Collateral Damage

Anytime there is a move of God, there will always be a move to distract us from the experience. Something that will come a long to rob us of the fullness of the situation.

Last weekend, I was very much anticipating a conference that a few ladies were attending. All the week before, I had my antennae up looking for some of the chaos that almost always surfaces. Families fighting, people getting hurt, car accidents. Things like that often happen when there is a big event coming up. I was surprised to see that there was no drama. There was a little distraction from the resolution of an ongoing situation, but nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, I thought that the timing of this particular event was great because it took me out of a situation that could have been awkward. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

On the way to Toronto, I was slightly distracted by the above situation, but like I said, nothing beyond what one might expect. At first the van was very quiet-not at all what you might expect, then ladies in the van with me began to outline some of the ways that they experienced the Enemy's attacks to try and distract. Mostly it was fighting within families and discord. Each of them are mature women of God and so they realized what was going on and dealt with it. As we talked about these attacks, I felt my sadness lift off me. Like just by acknowledging the situations, I was free from the emotion.

That conversation broke open the weekend for us. From that moment on, there was laughter and deep conversations, and WAAAYYY more information about some subjects than anyone person needs to know!!

As we went through the conference, there were environmental issues (the room was hot, the speaker too loud) that totally distracted me. I continued to take notes but things really didn't sink in. The ladies were in our room until 3:30am and so the next day I was REALLY tired. I drove most of the way home (which took way longer than it needed to), got home, fell into bed, just to get up and run all the rest of the week.

On top of that, I have been fighting a cold/flu all week. The more I sleep, the more tired I am.

This weekend is an Encounter Weekend that we host at the church. It is an opportunity for people to do business with God. I am on the ministry team for that, so once again, I was on "high alert" for the attacks. I drove carefully all week, watched my relationships and was aware. I knew all along that the illness was directly related to the bookended experiences with God.

As tonight approached, I fought frustration and illness, someone even suggested that I go home!! Stupid enemy! He thinks that this is my first go 'round..... I stayed and we had a great evening, as the time to minister to the people came closer, I developed a cough, and my sniffles were worse.... I KNOW that this is all related.

What I am realizing though, is that in the midst of my busy week, I was unable to take time to process what I got out of the conference, I have not even had a chance to look at the notes I took, much less distill them into applicable points, or even thoughts to blog....

I wonder how much of the busyness of our lives keeps us from being 'still and knowing' that He is God. That by keeping us off balance, we miss the times with God. The Bible says that the Enemy comes like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Take a moment today, and see if there is any sheep that could be robbing you of something- if there is, you may think it is Godly, but pull back the covers... it might just be a wolf.

If you need me next week, I might not answer, I might just be in the midst of 'stillness'!