Happy New Year friends! This year is already flying by! How can it already be mid-April and yet, this is the first post of the year? Despite my absence, God has been far from silent. He has used this season to draw me in so close as He reveals His love and goodness to me. He is speaking to me and His words are changing me from the inside out. He is so good to me. Let me catch you up on life a little!
Last summer, I began to feel a shift happening in my life. I felt the Lord leading me to give up some responsibilities and focus on my family. We simplified our schedule and really focused on being intentional with our time together and focusing on training up our children in the Lord. Shortly after making these changes, I felt the Lord impress on my heart to pray for my marriage, specifically against the spiritual attacks of the enemy. My marriage has always been fulfilling and although not perfect, our love and relationship has come fairly easy and our love for one another has never been tested. Despite being in a good place with my husband, I couldn’t shake that nudging to pray a hedge of protection around my marriage and my family. The more I prayed for my marriage, the more the Lord opened my eyes to the spiritual attacks against Godly marriages and families. The Lord showed me a vision of the enemy standing outside the doors of Christian marriages and the devil was just giddy to get a foot inside. As he waited so patiently outside the doors, he was peeking through windows, looking inside, peering, pacing, eagerly rubbing his hands together and snickering an evil laughter as he anticipated getting inside. He knew that if he could just get a foot into the door, that’s all it would take to push in full force and wreak havoc not only in that marriage, but in that entire family. The Lord began to reveal to me over weeks of praying that it only takes the smallest crack for Satan to slip into a marriage and take up residence and the Lord showed me that most of those cracks begin as a fleeting thought. In fact, I wrote a blog about this last year. You can read it here. Those thoughts, when entertained, become imaginations and that opens the door for the devil to have a foothold in your life and if not taken captive, they become strongholds and an open invitation for the enemy to wreak havoc in your life, in your marriage, and in your family.
For months, I prayed for my marriage. There were times I didn’t even know how or what to pray since our marriage was in a good place, so I just prayed in the spirit. Romans 8:26 says when we don’t know what to pray, “the Holy Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings and words that cannot be uttered” so when we pray in the spirit, we are praying the direct will of God Himself and praying for things we don’t even know we need to pray for! Ephesians 6:18 says“Pray in the Spirit at all times and on all occasions.”
Within weeks of all of this, I found out that several Christian couples we knew had filed for divorce. My heart absolutely broke at the news because although I didn’t know the details surrounding each breakup, I knew exactly who was to blame for destroying these Christian families and it was the devil himself. He knows his time is short so he is being very strategic on who he seeks to take out. He’s after our seed! That’s why he’s targeting the family unit and the church…that’s where the fertile soil is and that’s where the good seed is being planted! If he can break the family unit, the seed gets disturbed and the roots are pulled. Without deep roots, the seed may die because it’s ability to get proper nourishment is hindered. He’s going after ministers for the same reason...he wants their seed! If he can distract the shepherd and get him off course, he can sweep in and wreak havoc on the sheep! I kept hearing the Lord whisper to me, “Pray for your marriage and be on guard! Your enemy is prowling like a roaring lion, waiting for someone to devour and he wants your seed because your seed reaches far beyond the four walls of your home.” Initially, I felt like Peter when the Lord told him he would deny Christ three times, he argued with the Lord and told him he would NEVER do such a thing. I said the same thing to God! “No, Lord! Not us! We would never get divorced! That’s not an option for us! We have a strong marriage! We would never let that happen.” But just like Peter, if we get too comfortable in our own strength and in our ability to fight off temptation in our own strength, we will fail miserably. The Lord began showing me that my husband and I were not off limits. In fact, he began to remind me that the enemy is threatened by us and our children so we are on his list of targets and the devil would love nothing more than to take us out! When I truly understood this reality, I wasn’t overcome with fear, but instead, something rose up within me like nothing I have ever experienced before. It made me MAD! I was ready to put on the armor of God and step into the ring with Satan himself because this meant war! I was ready for the fight and I was determined to send the devil running back to where he came from and make him sorry he ever had me on his target list! Devil, you can’t have my marriage and you sure can’t have our seed!
