Spring is finally here! I am surprised at myself each year; how much of a child I am about this season and how much joy I get from the wildflowers and the new green leaves. Everything is brand new and undefiled and there is so much hope. It's so perfect that this is also the season in which we celebrate Easter. The joy of the resurrection is amplified so much in the creation coming alive again when it appeared so dead for several months. It just makes me want to climb a mountain and sing "He Lives" at the top of my lungs. OK....
I was telling the story about Moses to the kids this week and we got to the part where he raises his hands in prayer as the Israelites are in battle. They thought it was crazy that when Moses lowered his hands the enemy started to win, and when he raised them in prayer again the Israelites took the lead again in the fight. It was even more crazy when Aaron and Hur had to help Moses hold his arms up so that the Israelites would win the battle for sure! I just have to chuckle a bit at how great a picture this is for us in regard to spiritual warfare, and a great story for kids to understand prayer far better than from my explanation. There are so many messages for us in this: 1. Pray when the enemy is closing in. 2. Stop everything else and pray. 3. Prayer changes the outcome of things! (don't we doubt this sometimes?) 4. Keep praying 5. Ask for help praying. I love it.
Maybe because this has been such a season of learning these lessons in real life for me. There have been several big areas in my life where the enemy was closing in, or at least throwing some effective punches and in each situation there has been very little I could physically do to change the outcome. In many ways my hands were tied (and my feet for that matter!) I was forced to turn to God and say, "Lord this battle belongs to you....whether the outcome is what I want or not, as long as it is your will I can be OK with that." What peace in that! Of course it is hard to give up the control and the need to DO SOMETHING when a situation is unraveling, but sometimes it is exactly the thing to do. Now I can see amazing things God is doing and has done in each situation...things I could not have seen if I had still been "in the battle" myself, and truthfully the actions I would have taken would have closely resembled thrashing around rather than effective action.
