What do you do when the enemy barricades itself, feels untouchable, and unable to be defeated?  You wait.  And then just when you think you can't wait anymore - you wait some more.

Define your enemy:  memory of a past hurt, an ongoing issue that you can't let go, a pattern of behavior that never ends - enemies.  People are never the enemy.  The enemy is the enemy.  Will the enemy use people?  You betcha!  But those who you think are put on planet earth to destroy you are just pawns.  You see, you have an enemy who prowls around like a lion, seeking someone - YOU - to devour.  Sounds pretty hard core to me.

Judges 9 - one man's rebellion and his tactics to try to fight on his own - concludes my series on "enemies".  There was trouble - as in "right here in River City with a capital "T" that rhymes with trouble" kind of trouble.  The enemy retreated into a strong tower and was out of reach from the one trying to do the capturing.

Feel like the story of your life?  How long have you chased a certain enemy?  Weeks?  Months?  Years?  I've got to be honest and say this body image thing is one of those "how long is this gonna go on" kind of enemies.  Yet ...I still choose to do battle.  I still go into the ring, fists lifted, and eyes focused.

I love a good recap, so let's recap:

• There will always be an enemy.
• I fight from a position of victory.
• There is value in the battle.
• Enemies allow me to ask myself two questions:
• "Will I believe God?"
• "Will I obey God?"
• Avoid the freak out by crying out to God.
• God wants to be the One to fight my battles.
• Comply to God's way to fight.
• Wait for His promise.
• Continue to chase.

When I gave birth to my youngest, Libby, I was slammed with an awful case of anxiety.  Having faced anxiety in the past, I knew my opponent.  However, this time it came out with it's guns loaded full throttle and I was prey that demanded to be taken down.  For six weeks, I felt as if I had a target on my back and in my heart that kept being pelted by attacks - over and over - and over and over.  I was so tired of running I literally thought I would die.  My mind was wasted.  My body was disturbed.  I didn't trust my emotions.  I was a mess.


I thought it was my battle.  I thought it was my responsibility to go to war every day armed with scripture to take captive the thousands (literally) of thoughts that ran like enemy rogues in my head.  Yet this time, I had nothing left to give, fight with, stand against.  I.was.tired.

It was in this season (and can I just say that all enemy attacks have their seasons - they don't last forever) that God displayed His "I AM A MIGHTY WARRIOR" characteristic in a way I had never experienced.  I learned that in my weakness, in my break-downs in the shower under the safety of running water that muted my pitiful cries for help, God injected power into my situation.  I emerged six weeks later as a new person.  God won my battle.

How?  Weakness.  When I am strong, I am very strong.  I know I can leap mountains, scale buildings, bake brownies, and win Mom of the Year all while wearing pearls and having good hair and kissing hubby at the end of his hard work day and make him glad I'm a woman.  But, when I am weak, I am very weak.  No leaping, scaling, baking, winning, wearing, having, kissing goes on for weakness trumps willingness to pull it all together.

Yet, weakness also sets aside "me" for "Him".  When He's all I have, He's all I get.  And when He's all I get, I am no longer weak.  Body, mind, and brownie-making ability all gets sorted out and put into the right places under His strength.  My mouth gives proper credit to a Creator who performs on my behalf because body knows how weak it is.

Gideon (Judges 7) experienced the same thing.  32,000 soldiers had been prepped and waited to do battle against an army that compared itself to a vast hoard of locusts.  Yikes!  I'm thinking 32,000 didn't stand a chance.  And yet, God reduced that number of testosterone warriors to 10,000.  Why?  "If I let all of you fight the (enemy), the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength."

Get it?  In a culture that values hard-work, self-made people, can do attitudes, we did it our way philosophies, God says something else.  Let ME do all the work.  Let ME fight your battle.  Let ME be God and you be child.  Counter culture.  God's culture.

When God wins the battle, it's finished.  What six weeks of mental mind games and gut-wrenching heart-ache paired with uncontrolled panic and anxiety set out to do - destroy - God used for my good.  He destroyed things that I could have never fought against.  He transformed my mind, bypassed many a heart-ache, put panic and anxiety in it's proper place (under His feet) and brought me to a new place.  That's what He does.  God's culture.

