Satan was once an angel. A servant of God. But when he decided to pursue his own interests, he fell from his place in heaven and became an enemy of God. He, not so suddenly, I’m sure, realized that he didn’t have to focus on the Creator but that he could create his own life and make his own decisions and follow his own rules.

Satan is a liar(John 8:44), he is uncaring, crass, rude, selfish, unsatisfied, a wanderer, a tempter…obviously there are more characteristics to satan, but these are a few. Weirdly they are actually words that could be used to describe me while I was running away from my own purpose in Christ. Connection? You betcha.

He who is not with me is against me…

Matthew 12:30

I made the intentional decision to take my life into my own hands, to walk away from God’s purpose for my life; to walk away from his instructions, laws and direction for every Christian. I felt at the time that my plan was better than his. His plan didn’t make sense to me, so I went with what did – walking away from my marriage into the life that I “knew” would make me satisfied and happy. My focus became myself. My happiness. My fulfillment. My enjoyment. My fun.

If you are not for God, you are against him.

If you are not living for God…you are living for….?

The longer I lived in my selfish life, the more frustrated I got. The more crass I became. The more tempted I was to try new forms of entertainment. The easier it was to think of being with other men. The more unsatisfied I was with my living conditions. The more argumentative I was. The more selfish I was. Satans characteristics were slowly becoming mine. And I was completely oblivious to it. Just like the frog that slowly, unknowing, boils to death, I was slowly being tricked into this deadly lifestyle.

Satan fell from heaven when he pursued his own interests.

When you pursue your own interests, you will fall from your own heaven. Not the Heaven that God resides in, your place in God’s kingdom is not something you will lose your place in although you will be accountable for every action you take. But you will fall from your rightful place in life. Happiness will elude you and satisfaction will always be an unattainable goal. Following your own path and interests, your own plan, will never lead to that feeling of wholeness and happiness like satan would like you to think.

You might be convinced that there is no way that being obedient to God could lead to your happiness. You might be like I was, in a place of darkness, frustration beyond what you thought was possible. You might be feeling trapped, lost, depressed…You might have a plan for a way out, a plan you “know” will lead to your happiness and peace…finally! Trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve pursued my own life. I’ve left my husband. I’ve drank like a fish. I’ve slept around. I’ve flirted around. I’ve cursed and told beyond disgusting jokes. I “knew” for a fact that being these things was being who I was really supposed to be. But in the end, after I chased after these things and fell from my own heaven…I realized that all these things were a lie. My wholeness wasn’t found in anything but God’s plan. And when I looked back at the destruction in my wake, I realized that I was only just becoming more and more like God’s enemy. I wasn’t whole, I was troubled. I wasn’t satisfied, I was lost.

And satan thinks he’s won this battle. He looks at poor little Katie and laughs when he sees that she has nothing to her name and her husband isn’t with her. But what he refuses to acknowledge is that God turns curses into blessings, what satan has used against me, God is turning to use for me, and satan will be crushed under my God’s feet (Romans 16:20)! My situation will be turned around to give glory to God and bring so many people to God’s kingdom. Satan will see how miniscule he is compared to the power my God has. He is a created being and the God of God’s, satans Creator, will show him who’s boss and will destroy him.

We might be fooled by satan for a while. We might deny that it is his presence in our lives and his voice in our head. But God will grab us back and show us that his glory reigns. He is who the only presence that will fill us so full it can’t even be described. Satan’s characteristics are nothing compared to God’s.

Our interests will only lead us down the wrong path, they’ll only lead to more questioning, more restlessness. Even when it doesn’t make sense, pursue God and his plan for your life. When you start to wonder what this might be, read his word and do what it says. Don’t follow your ‘idea’ of what you think God might want in your life. Follow the written word. Simplify. Press forward. PUSH into God with all your might, even when everything in you is telling you to run.

When our hearts are in this vulnerable state we can’t always trust what they are telling us, this is why we need to rely on what God’s word is saying in this stage in our lives.

Even when it doesn’t make sense, remind yourself constantly that God’s will for your life will bring you satisfaction. And just keep doing what his word tells you to do.

There is an end to these feelings. Satan has an appointment for failure.

Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!

Luke 1:45

 

The other night I heard a friend say “Yeah, but God would want…”

So many times we put our ‘wants’ into our opinion of what God wants for us. God doesn’t want us to suffer, he wants us to prosper, but his definition of suffering and prospering may differ from ours!

