Where there be giants

(I'd like to say that I really hate the new blogger. It is not user friendly!)

I have now had some time to dip my toe back into the world to see what is still a sin and what is not. And then there is the verse that states; Happy is the man who doesn’t condemn himself in the things he allows (Rom 14:22). Certain categories I am not really tempted in. I’m not tempted about money. All the things I have reacquired since being here, I would give up in a heartbeat if that was the will of the Father. I have lived in the wilderness, trusting the Father for my daily bread and my bills being paid. My aunt reminds me when I bring it up, that I have learned the lessons of the wilderness – but now the Lord wants me to learn other lessons.

When the children of Israel first came to the Promised Land – with the exception of Joshua and Caleb – they all cried and were terrified at the giants that occupied the land. It was so bad in fact and their fear was so infectious that they all had to wander around in the wilderness for an additional 40 years until all those fearful and those that stirred up fear in others died out. It took 40 years for the group as a whole to get to the place where they were ready to take on the giants.

The Lord is beginning to show me the giants I have in my land. I have tried to deny their existence even though there were flashes of them throughout my wilderness walk. Have you ever watched the movie Fight Club? If you’ve watched it more than once, you begin to see that there were flashes of Tyler Durton even at the very beginning – but you were a little caught off guard and not quite sure if you really saw something. The flashes of my giants were a little more pronounced than that, but I wrote it off as a one-time thing (that kept happening again and again of course.)

In the book of Revelation there is a place where the beast that rises out of the sea has power over the SAINTS and is able to overcome them. Paul had his thorn in the flesh (not his soul or his spirit but in his flesh.) Some say Paul’s thorn in the flesh was the fact that he was going blind, or the thorn in the flesh was people (as in the messengers of Satan), but I say, the scriptures don’t really nail that detail down completely so we don’t really know for sure what it was that Paul sought the Lord three times to be delivered from. I’m sure to Paul it was a giant.

But the interesting thing is – David did not beat the giant Goliath in his own strength. He beat Goliath because he was fighting in the name of the Lord and it was the Lord who delivered Goliath into David’s hand.

Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD'S, and he will give you into our hands. 1 Sam 17:45-47

The battle is the Lords. It is not ours. 2 Chronicles 20 is another good example. The Lord fights these battles and He and He alone is in charge of removing the giants out of the land. Our part is to seek the Lord in the fight and not to compromise. Sometimes that is the hardest part of all, because compromising with our personal giants because we think they are too big to be overcome seems like the only choice. They are too big for us, but not too big for God. Nothing is impossible with God.

Lots of love and giant-fighting

Linda