As a teen, I adopted the thinking that the best revenge was living victoriously. It doesn’t mean the same to me now as it did then. As a younger me, I wanted others to think I was doing good just so they’d feel bad about what ever wrong I perceived done to me (real or otherwise, after all, I was a teen).
It’s amazing how our maturity and growth will transform our thoughts. Yet as I have matured, I see that living victoriously means to live in victory, to live like I’ve already won the war… what ever war I’m fighting at the time.
I fight spiritual wars, mostly. I have had an ongoing war with depression for most of my adult life. I beat myself up about all kinds of wrongs I’ve felt I did, especially to my kids. I find myself saying to me that I should have done or said…. Or shouldn’t have done or said…. Till I’m literally in a tizzy over how terrible of a mother, friend, daughter or wife I was and am. All that does is zap my strength and steal my joy of living for today.
Right now I’m dealing with some pretty off the wall circumstances that have bounced in unexpectedly. I know I’m being tested with this whole victorious living thing I’ve felt the Lord teaching me about in the last several months.
So how do I live victoriously among chaos and pain?
I must remember who I am in Jesus. I am a daughter of the King of the universe; A precious child of God. That is the first thing I must put in my mind each morning when I wake up. I have found by manually turning my thoughts directly to God and saying to Him, “Thank you Lord for TODAY. Help me be YOUR light today, and please guide and help me through today” keeps my thoughts focused on Him first and throughout the day. Yes my emphasis is about today, because that’s where I believe I’ve gone astray in my spiritual battles. I tend to think about the future or past and forget to live for the present.
It’s taken months to train myself to think of thanking God as a first thought in the mornings. But it has truly helped me gain a heavenly perspective in all areas of my life. I can also tell you when our family had a huge bomb go off on us, instead of hiding in my spiritual hole, as I would have done in the past, or even run away from the problem, I’ve been able to continue on in victory, and help others along the way too.
There is something else that the Lord has shown me lately. When the Israelites came into their promised land, they had to fight their enemies in order to settle there. It may have been their inheritance from the Lord, but they had to FIGHT to get it.
For modern day believers, our Promised Land is salvation in the Lord Jesus. Most of us think that being a saved believer, our lives should be wonderful. But the Lord showed me that, just like the Israelites had to fight their enemies in order to settle in their promised land, I too, must fight mine in order to settle into my salvation.
What are your enemies? You ask? Well, they are mostly self esteem issues, guilt, shame, the depression that I’ve spoken of. I must fight these ‘giants’ in order to settle into my promise of salvation from the Lord. I just haven’t conquered them completely yet. Your enemies may be different. Just as each tribe had a different area of the promised land to settle, and their enemies were different, so we with our varied personalities, have different adversaries to conquer in our spiritual lives.
As with His chosen people long ago, we must believe that God has given the victory to us and then go out and fight that battle in order to claim that victory. I’ll be candid here. My biggest battle is self assurance in going forward with my goals in writing, my soy candle business and approaching my friends and family about Avon orders. But I must go forward as if I’ve already won, and fight those battles in order to overcome them.
What do you deal with??
Remember, God is with you. He has given you the victory, you just need to go out and win it.
