What does your time with God look like? Do you take out 15 minutes in the morning before the kids get up and read a quick devotional? Do you take time to read a chapter from one of those books that has been sitting there on your nightstand for the last month? Do you have a Bible reading plan that you follow when you read one chapter in the Old Testament and one chapter in the New Testament each day? Do you read a few verses from the Bible that you have randomly chosen?

There are many of us who take out that time to devote to God. We do it, because we know that reaching out to God is good; he is the source of our strength. He helps to wake us in the morning and gives us direction for the day. When we follow his direction, it always works out. It doesn’t always go our way, or the way we would like it to go, but we are able to rest in it even if it is a difficult day.

Sometimes we experience Stress and Anxiety in our day, and we’re not even sure why. We could reason out so many things trying to diagnose why we had such a difficult day. But let me ask you this. Did you take time to ask God about it?

To be honest with you, often we turn our Stress and Anxiety on ourselves as being our own fault – we didn’t react the way we should have in certain situations. We consider ourselves needing professional help, because, well, we have emotional difficulties. But is that really what is going on?

Oftentimes, we can experience times of confusion not knowing which way to go. You might believe that you should walk one direction and then in the next five minutes you feel like you should walk in a completely different direction. Is it confusion? Is it indecisiveness? Are you having trouble as to whether you are follow God’s will or your own? Do you even know what that is?

Have you ever been in a situation when you felt deep inside yourself that a direction was the way you should go only to then, at the end of the day, regretting that you even walked down that path. Were you not happy with that day and the events that took place and how they unfolded? Is your diagnosis at the end of the day called confusion?

We have our wants and our needs, and each day we can submit those needs to God. But we need to remember that things don’t always go the way we want them to go. God knows the future. He knows our needs even before we ask. He only wants us to go to him and lean on him in those different needs, circumstances, even consequences. God wants us to commune with him, and in that, abide in him. We are to lean on him and his understanding and not our own.

While circumstances may look the same as someone elses, the reason for those circumstances can be completely different. A person who spends much time with the Lord but yet experiences times of confusion is possibly experiencing a manifestation of what is taking place in the spirit realm. The Bible talks about angels protecting us, and how even Jesus stands before God as our Advocate defending us as Satan accuses us. I believe that sometimes the battle is so intense that we feel the stress from it as we experience in our spirit a war going on that we cannot see.

There is no doubt there there is an evil force at work in this world. We have to take note of that or else we tend to be harder on ourselves than what we need to. I have heard people say that we shouldn’t give Satan credit for what he’s doing in our lives as if somehow it is our own fault. The teaching says that if we give Satan the credit for it that we are also giving him power over us. That is simply not true. Let me tell you why.

A person who commits a murder should be captured, arrested and tried by a court of law. That court of law has the power to administer a sentence for the crimes committed. When Satan interferes with our lives, we need to remember that we have a covenant with God. That Covenant gives us power to command Satan to leave us. Yes, we have the final victory, but we live in a world where Satan has dominion. But Satan does not have dominion over us as Christians.

God has given us the power to kick Satan to the curb. God has given us the power to tell Satan that he cannot take our families or our homes. If we do not take note to this, then we are letting Satan take control over us. Remember our battle is not with flesh and blood, and that even means our own. We are not to war with ourselves through emotional diagnosis and treatment. Yes, sometimes we need somebody to talk to that can be unbiased, and sometimes we may need a little something to calm us down. But is that what God really wants. Shouldn’t we realize who we really are in Christ as conquerors. Who are we conquering when all we do is deal with ourselves and our own problems and do not deal with the root of the issue. The root of that issue might be considered as this was something that our parents were involved with so therefore I have deal with it because I lived in that environment. Yes. That may be true. But have you ever considered that this generational issue is really a spiritual issue. Remember this. We have power in the spirit Realm. We need to use that power.

Times of confusion could be times of temptation. I know we’re supposed to run from temptation, but sometimes it finds us right where we’re at. I do believe that Satan often temps us to walk away from God’s will.

While I do believe that God’s will is perfect for us, I also believe that Satan seeks to keep us from it. We could have times or seasons when Stress and Anxiety is a result of the battle that’s going on for us, and our times of confusion are also a result of that. God can tell us one thing, and then Satan tells us another. Have you ever been there?

You could have times when you absolutely know what you’re supposed to do and you are certainly fine with those things because they’re great things. But then there are those times of confusion. We sometimes chalk it up as being that we heard God wrong. But is that really what happened?

Something that I have learned in the past, that I have to sometimes remind myself, is that in those times of confusion – when we don’t know what to do – we can learn from the events of the day, but we are not to make any major decisions.

Any major decisions during this time could affect the rest of our lives. This is something that I believe that we should continue to keep in our arsenal of reactions to situations. Make the habit to not reconsider but to dismiss making a decision today. Sometimes going through the difficulties is really about the journey and the things you learn from it.

I like to call these moments Abraham and Isaac moments. Abraham was told by God to take Isaac and sacrificed him. This was his son! This is something that none of us can really imagine happening in this day. The reason why I call these moments like this, it’s because is usually about the journey and what is to be learned from it. In those circumstances Abraham demonstrated his faith in God. I do not believe that God intended to let Abraham sacrifice Isaac; it would have gone against Gods laws. God doesnt permit sin, and this would have been a sin, especially since this is something that some people in the ancient times did for another god.

If we were to think about what would happen later on in history – the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – the moments that Abraham experienced knowing that he was to sacrifice his own son is a parallel to what God experienced when his own son- Jesus – was actually sacrificed to carry the sin of mankind. Remember this about the account. Abraham never did sacrifice Isaac. God provided a ram so that a sacrifice could still be made to God, but it wouldn’t be Isaac.

Could you imagine the confusion that Abraham might have experienced after all of this happened. I’m sure he found a rock, sat on it, thought about it, and then ask God, “What just happened?” I’m sure he was confused, as I believe I would be too.

So in our time with God, we need to remember who we are, what we have, who we have, and what we are capable of doing. God didn’t just send Jesus to die on the cross and then leave us here with absolutely nothing to do but worship Him in this forsaken world. That is not the God that I know. That’s like saving us and then turning around and abandoning us for the next seventy years. The God of Abraham is a very loving God, but he is also just. Justice will be served, and Satan will be bound for a thousand years. Until then, we are to operate with the gifts that God has given us to survive. Remember this about the ancient times. The king always had ultimate Authority, but his son was also given Authority in the Kingdom. As Christians, we are the sons and daughters of the King, and we are given Authority over evil in this world. We just have to remember that, and when that evil treads ground that it shouldn’t, we have the power to do something about it. We need to love and pray for our enemies, but Satan has to do what we tell him. And we do it with the power and authority of Jesus Christ who is, who was and is to come. We are no longer commoners. We are victors. Remember that. Don’t forget it. Because you will need it.

I’m going to give you some homework. Let’s go back to the time that Jesus was tempted in the desert by Satan. Read Matthew 4:1-11. There is so much to learn from it. Take your time. Don’t rush through. Absorb every piece of it. Ponder it. Pray about it. Ask God to highlight the things that will speak to you and your situation right now. And remember this. Prayer is indeed a very powerful thing. It definitely can move mountains.

Go forth and be blessed my friend.