Stand and Fight!

Last weekend, we got to go to the Oklahoma’s Ladies’ Retreat at Falls Creek.  It was a great weekend away with some great ladies!

We heard from some great speakers like Kelly Minter and Angela Thomas.  Had some great worship with Matt Roberson.  And the best entertainment ever with The Skit Guys.  (Click on their names for more information.)

 

In one of the sessions we went to, Cari Trotter talked about how we are spiritually asleep, and we are raising spiritually asleep children.  Even though I don’t have children of my own, I can think about the youth we have in our ministry right now, and I completely agree with her.  She went on to teach us how to fight.

“Lift up your heads, O you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
the LORD mighty in battle. 
Lift up your heads, O you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is he, this King of glory?
The LORD Almighty—
he is the King of glory.”

~Psalm 24:7-10

Have you ever heard of the movie Saving Private Ryan?  It is one of Nate’s favorites, but I can’t make it through the first five minutes.  Anyway, there is a great lesson in the middle of this movie.  They are in a battle… guns going off left and right… bullets flying in every direction.  One guy had one very important job, and that was to hand out the ammo.  Everyone else would do the shooting and killing, all he had to do was hand out the bullets.  So just picture this young man, in battle gear, covered with ammo to hand out so they could defeat their enemy.  All his fellow soldiers were screaming at him for help, but all he could do was sit there and cry.  He was frozen with fear.  He had all this ammo, but he wouldn’t get up.

This is a picture of our lives.  God gives us everything we need to get through whatever circumstance we may face, but we won’t get up and fight.  O don’t you want to stand up and fight?  Like the scared soldier, we don’t even have to do the work…. We just have to be willing to help defeat the enemy.  We have to release and surrender.  We have to understand that fear is intentional.  We have to define our areas of war, and not be afraid to go through the knots of our life.  We have to reject areas of darkness and run to our King! 

If we are daily in the Word and constantly in prayer we will be able to use the ammo God gives us.  We will be spiritually strong! We will be able to define the things we need to reject, and recognize the things in which we need to immerse ourselves.

O to be that mighty soldier… ready to stand and fight!

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What do you think?  Are Hollie and I scary enough to fight the enemy ;)