“The devil is never asleep, nor is your flesh dead yet. This means that you must always be on guard for a battle, since on every side you have enemies who are never at rest.” – My Daily Bread
This was one sentence of the short meditation this morning that focused on recognizing that we are human and we will fall into temptation but what we must learn to do is strive to deal with those temptations daily by becoming better at recognizing them before they snare you. To pray for self control and to get a greater over our ‘blind passions and unreasonable self-favoring.” It is going deeper into understanding ‘dying to thyself’ which I have done yet God is telling me, ‘No, go deeper, understand Me more.”
My dear friend came to see me today. I love her like she is truly my blood sister. She embodies what I long to be spiritually. I was telling her about this particular trial that I’ve been facing…how it seems that I will soon be done with it but then I realize there is much more to learn. She looked at me with love in her eyes and said, “He is keeping you close, isn’t He?”
I think for the first time I truly understood that statement without a self-favoring attitude. Before I might have thought “Well, not really, I mean I’m still suffering the trial!” But the minute she said it I knew what she was referring too. We don’t even realize when we wonder too far from God and He uses these trials to ‘draw us near’. I was in danger of becoming like the toddler who got caught up in the crowd of dozens of mommies walking with their kids, rushing from store to store and it wasn’t until I stopped to acknowledge my mom did I realize she wasn’t as near as I thought she was.
As I mentioned before I know I’m in a time of pruning and even though it isn’t fun, it is pleasing to me to know that I am at least growing in the process.
Blessings!
Shannon