footholds

Wow - my crazy summer is officially coming to a close! One too-short trip to the beach for some family time away, one sweet trip to Missouri to connect with an old friend, one trip to Delaware to see parents and say goodbye to my childhood home, a VBS week "in" Rome, then one trip to the NC mountains with 20 wild teens. Ahhh! My home has never felt better :) And, want to hear something crazy? One of the first things I did once returning home was to clean the bathrooms! I just had to feel domestic or something in my own home. Too funny!
Camp week last week was great. We ended up having four girl counselors to our 12 girl teens and two guy counselors to our 8 boys. What love was shown! What truth was spoken! It was fantastic! During one of the evening worship times, the speaker preached about Satan. Not too often do we dig into Scripture regarding the evil one. We went over his banishment from Heaven and then dug into his character. Something that stood out to me was that Satan is not God's equal (I knew that) and therefore is not all-knowing (which I'd never stopped to think about). Satan isn't privy to our thoughts. It's when we trip up and give in to temptation that we make known our struggles. Then he moves in and continues to tempt us in our problem areas, with the goal to draw us away from God. Satan's not so interested in us becoming his followers per se, but just turning our thoughts to anything other than God. If our attention is off of our relationship with God, then Satan's goal has been met. Yikes. That hit me. I mean, my focus is often misplaced. I miss my quiet times more per week than I am faithful to do them. Ouch. I am distracted with life and travel and the future... not wrong things necessarily, but it's taken my attention away from deepening my relationship with my Lord and Savior. Which means the devil is winning. Ever thought about the fact that your busy schedule can be used by Satan to pull you away from the Lord? Changes need to be made in my life. I can't give Satan a foothold!

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self,
created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness...
Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." Ephesians 4:22-27