Choose Who Wins

I’ve been laboring with the false belief that *I* need to fight my spiritual battles. The truth is that God fights my battles. My job is to choose who wins. What’s your experience? What tools do you use to walk with God, especially during the times that are murky, misty, and dark?


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Video transcript (edited):

I am laboring under spiritual malaise. It's a heaviness sitting on me. Sometimes it feels like discouragement, apathy, or depression. Sometimes it's all over the place. A lot of times it's negative self-talk which I attribute to the enemy of God. It's a voice inside me saying, "Give up. Why try? This stinks. You're never going to get it. You're going to keep trying forever."

Nastiness!

So I've been struggling under this heaviness and pushing against it. Then one night I realized as I prayed that I was laboring under the false belief that *I* needed to do something to get rid of it!

The truth is that I can't! The enemy of God is stronger than I am. I have seen it firsthand in battles where I felt powerless. The truth here is that *God* fights the battles. When I'm laboring under heaviness, when I'm struggling, when I need help, it's God who fights the battle.

So then, what is my job?

As I prayed I decided my job is to choose who wins. God's going to fight the battle but I get to choose who wins. That is the privilege God has given me. I get to choose! And that’s really all I have to do.

I remember a bishop trying to teach me this twenty years ago.
He told me a story about two wolves, an evil wolf and a good wolf, vying to possess me. The wolf who wins is the wolf I feed.

At that time I was struggling with negative self-talk and low self-worth. I remember hearing his story and thinking, "No way. It is all I can do to make it through the day. And I’m not even clear what he's talking about, — choosing which wolf to feed — because I don't think I'm feeding anything. I think I'm curled up in a ball getting eaten."

I couldn’t understand how to apply his story. But now I think that "choosing" means "what I reach for." When all of that heaviness sets in, even the tiniest glimmer of reaching for God and saying, "God save me! I know You can save me. Come into this.” Or even just, “Help! Please fix it!" Just that invitation is enough.

It's really about where I turn my eyes and what I look to. If I look to the the lies then that's who I'm choosing and when I look to God and His truth that's Who I’m choosing.

I say all this with a heavy heart because I know that I was not ready to receive that message twenty years ago. It was so hard and I needed more healing from God before I could see, choose, and recognize the effect.

Even so, I believe that it’s true that each day we choose who wins.

What's your experience? What tools do you use to walk with God, especially during the times that are murky, misty, and dark?

Keep shining!

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