But wait there's more ... Next time.
Christina

The thing about enemies is that they catch us off guard, even if we've come to know they lurk around the corner.  We know there are always enemies.  We've seen our share of them, haven't we?  Yet, when they appear, we freak.  Ok, lest I put words into your mouth, speak for you, and label you as an enemy fearer, I freak.

And when I read in Judges about our friends, the Israelites, I realize I'm in good company.  Despite having seen God do amazing and miraculous things, they freaked when the enemy raised his ugly head.  Human nature.

Yet, my human nature has been replaced and is being replaced with a super-human nature.  I am in Christ.  Therefore, I have the mind of Christ.  And therefore, I have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in me.  Yet, silly me, my "humanness" often gets in the way.

You see Israel had forgotten God.  They had forgotten that enemies were allowed in their lives - by God - to test obedience and belief toward God.  They were stuck in a rut of disobedience and disbelief.  They had gotten themselves into a pattern of doing exactly what God told them not to do (follow other gods) and then - just when you thought all hope was gone - they cried out to God.  They asked for directions.

Sometimes, they waited a really long time to cry out - like 80 years long.  But, when they cried out to Him, He answered.  Always.  He answered.


Simple.  Yet profoundly difficult.  My natural tendency is to solve the problem, get help on my own, get help from others, do the next best thing, Google, stress - in general FREAK OUT!  And then this is where the rubber meets the road if you are a Believer.  We are not slaves to our natural tendencies.  We are lifted to a supernatural newness that calls us out of the rut, past the freak out, and on to a place of total dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yesterday, I walked.  As I walked around the Augarten (a park near my apartment), I felt really good.  Despite my yoga pants and tight fitting sleeveless shirt, I knew I was doing something healthy for my body.  I started off just walking and talking (not to myself but to God).  The more I talked, the better I felt.  Then, my mind drifted.  I began to chase fears.


Do you see the humanness of my humanity?  Not because I'm a superhero but because I've learned to become a warrior, I stopped the madness in my mind.  I began reminding myself of what God says about me.  I cried out, asking God to fill me, my mind and my Spirit with His truth.  And He answered.  Every time.  He answers.

When we freak, cry out.  Develop the habit.  He will not fail.

Soon to be ex-Freak "outer",
Christina

Principle:  There will always be an enemy.
Principle:  We operate from a position of victory.
Principle:  There is value in the battle.

So why an enemy in the first place?  Good question!  One that I found an answer for in Judges 3:1 - 11.  Let's go back to our good friends, the Israelites.  When they reached the place God had promised them, full of full-time residents, they had to fight.  These enemies were left (God did it on purpose) to test Israel.  In fact, if I may quote Judges 3:2, "He (God) did it to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience with battle."

Enemies test two questions:
Will I obey God?
Will I believe God?

Without an enemy, Israel would never know the meaning of faith.  Faith is faith only when it is tested.  The enemy was designed to be used by God to test their faith and their belief in what God had already told them.  They were positioned for victory:  You will take the land.  Test came.  They didn't fight their enemy.  Long-term, their lack of fighting their enemy caused them to sin.  Instead of positioning themselves as Victors, they assumed the position of Victim.

Ok, ok - this all sounds so holy.  Obey God.  Believe what He says.  Yadda yadda.  Real life example I'm right in the middle of:  health.

I have faced the enemy of food for years.  Sounds weird, doesn't it?  Something designed to nourish - when misused - can serve to destroy.  I know that in 2000, God did something in my heart that changed the way I look at food.  However, my aging body has done things - like morph and transition - that frankly freaks me out.  Years of labeling foods as "unclean" and "forbidden" have reduced my metabolism to a less than stellar functioning organ that results in a body that refuses to budge in size.  The amount of food I eat should not result in the size of my jeans.

Just keeping it real, but I really don't like what I see in the mirror.  Another long-term enemy that I know God is battling.  My role is to keep fighting.  So what does fighting look like?:

1.  Every time I hear the Holy Spirit tell me to eat something I have put on my "forbidden" list - I eat it.
2.  Every time I look in the mirror and start condemning each flaw I see - I reject what feels like truth.
3.  Every time I go out for a walk - I pray.  I pray that health trumps pant size and the joy of health will trump the temporary high of a reduced number of the scale.
4.  I trust God even when I see no result.
5.  I believe God when He tells me what He thinks of me (Truth) - even if I don't think the same thing (Fact).