So often we come to a conclusion of what God wants for our lives without comparing it to God’s word. And because of the situation I am in, I hear comments like this often. “God doesn’t want you to be single your whole life”, “God wants you to be happy”, “God doesn’t want you to suffer”…

Singleness.

Singleness isn’t a bad thing! Singleness gives you time with God, time to focus on your relationship with him without interruption and time to hear his voice and walk in the direction he is setting before you.

An unmarried woman or a virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit.

1 Corinthians 7:34

Yes, I have been married before. Yes, sex is wonderful. Yes, I can’t wait to be married again. But God has called me to wait for my husband to return to me, however long that takes. God doesn’t ask you to do things that he won’t provide the strength to endure. Through God, I am satisfied with where I am in life. Through him, I am content being single.

If I was trying to do this on my own strength, it would be impossible. When I focus on the world’s definition of happiness in this part of my life, I get antsy. I want a man to put his arms around me, I want to be kissed again, I want to go on a date, I want to hear how beautiful he thinks I am. But when I pray for strength to help me through this point of my life, God provides in a way I never, ever thought was possible.

Yes, I believe that I am called to a married life. I believe that God will allow this to happen and that my husband and I will have such a testimony and such a powerful relationship that it will only bring God glory. The ‘how’ is what I don’t know right now. But it’s not my job to know the ‘how’, it’s my job to know obey God’s instructions. I can’t wait for that day where I look back and see the ‘how’! The day where I can say “Hey satan, look at this! What you meant as a curse, God has turned into a blessing! You are crushed beneath our feet!!”

Suffering

If you look at what the disciples had to go through to witness and to live their lives to glorify Christ…I think I have a pretty cushy life. “Suffering” is the last word I would use to describe it.

Yes, I’m living a single life. Yes, I am living off of a limited pay-cheque. But I have never felt so full of life! I have never felt so close to God, so in-tune with my purpose in life or so at peace.

Sure, there are bad days where I wish I was “normal”. Where I wish that I could just live life and not worry about being accountable to God (wait, stop…is that what it is to be ‘normal’?!…yikes!). But I believe so strongly that God has called me to this path that I know I can’t give up on it. Not only am I fully confident that God has told me to live this life for him, but in this lifestyle I have heard from him so frequently and so obviously that I just wouldn’t and couldn’t give up on that.

Consider who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Hebrews 12:3

If I keep my eyes on Jesus, everything else fades into the background. If I focus on him and his biblical call to my life, everything else is just a slight detail. Forget my marriage for a second, forget my husband for a moment…God’s call to every Christian’s life is to live fully for him. When I get to the Pearly Gates God isn’t going to ask me “So Katie, were you married?” or “When was the last time you had sex?” He’s going to ask me what I did to advance the Kingdom of Heaven and what fruit I have to show for it, he’s going to ask what treasured I stored up for Heaven, not Earth.

There is always a purpose to the suffering that God asks of us. He won’t ask us to do anything that he won’t help us through and when we look back and realize that the God of the universe was right beside us the entire time, speaking to us and holding our hand, I believe that we won’t consider what we went through as suffering. We’ll realize the miracle of experiencing our God through it all made it worth it.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you… Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him.

Psalm 32:8,10

I was reading over old emails from my husband the other night. Some were hard, hurtful ones from rough times, and others made me smile, loving ones from our early dating stage.

I came across one email from a friend, an email I had forwarded to my husband with the attitude of “how could she say that?”. Now that I look at her correction, a response to my attitude in leaving my husband, I know that her words were right and her heart was loving. It was hard for me to remember the stage I was at when I received the email, the thoughts of leaving, the selfishness of it all, the numbness to how my actions were affecting my family and friends. But it was needed. Sometimes I need to remember the seriousness of the situation I put myself in.

What really hit me in this email was the fact that she acknowledged that my struggles were spiritual and that I needed to get back to God. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do that at the time. I’ve realized through my last two years how serious spiritual blindness is and how thorough satan can have a hold on someone. Why is it that we have all the answers to these problems when it’s happening, but before it happens we don’t prepare ourselves? As Christians, shouldn’t we prepare for these times of struggle? Shouldn’t we educate ourselves and defend ourselves so that when they creep up, we’ll be able to fight well? It’s like only building walls around your kingdom when the enemy is standing at the gate. It’s a little too late then! It seems like it’s rare for a person to prepare ahead of time for these struggles and those that are doing this, we usually label them as “fanatics” or “super religious”.

