Greetings!

This month, our newsletter will be in two parts.  God birthed two newsletters in my heart this month, and I believe both messages are needed.  They were born of an experience my wife and I recently had, but have different points and focus.

My prayer is that no matter where you are in your walk with Christ that they will challenge you, and bring you to a closer walk with God.

The Battle

My muscles ached, not used to holding this uncomfortable position. My mind tried to push out the thoughts of my aching legs and ankles. This wasn’t some common exercise routine. This was war! I had to hold the position. I had to be patient, because if I could just hold out a little longer, I would have victory. My adversary, who normally had a good measure of patience, was now in the hot seat. The heat had been turned up, and I knew that if I could just hold out longer than he did, I would be victorious.

My nerves on edge and my ears listening for every sound, I turned quickly when a sudden noise arose behind me - a distraction. I quickly turned back and watched. There… a sound. Faint, but unmistakable. He was about to make his move. I was ready.

Suddenly, he burst from the darkness and charged my position. I raised my weapon, and struck with all my might. He was not going to terrorize my house any longer. Tonight it would be over. His quickness surprised me as he skirted my deadly blow. I swung again, but this time only grazed him. I HAD TO GET HIM! IT HAD TO END!

In desperation, I attempted to block his escape. My blow came down, more powerful than I had planned.

My enemy lay motionless beneath my weapon. A moment later, it was over. I was victorious. The mouse was dead.

Right now, many of you are laughing. Some because you thought maybe I was fighting some spiritual foe and a mouse was not what you expected. Some are laughing to yourselves because you have fought such battles in your home, and you are remembering how you looked. Either way, I wanted to share with you some thoughts and insights I gained from my battle.

My wife and I live in an old house, and like many old homes, it has more creaks, cracks and holes than a chain link fence. Patches mark where the battle has been waged to keep the house together, but it's a losing battle. Time marches on.

It is in this house that my wife and I spotted our first mouse. It was in our kitchen, and after the initial shock and fear of seeing something skirt out of nowhere and then back again, we set about to remove this thing from our home.

We prayed that God would remove it and then set traps just to be sure. Two months went by. No sign of anything out of the ordinary, and nothing in our traps. God must have answered our prayer.

The third month we left for a trip and upon our return several weeks later made some shocking discoveries. We found that something had been eating our food and making itself at home in our pantry.

We were outraged. My wife began a thorough cleaning of the entire house, and I began the task of hunting this varmint from our home. I had a family to protect, and this thing was not going to endanger my wife or children.

As the war progressed, I became surprised to discover that I wasn’t fighting a mouse. He had friends. My thoughts of victory and bravery were dashed when two days later another stepped from the shadows. The war raged as after each victory, I would be shocked to find another to take his place.

This is where I found myself in the story. I had trapped number four behind the stove, and the oven was on broil. The irony of Truman’s words, didn’t strike me as the mouse who could no longer stand the heat attempted to leave my kitchen. He did, but not in the manner he would have enjoyed.

During the quiet times each night, awaiting the next battle, I would ponder the experiences. I would wonder how this had happened, and how long it would go on. It was at one of these times that God allowed me to see some of the correlations to our spiritual lives.

Having never fought rodents before, we were ignorant of how little they needed to survive. In our ignorance, we had left out mini smorgasbords simply because we were tired. “Dear, I’ll clean the kitchen in the morning,” was often my plea.

How many times had my laziness or weariness caused me to give the enemy a foothold in my life? A foot hold that I wasn’t even aware of. I would only later discover that my continued lack of concern allowed one to invite others in to live in my house.

What once would have only been a simple task, a simple act of forgiveness, now requires me to grab an ax to hack away the roots of unforgiveness, bitterness, and resentment. All because I hadn’t made sure the problem was gone after I first saw it.

Another lesson came after I thought I had conquered the last rodent in our house. We celebrated. We made a nice dinner, and I left the remains out as I sat in the living room with my wife. I would clean it up later. I had reverted to my old ways, and my celebration was turned to frustration when I returned to find that a mouse had enjoyed our celebratory meal as well.

Once we know the cost that has to be paid, we can’t ever go back. We can’t allow the enemy to slip back in because we have lulled ourselves into a false sense of security. Once God has set standards in our lives to protect us from our enemies, we must maintain those standards even when we believe the enemy has been conquered in our lives. It is in his patience that he can fool us, and trick us into leaving provision in our lives for him to feed on and grow.

I began to gain victory after learning the normal sounds of the house, and knowing what sounds were uncommon. I could bolt out of the living room, simply because of a small sound that I knew wasn’t made by the appliances. So we must be with God.

We are the temples of the Holy Spirit. We must know the voice of God, the sounds of God, the natural sounds that should be around us so that we can detect those sounds that are out of the ordinary. Once we do, even the slightest infraction or motion will be like an alarm ringing in our spirits alerting us that there is something trying to defile this temple.

Allow yourself the opportunity to spend time familiarizing your internal ears to the natural sounds of God. Allow yourself the opportunity to hear His voice in prayer, and to see Him in His word. Once you have, you will immediately know when an enemy is attempting to break into your home. You will know that when a thought crosses your mind, that it is not allowed to stay.

Lastly, be diligent. Fight the good fight. Listen for the sounds that are not of God, and once you find them, hold your ground. Don’t get tired. As I crouched on the floor staring behind my oven, my body ached. My muscles screamed, but there was a determination in me that was not going to allow this thing to live in my house any longer.

Stand with that kind of determination. Though your flesh doesn’t want to spend another minute in prayer, push a little longer. Though you don’t want to read another verse, hold a little longer. Be patient. You will be rewarded with victory.

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