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Pouring Out A Warrior's Heart
Tuesday, November 18th, 2014 6:26pm
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Sitting here tonight I've been pondering a number of things about my life and the experiences I'm going through right now.  For those of you who don't know me or know my struggles, let me give you the dime tour.  I'm a 42 year old single man with ADD, Autism and Aspergers.  Yeah, fun combination, no?  Add to that I have no full time or regular paying employment, or income of my own, and I live with my mom who has dementia.  On top of that God has given me the job of a watchman; a believer whose job it is to warn others, both believers and unbelievers alike, of the dangers around them and what's coming.

I've taken that job to heart and really attacked it full strength despite the trials in my life.  But lately it seems that the trials have pretty much overwhelmed me.  To some that might sound like defeatism.  I don't see it as that.  I see it as being close to the victory line.  What do I mean by that?  Well, first off, the scale and intensity of these attacks of Satan tells me that something big is coming and Satan knows it.  After all, why the sudden uptick in attacks against both of us if nothing big is in the pipe in the near term?

We know, through a revelation from God, that at some point He will heal my mom of both her dementia and her diabetes, making her fully healthy again, after which He will give us a house and a new assignment and/or mission field (ie, we may be moved somewhere else for a time to work for Him there) where we will serve boldly for God.  But as the days of training come to a close (I don't have an exact date, just a general timeframe, and a rough one at that) the attacks from Satan grow stronger by the day and in some ways more frequent.

Even worse, the tasks that God has given me to do right now as part of my work and training seem to have hit a dead end.  One of the big ones is my writing.  God gave me the gift of literary prose to help expand His kingdom and teach other believers the things they need to know and do.  Yet over the past few months I've been stonewalled totally on my writing.  The fact that I'm writing this now is only possible by God's divine intervention.  Otherwise my mind was blank and unmoved despite having lots of notes to motivate my creativity.  That to me speaks of a satanic attack on my life and ministry in order to silence me.

I know this because normally, when God has something for me to write, He'll put an itching in my soul that can't be scratched unless I write.  And what comes out of those itchings are some very insightful articles and booklets that bless a lot of people.  The problem is, as I said above, I haven't had that itching, save for a little bit here and there, and I mean very little, for several months now and it's bugging me.

I love writing things for God by His leading and I love teaching others, but to have a dry spell this long and deep bugs me.  The only reason I'm writing anything now is I'm emptying my heart onto the paper more or less in a cry for help.  Even though I try to put on a good face for people, my heart is hurting.  This trial is proving difficult even for stoic old me.  The only thing keeping me going is knowing that God has great things ahead for me that will be more than worth the wait.  But it's like the disciples in the boat during the storm.  Even though Christ is with me the storm is still too much for me.  Even mom is chaffing under the training.  And just as a proof of my point, as I was writing this she walked into my room and commented that "Wow, Satan is really attacking me" in reference to the mind job he does on her daily.

I know it's always darkest before the blessing, and the point at which you want to give up is the point right before God blesses you immeasurably.  That's another of the things that keeps me going.  In some ways I feel like the disciples did when the storm was tossing their boat and they woke up Christ to say, "Do you not care that we perish!?"  He was right there in the boat with them and they were freaking out.  Jesus is right by my side in this storm and I feel like I'm freaking out too crying, "Lord, don't you care that we're sinking!?"

I know that sounds like whining.  It probably is.  Even so, I had to write this, not so much to complain, but more as an effort to pour out my heart about this to each of you and to share a little bit of what I'm going through.  Yes, I'm trying to stay strong, but I've regularly seen through all of this that my strength isn't even remotely enough for the trial.  I've tried to be patient, but my patience has proven to be all too thin.  I've tried to be brave, but that bravery has proven to be a flawed fleshly fear.  I've tried to smile, but found only tears instead of joy.  I've tried my best to be a good financial steward only to repeatedly find myself broke and without a dime to my name despite all of my best efforts and practices.

I know the Lord is doing something special with me, preparing me for a day in the not too distant future when He plans to do something important through me.  After all, why else would I be going through all of this if He wasn't planning to?  Even so the trial is really proving to be hard.  In fact, I feel that some of this trial has brought to the surface a minefield of prickly thorns in my heart, aches and pains, injuries, hurts, frustrations and other things which have caused me to lash out painful at others.  So when I try to be kind I come off as rude, sharp, angry and worse.

And yes, this trial is non-stop of late.  Case in point again.  As I'm sitting here, getting back into my writing groove, following the flow of the message, in walks mom babbling away about something completely pointless and meaningless, which in turn completely destroys my concentration, wrecks my groove and ruins all of the work and emotion I was trying to put into this article.  I'm not saying mom is a willing tool of Satan.  Not by a long shot.  But with her mind being so far south the devil himself can very easily steer her to do something she things is good and right and it's actually meant to harm me, or stop the work I'm trying to do for God.

It's actually become quite the challenge even doing anything useful online for God or in my watchman's work what with her always stepping in and demanding to be paid attention to, and then whining about pointless things with no meaning or usefulness to the moment or the future, and always at the wrong time.  Then the moment I turn away from doing God's work she'll get up and leave again or forget what she was talking about or something else causing the attack to end.  But as soon as I step back into God's work she's right back at it again, totally destroying my concentration and making me forget what I was doing or losing my ability to put together important facts in a way that benefits others.

And again, I'm not blaming her.  I'm simply demonstrating just one of the many different attacks that Satan is using to wreck my work and attack me, and they're getting worse.  Even so I'm still pressing the fight, staying in the battle until my commander (ie, Jesus) relieves me for a time to rest.  So if you were to pray for me, please do.  Pray for God to strengthen me, encourage me, for the blessing of a house, for the strengthening of our finances, especially the removing of all our debts so we're not always broke, and for my mom that she would learn all she needs to and quickly (and myself as well) so that the end of this trial will come soon and we can be free finally to move forward in the next stage of our work for Christ.

Thanks for listening to me.  Keep me in your prayers.  I so want to serve the Lord greatly, but I know that the greater the blessing the greater the preceding trial.  So I know I have to go through all that I'm experiencing.  Even so I still need prayer support because I will do all that I can to stay strong, but as a human being, that strength is fleeting at best.  May God be my strength at all times and in all places.  Amen.
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