This email and others reminded me of the times where I was struggling with thoughts of leaving my husband, trying to fight the thoughts…feeling like I was barely treading water, and then how I sank. I was drowning, I was trying to fight satan without realizing how he was even having a hold of me.

I remember after I first left, telling people that I had “struggled for years”, “prayed for years that God would change my heart” and “really pursued God”. It wasn’t true. Yes, I had struggled for years, but had I fought satan’s attacks? No. I didn’t even realize half of his attacks were attacks. I kept letting them in, thinking I was only human for thinking or doing certain things. I didn’t pray for years for God to change my heart, I prayed every now and then and certainly didn’t wage spiritual war for my marriage, husband or even my own heart. And there was no way my spiritual walk would be considered “pursuing God”. I went to church on some Sundays, rarely read my bible other than that, and prayed off and on during the week. I didn’t chase after anything.

And people wonder why their marriages are struggling? They wonder why they’re not hearing God’s voice?

Do you know what it is to chase something?

When I was little, we would love it when a chicken would get out of the run. We would chase it all over the yard, we’d work as a team to corner it, we’d pounce on it when it ran frantically by, we’d use whatever we could to catch it. And it was fun! We’d laugh so hard after it was caught and share stories about the thoughts that were running through our heads as we were chasing it. Or about the panicked expression in it’s eyes as it tried to escape. We chased it. And we didn’t give up until it was caught and back in it’s pen.

We need to chase after our God with the same energy. We are built to catch him, built to feel that excitement of the hunt and built to work as a team in the chase. It is what we were created for. When God created us, molded us with his hands, he created a deep yearning in our hearts that could only be satisfied with feeling close to him.

Our society has engrained in us to pursue anything BUT our relationship with Christ. We go to church to dress up once a week and see friends and go for lunch afterwards. What would happen if we spent the entire day praying. We got up early, prayed and spent time reading our bible, then we drove to church listening to Christian music and really listened to the words and as we sang them, we meant them. Then in church, we wrote notes because we wanted to make sure we read them later and applied them. Then afterwards, instead of going out for lunch, we had friends over to our place, had a prayer meeting where everyone shared their hearts and we prayed over each other for the struggles we were all going through. What if after they all left, we sat down with our spouses and waged a prayer war for our marriages and for each other? What if that night, we lay in bed and read the bible with our spouse, and prayed Psalms for each other before we went to sleep?

What if we allowed our days to be so consumed by God and our pursuit of him that everything else seemed like an interference.

I feel like we’re all chasing wholeness, contentment and fulfillment but not allowing ourselves to acknowledge that our relationship with God is something we need to allow ourselves to be consumed by in order to find these things. I was chasing after these things, I was wanting to be “happy” and “full” before I left my husband. But if I had chased after God instead of just these feelings, I would never have left my husband. I would have realized that all these things come from God. And when you simplify your pursuit of happiness, contentment, fulfillment, peace, restfulness…into one word, one Being – God – it all falls into place.

He will give you everything you need. Everything your heart desires. And most times, our heart isn’t really desiring physical things, but instead it’s desiring closeness with him.

I think that we need to allow ourselves to be consumed and obsessed with our God. Forget society’s definition of wholeness and satisfaction, lets allow ourselves to chase after our creator and defend ourselves for the trouble in life that is promised to come. Then, when it hits, our castle will already have it’s walls and our defenses will already be strong and we will be ready to go to battle.

I’m finding that sometimes living for God’s glory can get busy and even complicated. It’s a simple concept, but when do you rest in him? When do you “be still”?

A friend and I were just chatting about this. There’s so many things that we can do to give God glory, so many things that we can fill our lives with…but what do we put effort into and what do we rest in? When do we give up the ‘good’ and wait for the ‘great’?

I have been told by God, in no uncertain terms, to return my heart to my husband. After I took action and stepped into obedience, God instructed me to leave the city I was living in and return to my hometown. He literally spoke to me on the top of a mountain in Peru, and showed me that this is what he wanted me to do. So, knowing the dissatisfaction that running from his will gave me for the past two years, I did it. I knew that following his instruction to me, no matter how difficult, no matter if it made sense or not, would make me feel more whole than ever before.

I’m not running any more, especially not if God speaks to me on the top of a mountain. When he speaks, I jump. I’ve learned my lesson. And I’m sure I will continued to learn it.