I had spent weeks praying for my marriage, but as the Lord opened my eyes to the reality of spiritual warfare waging in the heavenlies not only for my marriage but for all Christian marriages, I went to my husband and filled him in on what the Lord had been speaking to me. I looked him straight in the eye and told him if we so much have a crack in our marriage, we need to identify it and close it before the devil comes in and magnifies it! I wasn’t’ about to let the devil gain access into our marriage through some crack that we had overlooked or perhaps put a Band-Aid over without resolving the issue that caused the crack in the first place! No way! Despite our great marriage, we both easily identified a weak area that if left unaddressed could be used by the enemy to bring division in our marriage and that’s all it would take to open the door to the enemy! We came together and prayed over that area for the next several weeks and with the Lord’s leading, we decided to be proactive and take steps to strengthen that weak spot in our marriage long before it ever turned into a tool for the enemy to use. We were committed to guard our marriage and protect our family. We have faithfully renewed our minds in God’s Word daily and prayed together regularly. We have continued doing devotions together that build our marriage and we have been careful to place healthy boundaries in order to guard our marriage from even the appearance of anything questionable. We also decided to see a marriage counselor to seek advice in improving our communication with one another. That has been one of, if not the best thing, we have ever done for our marriage…well, that and faithfully attending our Married Couples Sunday school class at church! In fact, when we left our first session of counseling, we both said in the car ride home that we felt like we had just sat in a private Sunday school class with the best teaching from some of our favorite books like “Love and Respect” and “The Five Love Languages”…except we felt like we were drinking from a firehose! Whoa! It was awesome! I highly encourage every couple to invest in marriage counseling throughout their marriage! We go to our doctors for yearly preventative checkups to ensure we remain physically healthy and we go to church even in the good times so that we can stay spiritually full and healthy. Why would we not treat our relationships with the same care and nurturing that we do our physical and spiritual health!? Don’t wait for a crisis to occur! God wants us to be a part of His maintenance care plan so that He can fix the problems as soon as they arise so that minimal damage is done and we get back on His course! He is faithful and He is for us! I have loved this season of growing with my husband and looking back over the past several months, I can’t help but smile and see how God has been so faithful to guard and protect us. He is such a good, good Father. He goes before us and prepares the way. He orchestrates His plans so beautifully and he takes the things that the enemy means for harm and he works it for our good! Only God can do that! Only God!
I don’t know what season you are going through, however, I do know Satan is on an all-out warpath and he is targeting Christian families and ministers! I want to remind you thatwe don’t fight against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, authorities, and the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Eph. 6:12) The enemy is NOT your spouse! Once you recognize that the real enemy is the devil himself, you will stop wasting your time and energy trying to change your spouse or your circumstances. The only way to overcome the spiritual attacks on your marriage is to rise up and fight with your spiritual weapons! Listen, you are NOT off limits! If you are breathing and you love Jesus and you are trying to raise your children to follow Jesus or spread the gospel…Satan has already sent out assignments to destroy you! But do not fear! The Lord has given us everything we need to stand against the devil’s evil schemes! We have been given the full armor of God AND the covering of the blood of Jesus! And let me just tell you something…the Word of God is our sword! All of the armor of God is designed to protect us and defend us but I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be on the defense all the time! That gets exhausting! I want to be on the offense! That’s where the sword of the spirit comes into play! That is the only piece of the armor of God that puts us on the offense! The Bible says the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow! When we pray the Word of God, declare the Word of God, and meditate on the Word of God, it’s as if we are piercing the devil himself every time! He has no option but to flee or die when we fight with the Word of God!!! Find a scripture and a promise to stand on and declare it over your marriage, over your family, and over your home and watch the Lord work on your behalf! Isaiah 54:17 is a good one to start with! “No weapon formed against me will prosper!” Declare that today! God is faithful and He has not forsaken you! Rise up! Fight for your family and be on guard! If you are on guard, you won’t be given a surprise blow that takes you and your family out! I’ll leave you with this quote from Michael Todd…”It’s the punch you don’t see coming that knocks you down.” Be alert and stand guard!
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s evil schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, authorities, and powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people!” Ephesians 6:10-18
