised once again that romantic movies and dreams do not match reality. You could never rely on a man like that to love you for the rest of your life. There is one of my broken pieces - a sense of grief for things that could never be. A pretty illusion that is as ephemeral as a fading glimmer of light. Just a pretty fantasy that is just a mere distraction from the real love that is waiting for me, as constant as the Rock.
I think it was Yancey who wrote about how the battlelines of the war in the heavenlies are drawn right down the centre of the human heart. We are at war with ourselves and this puts us at odds with others.
Over time, I’ve come around to the conclusion that most of Satan’s weapons are forged from the broken pieces inside ourselves. The best way to avoid attack is to have those broken pieces healed so Satan can’t use them against us.
That healing takes time and only God can accomplish it, but you have to co-operate. Sometimes God has to do a lot of surgery and that kind doesn’t have anaesthetic, so you avoid it, sometimes for decades. It can’t be avoided forever though.
Speaking of broken pieces, I was watching a very teen-agery movie last night called ‘Beastly’ which was a modern take on Beauty and the Beast. The lead was the very epitome of the high school cool guy and is exactly the type that I would have had a huge crush on when I was a teenager. The type of guy who would never look twice at me and never has and never will. Even if he had, I would have been so terrified I would have run for the hills, so it’s just as well that I’m so ordinary that guys like that never knew I was alive.
I still dreamed about him all night (no - not those sort of dreams, pretty innocent actually), but when I woke up I realised once again that romantic movies and dreams do not match reality. You could never rely on a man like that to love you for the rest of your life. There is one of my broken pieces - a sense of grief for things that could never be. A pretty illusion that is as ephemeral as a fading glimmer of light. Just a pretty fantasy that is just a mere distraction from the real love that is waiting for me, as constant as the Rock.