Sometimes when God speaks to me, it’s in a dream, sometimes it’s through his Word, and sometimes it’s a complete sense of ‘knowing’ in my heart. The instructions from God to move to my home town were in a combination of these things, but it was the instructions for life when I was home that were the ‘knowing’.

I just ‘knew’ that when I moved home, God wanted me to just live. Just relax in him, rest my soul, build my relationship with him and just live. I just ‘knew’ that he would be working while I was living. And he did. It was incredible to watch God answer prayer after prayer, speak to me so clearly through other people and his word, and to help me gracefully transition into my new / old life.

But then the novelty wears off a bit. The normal life sets in. The realization that my bills are being paid…but that is all. Spending money is nil. My own home is not an option. New clothes are a luxury. And sushi and a movie? That’s a dream.

Ok God. What now? Can I switch jobs? Earn more money? Get my own apartment or house? I start to get frustrated with not hearing his voice. I start to ask him what my new instructions are. I start to get angry with where my life is.

I start to want more.

Societies pressures of “normal” start to press down on me.

God’s word says to “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10), but how are you supposed to be still and know when you’ve followed his instructions into what most people would deem as “crazy” and suddenly you feel like he’s forgotten you?

My friend is reading the book, Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God by Henry Blackaby. One night when her and I were texting back and forth about our rough emotional battles, she read a section of the book and sent this quote:

He just kept doing the last thing his Father told him to do until his Father told him what to do next.

It’s so easy for me to complicate my walk with God, to put societies expectations onto my life, to assess opinions and apply them to my actions. But really, I don’t need to worry about these things. When it really comes down to it, they are not going to get me through the Pearly Gates. God is.

So when life gets complicated, when I start to worry or get angry, when I get frustrated at how my life is so abnormal and simple, I just need to remember to focus on what God has asked me to do and wait until he tells me to do something different.

Bringing glory to God is simple, let’s not complicate it.

Listen.

Do.

Do. Do until you’ve heard new instructions and then do them.

Listen. Do. Listen. Do.

What if you committed every one of your actions to giving glory to God? Before you did something, bought an item, planned a trip, went to work, you prayed and asked God to show you how you could glorify him in that action. And what if you actually listened to his prompting after that prayer?

I think that this is where I got stuck before. Listening to God’s answer. I’m obviously not perfect, I struggle with this still, but I’m becoming more sensitive to listening to the little tugs he puts on my heart.

I have spent the last two years running from God. Denying his voice in my life and doing, literally, anything I wanted. I am the Poster Child for the Prodigal Son story.

Two years ago, March 1st, I left my husband. I had been struggling with thoughts of leaving for a while and I “finally” admitted to myself what I had subconsciously known was coming: I wanted a divorce. I told him I was leaving, packed my car, and drove 9 hours in -30c weather to my new city where I had already rented a room and applied for jobs.

God told me, not even two months into leaving my husband, to read the bible. His voice was clear and loud, and as I lay in bed crying hot, angry tears, I told him in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t do it. His voice told me that by being obedient and reading my bible I would return to my husband, and I retorted that I wasn’t ready for that. And so I didn’t listen. I lived my completely rebellious life, partied, dated and slept with other men (which is really just a nice way of saying I committed adultery), and ran in the opposite direction of God.

And then one day I decided to be obedient. Something had been slowly changing in me, even if I wasn’t admitting at the time that it was God bringing me back to his kingdom. Again, I lay in bed, and I looked over to my bible. “Ok God, I’ll read one verse, but that’s all I have time for.” I picked up my bible and couldn’t put it down.

And my life changed.

Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, my heart was on fire for God. I was craving every bit of his presence, I couldn’t get enough of his Word, sermons, books, Christian friends…I couldn’t be satisfied but yet I hadn’t never felt so satisfied in my life.

All God needed was for me to listen to his voice and be obedient.

All I had to do was take one step towards him and he would rush towards me. Like the Prodigal Son, all I had to do was take that one little step towards home and he saw me from the distance and ran towards me with open arms.

You will be shocked at the changes God will do in your life when you listen to him and commit every action you take to giving him Glory. God will speak to you more clearly than you’ve ever heard before. Give yourself time to listen to him, pray for his voice to be clear, and dare yourself to be obedient even when it doesn’t make sense.

My commitment is to give God glory in every thing I do. It’s hard, it’s sometimes frustrating and it’s definitely not “normal”. My life is not what I would choose it to be, but my heart is finally whole and I am satisfied in my Savior.