You see it's acts of obedience in the face of what you normally do - and have done - that fights our enemies.  And then - because God is for us, has placed us in positions of victory, and is fighting for us - something happens.  If you've fought your own battle then you know about what I'm talking .  Warriors have moments when they see the enemy defeated without explanation.  When what I do (that should not be enough to destroy something way bigger than myself) is defeated, I know that something supernatural has taken place.  God comes in.  He fights the battle.  When what I knew would take years of "work" and effort is completed effortlessly, I know God showed up.

Today I battle by putting on my yoga pants, sleeveless work out top, running shoes, and my brave face to go walk.  Tomorrow, I know victory comes.  Just as a gal named Deborah in Judges 4 believed God for victory, I believe the same promise she was given:  "Get ready!  The Lord is marching ahead of you."  It may not come tomorrow, or the next day, but it WILL come.  And believing this truth is a battle won!!

Warrior Princess,
Christina

Recently, I had the privledge of speaking to a group of women at Vintage Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.  Because I was asked to speak, I sat alone to hear from God about what on earth He wanted me to say to them - to myself.  He replied simply:  "Tell them what I've been telling you."  So I did.

The result is an ongoing message I'm continuing to develop long after the girls night ended.  Because I pay attention to the things I've come to see as fingerprints from God, I got a new fingerprint.  It was in the form of a dream.  In my dream, I knew I was supposed to write.  This morning, fighting jet lag and drinking from my new favorite coffee mug, I'm following through with the impression to write.

Joshua 10: 16 - 19 recounts just one of many stories of victory.  Israel was promised a land of their own BUT there was a little hitch/catch/snafu - at least in their eyes.  It seems the land that was given to them as their own possession just happened to be occupied by homeowners who were not thrilled at having to list their homes/land/possessions on Craigslist.

God's economy is always counterculture.  He gave them (Israel) a land of their own.  Yet, circumstances didn't thwart (love that word) His promise just because other people's shoes where on the welcome mat and had no intentions of moving.  These turn of events may have taken the Israelites by surprise but it didn't shake God off His throne.

This makes me arrive at a principle:  There will always be an enemy.

For Israel, it happened to be occupiers of land that had been given to them.  For me, it's a bill, a doctor's diagnosis, a lie I believe.  Anything that tries to shake me off firm foundations in order for me to disbelieve who God is and what He is capable of is my enemy.

This makes me arrive at yet another principle:  We always operate from a position of victory.

For Israel, God have them a promise in Joshua 10:8 that the land was theirs and that He, Himself, would give them victory.  That's exactly what happened.  For Israel, their enemy was slaughtered/crushed/wiped out.  Joshua did what God told Him to do - he fought.  For me, most of my battles have been won of my knee's.  I hold on to a promise that God has given me in His word.  I listen to the Holy Spirit as he tells me what to do.  I do what He says.  God's desire is always victory over my enemy.

Finally, this makes me arrive at yet one more principle:  There is value in the battle.

Isreal could have walked to the borders of their paradise, waved some sort of magic wand, seen a mass exodus of people leaving wide, open spaces for them to come in, set up, and call "home".  Yet, they had to fight.  Because God is a God of order and infinite wisdom, He planned for them to fight.  Fighting brought a greater purpose.  Romans 8:28 tells me that He causes all things to work for my good:  cancer, bills, lies.  When the enemy is exposed and defeated, I then operate not only from victory but from AUTHORITY.  When God conquers my enemy, I then have AUTHORITY over something that had opposed me.

Anxiety was my biggest enemy for years.  Guess what?  I have AUTHORITY over it.  Not because it vanished by some arbitrary flick of a spiritual wand but because I held on to promises and fought against it because I knew God had put me in a position of victory.

Resist the enemy and he will flee from you.  It's in the Bible as a promise.  We resist, the enemy flees.   We make the mistake of thinking the enemy has the power.  The enemy is present, but doesn't have the power to overcome us.  He can scare the living day lights out of us, ruffle our feathers, and get us stressed but he has no power.  God does - and therefore, we do!

Stay tunned for more on enemies.  Face yours today with the truth that you are in a position of victory!

- Christina