Hosanna Restoration Church

I just have to start this by saying how much I love church! I know I am a pastor and that it is my job, so of course I should enjoy it, but I mean I really love it! Still, there times like this morning when I just all of a sudden feel like I want to pull up the covers and stay in bed. Suddenly feelings of uselessness will just come at me and I want only to curl up with God and be held.

Of course when these feelings come it sends me running to the one that I want to hold me as I wonder how in the world those attacks manage to find their way into my life. Then as always, He will point out examples from His word that help me to see my way to overcoming the feeling. Still, they are real and very convincing when they hit.

I know that it should not surprise me, and I guess it really doesn’t, but I always want more understanding and the only place to get it is from God. You see I recently had a wonderful time of encouraging some folks and praying with them for greater power from on high. And of course I know that when you pour out, you need to take in and often times on short trips there is more pouring out than taking in time available. Even though I may be praying constantly in the Spirit and calling on God through the night, it is still not like having the time to just sit with Him.

For two or three days I was not sleeping well and God was telling me to be still…have you ever noticed how hard it is to be still? I mean to just shut your mind off and get tunnel vision on Him. Well each time I did, sure enough, I would go to sleep, only to wake up and start over an hour or two later!

This morning when I had those empty feelings after a good night’s sleep, God reminded me of Elijah. So I went and pondered this time in his life when one day he was taking on the prophets of Baal, and shortly there after he is telling God he has had enough and that he wants to die.

How is it that we can be so strong one day and then all of a sudden we feel like God has changed? How can we be so sure of Him one day, and the next day we don’t see Him anywhere? Often times as a pastor there is nothing I can say except, “I don’t know!” I have no idea why some things go the way they do, but I do know that God has a plan and that it is good. I pour that into people time after time, so I guess it stands to reason that I might wake up with the enemy trying to convince me that I have nothing, know nothing, and that I have less than nothing to offer.

The good news is that the enemy is wrong. As long as we have Jesus, we have the victory. Even though Elijah prayed to die, he ended up seeing his enemy defeated. All the promises of God are true, and we can never go wrong standing on His power and His wisdom. I can’t stay in bed, I have to get out there and behold the glory of God. By the time God finishes lifting me up, I always imagine that the devil is really sorry that he tried that old trick. I encourage you; make the devil sorry that he even bothers with you. Put on that full armor of God and plan for your victory. It is coming! Get ready! Now shout the victory!