The Nature of Strength

The very moment a man, woman, or child receives Christ as Savior, they enter a battle. The Enemy ... Satan ... is determined to ruin the believer's testimony. But in His grace and goodness God has supplied a mighty weapon to those who serve Him ... Christ's very strength flowing through their lives.

Christ's power, as the Son of God, is supreme. Satan, even with all his demonic forces, can't throw anything our way that can match Jesus' supernatural strength. But even so, temptations and trials expose hidden weaknesses when most of us would prefer to appear strong. That is one reason human nature rebels against hardship and tries it's best to avoid it.

God wants the Christian soldiers to be armed with the Savior's might so they might confront life's difficulties. He promises us His strength only when we put down our pride and accept the fact that we are too weak for battle of any kind (2Cor 12:9). And only then is Jesus' power available to each and every believer right this very minute as a gift from the Commander so that His followers can victoriously endure conflicts of all kinds.

The world encourages us to keep up the appearances of handling one's own problems. So the Christian's marching orders probably seem quite strange to worldly onlookers. However, arrogance does not bring blessing; rather, it causes confusion, distance from the Lord, and ultimately utter failure. If we want to be victorious, we must make it a point to not follow the worldly strategy of facing the enemy alone.

Until our life is over or Jesus Christ returns, whichever comes first, we are locked into a battle with Satan. A battle for our very souls. But we are not to despair. We must not forget that God has given us an incredibly powerful weapon. When we are totally dependent upon the Lord for His strength, we are absolutely filled with supernatural energy, skill, and endurance. All of which are not of our making. They are things God provides for us in our moment of need. And He will remain faithful and provide these skills to us for as long as we need them ... as long as we lean completely upon the Lord we will never be put to shame.

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So far the old monitor is doing what it's supposed to do. Eventually it will give up and give out and I'll have to deal with it. My car registration is due so I'm stashing away all extra money to cover that cost in November. Luckily for me I still have a couple months and can stick away a little at a time. Getting paid just once a month limits the amount I can put aside at any one time. But if I put half away at the start of October and then the final half at the first of November, I will be able to pay for the tags by the end of that month. Getting paid monthly is difficult. You can't just spend all the money at once. You have to pace yourself and remember to leave money to live on for the rest of the month. I need to continuously remind myself that I have been called to a life of poverty. And you know there is some comfort in that. We don't have money to worry about. The stock market can go up or down. It has no effect on me at all. I have no retirement to worry about either. The most difficult part in my life of poverty is learning NOT to spend money. I think we're all born with the "need" to spend. We see something, we desire something, we buy something. That's usually the way things work out for most people. But for me I have to stop the progression at the desire point. Learning to say no to everything you desire all month long, only to repeat the process the next month, is the key to contentment. You know the apostle Paul said he had learned to be content in everything he did. The key word there is "learned." It was a process, something he had to learn, and we all know it takes lots and lots of practice to learn to do anything. So I "practice" all month long saying No to all the things I want and concentrating instead on all the things I need. The Lord has always promised to supply for my needs and He is faithful in His promises. He does supply. Oh, it would be nice to have a little something left over at the end of the month but that seems rarely the case. More often than not, I am in as big a want at the end of the month as I was at the first of the month. But my needs are always met. He is faithful; He does provide. I have learned there is great patience in waiting. It's simply the process of denying myself, and denying myself creates in me the life of Christ. I can't say Yes to the desires of my flesh and at the same time say Yes to Christ. One must always give way to the other. In my flesh there is no good thing; but in Christ everything is good. There are so many things I want but nothing that I need. God is faithful to me and takes care of all my needs. Yet I must learn to say No to all my wants.

