Me: Human. You: Cockroach!

When I was about 18, I was terrified by a cockroach I'd seen go into my room. It was huge! And worst of all, it had wings. I was fully ready to resign myself to sleeping in the living room. At least for that night. :)

I was just thinking today of how often I do this in life. No, not sleep in the living room because of cockroaches. But give the good, beautiful things in my life over to an enemy. You know, give up on the goal of caring for someone because they didn't like the time you spoke the truth to them in love. Deciding that you need boundaries in your life, but giving into that person you are afraid of--just one more time. You tell yourself you won't do it again, but you can never bring yourself to stand up to this intimidator.

So what's the problem with that? Well, it costs you. Satan comes into people's lives (ALL people's lives) to steal, kill and destroy. Not just intimidate or bother. When we give ourselves over to people because they throw temper tantrums when we don't, or when we give up self-discipline because we're more attached to comfort than to our lives being fruitful, we will reap what we sow! God has made us each with a precious purpose. It's a purpose that will include bringing life to others, and seeing God move in AMAZING ways! But Satan, the Enemy of God and of the human soul, hates this with a passion. He will do all He can to convince you that going for the best God has to offer is not worth it. Don't say anything to that friend who has a dangerous habit. She'll hate you! Never mind the fact that her habit could cost her life.

But Jesus came into the world that we would have life, and have it to the fullest! He's bigger than Satan by far. No contest. :) He will show us the reality of the situation. Clearly, our friend's life is far more important than how we feel during one moment on the long timeline of our whole life. And of course, having the self discipline to take care of our bodies, our families, or whatever is in our charge is more important than wanting to watch TV. And when we know that the hard things to do will bear fruit for eternity, even if we don't see it right now, we can ask God to give us the strength! He knows it can be hard. He loves us so much that He died on a cross so that we could come to Him and ask for His help. Then, we go ahead and do what we need to do (tell the friend, go to the gym, etc.). We'll find that, all of a sudden, we have the strength!

Being healed is not about feeling like we can now conquer these fears. We walk by faith. So it means that, once we see that a behavior is destructive, and once we have taken it to God, we must have the self-discipline to walk it out in His power. If we don't, we continue to give this area of our lives to Satan, and we will reap the fruit of that.

To end, God illustrated this well for me in a dream. I was talking to a man in the dream, and he told me about a certain house, which represented my life. He said that a certain woman (me) kept giving away a part of her house to a demanding enemy. She could stop now, but if she didn't, the enemy would eventually come and take it over.