Power to God's People!

As I write this, I am listening to some very relaxing music. No words to pull on the attention of my subconscious, just soothing, relaxing music that seems to sooth the savage beast within. On this Monday morning, after a restful night's sleep, the world and her issues were tugging on my inner peace. I stopped the mental crazies and hopped off the merry-go-round of worldly thoughts on purpose. I determined not to let those peace robbers have any power over my world, my mind and thoughts or my energy. Peace robbers virtually suck the energy right out of you when you go around trying to appease the chaos they insert into your world. You can't win when you play their game. So I choose not to play…..therefore, I win.

I firmly believe we make choices that determine the level of stress in our lives. Before you go listing the things in your world you do not have choices about, let me say there are, indeed, some things we have no control over. However (don't you like the word 'however' better then 'but'?), we can control how we react and respond to those very same issues. As a veteran of stress related wars, both internal and external, I have fallen defeated more times than I care to count when it comes to making the choices that alleviate stress rather than magnifies it. My failures in the stress war have led to the place in my life where I chose to work at doing things differently. I might add here that none of this would be possible was it not for the grace of God and growing of my faith. All by myself, I accomplished nothing. I had to decide I was unable to stand victorious alone. I tried; I failed.

As with stress, other issues become peace robber when we hand power over to them. Let me give a for instance….Halloween. Many Christians believe Halloween is evil and should be banned. At one time, people assigned all sorts of power in their beliefs to the rituals and practices of a particular group of people. If you ask any American child, they will tell you Halloween is just for dressing up in costumes and getting candy. It has no power over them because they have fun associated with the word, not evil rituals. If we planted the seed of evil intent in their hearts, evil thoughts and fears about it would grow. We have a choice to make with our children, do we plant seeds of fear and evil or seeds of fun and candy? Do we give power to evil by breathing life into it or do we buy candy and watch the delighted faces of kids? For me, that's a no-brainer. It is a choice not to give power to anything of an evil nature or superstition.

I am fully aware there are evil sources out there. I believe in the spiritual realm. First, the Bible says so. That alone should be enough. Secondly, as a missionary, I have been to places where people believe all sorts of odd things…odd to me, common to them. In fact, one of the reasons it is easier to minister in 3^rd world countries than in our USA is that they were taught and live by the spiritual realm, so the concept of God and the Holy Spirit living in us when we accept Him is not foreign to them. Our educated populous here want proof they can see or prove in a lab. The spiritual realm is the very core of our Christian faith. We believe God is a spirit being, not flesh made from dirt. We believe the Holy Spirit indwells within us to edify and guide us. We believe Jesus left His place next to God to inhabit a human body so He could deliver the souls of earthly people. To all this, we willingly give power over our lives. It is a choice we make to give power over us.

So, then, does it make sense that, just as we choose to give power to the Trinity, we can choose what we do not give power over us? I think so. Generational curses – you're out of here; no power for you! Peace robbers – hit the road, I have no time or energy to waste on you! Superstitions and fear – you have already been defeated and rendered powerless; read the Bible, you lose!

Yes, my Friends, I believe we have the option to give power and breathe life into a situation or take back the power we have handed over to something other than good and God. Today, I snatched the power back from the energy suckers and focused my thinking and peace…it was a conscious choice. How will you spend your day? How will you distribute the power and energy given by virtue of our standing with God? It's your choice! You live with the consequences of making it either way; like it or not. Might as well make the wisest, most likely to please God choice with positive consequences!