Fall is definitely in the air today. We made a quick trip into the next town (about 16 miles one way) this morning and bought 10 cans of tomato juice. M loves tomato juice and Longs had tomato juice at 10 cans for $10. It's normally around $1.79 a can so we saved close to $8. It was well worth the expense of the trip to stock up. We've been waiting for months for someone to have it on sale and it finally happened this week. I had the horrible feeling that we'd drive all the way into town only to find out that they were sold out of the juice. That's usually how our luck runs. But all the way there and back you just couldn't miss the feeling of Fall. The leaves are starting to drop and the sun just has that Fall color to it. I don't look forward to having to rake all the leaves out of the yard when the time comes but I am definitely looking toward our first rain of the season. Those in the know are saying that we may get some rain this weekend in the mountains but probably not down here in the foothills. But it would be so nice to have a rain wash all the dust and dirt away for a change.

Well, today is my day to mop and wax the floors but I think I'm going to need to put that off until I'm feeling a little better. My low back is not in the best shape this morning. I'll try to squeeze it in tomorrow but I'll let it go a full week if I have to. I just don't think my back is up to the effort of mopping and waxing. I'll get the rest of my chores done today though so that will be the only thing I let slide.

I was in the living room yesterday afternoon and I heard a big crash come from the back of the house. I started down the hall and M called me. Took me a few minutes to actually find him. He was calling me by that time and I thought he said he was in the bathroom. I checked both bathrooms and couldn't find him. Then I finally heard him in the darkened bedroom. He had been asleep on the bed and was trying to get up when his hand slipped and he fell out of bed. Today he's sporting a nice shiner. He hit his cheek on the corner of the bedside table and was a mess when I finally got him up. He had a gouge out of his arm, a goose egg under his eye and another gouge out of his cheek all of them bleeding. It took two bandages on his face and one on his arm. As the goose egg went down the bruise spread to be a black eye all under his eye and then down his cheek. I'm just grateful he wasn't hurt worse that he was. But that added at little excitement to our day yesterday. Makes me wonder what he would have done if I'd been gone. Anyway I think that's when I pulled my back a little, helping him up. I tell you for sure, this old age stuff is for the birds. When it gets to where you can't get up when you fall or you put your back out helping someone else get up it's old age just leaving his calling card, I guess.

M and I played several games of Cribbage last night (he skunked me twice!) and I can't believe how lucky he was. Almost every single hand was worth 14 points. He just kept getting double runs and double double runs while I was lucky to get a pair! It just wasn't fair! But it was a lot of fun. I'm so glad I bought that cheap cribbage board when we did our shopping. Playing cribbage is much better than watching old reruns of COPS or Most Daring Police Chases or I Can't Believe the Crook Was That Stupid or whatever silly thing they usually have on Court TV. Oh wait, it's no longer Court TV. It's now True TV. It's garbage is what it is! How we end up there is beyond me. And why we stay there once we get there is way beyond me!

Not much to this blog today but I need to get busy. I still have a few chores to do so I better get with it. I'm not in the mood to do any housework at all today but I'll be glad I did them come tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to scour the bathrooms and I will try to squeeze in the mop and wax job (unless I feel better after while and I get the floors done today like I'm supposed to). But I'm not going to get anything done if I don't get busy. Hopefully my computer monitor continues to work. I wish I knew someone who had an old monitor they wanted to get rid of. I'd take it off their hands. I'm hoping for a flat screen when I replace this one. Problem is, I don't even have an idea about the cost of a new monitor and I can't start saving up to buy one until the car is registered and then it will be Christmas! The time is going to fast anymore. Oh well, I'm that much closer to heaven.

My hair does appear to be growing back in (does hair grow "in" or does it grow "out"?) but it sure is taking it's time and it doesn't look like it's going to grow in any thicker either. I had hoped that maybe it would grow in thicker with lots of body and it could even be gray if it wanted to be but looks like I'm striking out on all of those. Everything was really good there for a week or so all the sores were gone and my scalp was nice and normal. Then night before last, I think it was, I found a couple more sores on my scalp so this is not over by any means. At any given time it could repeat what it did the first time around. You watch, I'll just get my hair all grown out and back to normal and it'll all end up falling out all over again. Now that's something to look forward to, huh? Did I ever mention that I can be a bit pessimistic? Ha! Stay in the arms of the Lord and until next time...