Overcoming Evil in Moments of Weakness

I was sad today.

I don't know why.

I have no reason to be sad at all.

All of my friends and family are healthy. Everyone is safe.
I'm healthy. I'm safe.

At first, I thought, "Maybe I'm lonely..."

Yes. Maybe a little. But youth group is tomorrow. My siblings will be home from school in a couple of hours. I have no reason to be lonely. And God's here. He always keeps me company. For crying out loud, I spent nearly an hour socializing with a classmate today. We both live in the same state and plan on meeting in person soon, so I pretty much just made a new friend today! So how is it that I'm feeling lonely?

"It's cold."

Yes. But a sweater can fix that. And the fireplace is on.

"It's too quiet."

I normally like quiet. What is wrong with quiet? And as I said before, my siblings will be fixing that in a couple of hours. :)

So why am I sad?

What am I longing for?

What's going on?

God's here. He's with me. He's keeping me safe, keeping me healthy, allowing me to breathe.

I'm in a warm and loving home.

All is very, very well.

But I still feel empty.

"So what lie am I believing here?" I asked God and my heart.

I have nothing to worry about right now, grace is abounding all around me, it's beautiful (and yes, cold) outside.

Is it guilt? Shame? Envy? Unrighteous anger? Lack of self-esteem? Fear?

I don't know.

There's always a battle between good and evil being fought around us. Evil can stir up feelings of sadness and self-pity even when everything in our heart and soul is screaming God's words that all is well.

Did you know that evil can even mess with us physically?

I've had backaches, pains, and toughest of all, headaches that have been extinguished by prayer and staring demons in the face saying, "Go away. In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to stop and leave!"

Yes, you and I have the authority to do that. Isn't that awesome?

I must warn you, though, evil doesn't always decide to obey you. That's when you pray for God to send angels and to use HIS power to help you conquer evil in that moment.

My headaches and backaches tend to go away after that.

Seriously. You need to try it sometime.

So here I am, fighting this battle occurring in my mind. I'm taking my own advice, commanding the evil forces to depart from me. And praying for angels to surround me. Declaring that I break all agreements with the enemy, that I repent and commit to follow the truth that comes from God. And finally, praying for the Holy Spirit to come into my head, heart, and soul to overcome emotions and feelings of pity and sadness.

And you know what?

He does.

Where is Death's Victory?

I wrote this post last night, and this morning at church we sang this song:

"Oh death, where is your sting? Oh hell, where is your victory?...My God is not dead, he's alive! He's alive!"I think this is one of the best messages about Easter.

It's 10:27 pm, the night before Easter, and I've been thinking a lot about some of my secret fears.

One of them, I think I conquered today: for about a year now, I've been working on a piece by Charlie Parker on the alto sax called "Dewey Square." It's very difficult, and for the last few days, I was a little afraid to perform it...what if I messed up and completely ruined it? What if I'm not as good as I thought I was? What if all of that practice goes to waste? What if people think I stink at it? What if I made a mistake choosing to play the piece?

But I knew I had to.

Maybe I'm making this too sentimental, but when I first heard the original recording, I fell completely in love with it. It was fun, it was light, it was quick, and it felt like a song that entirely expressed overwhelming joy...and it's jazz. :)

So I learned it.

And then when the recital was coming up, and it was time for me to pick a tune to play, I couldn't choose any other one but Dewey Square.

Finally, approximately 5 hours ago as I write this, it was time for me to perform. I had never been so nervous leading up to a performance in my entire music career, probably because I've never worked so hard on a piece leading up to a performance before.

Let me introduce you to one of my secret fears: disappointing people. This falls under the same category of  perfectionism and unnecessarily killing myself to make everyone like me, when it will inevitably never happen.

When I walked on the stage for the dress rehearsal, a wave of peace overcame me, and the rehearsal was practically perfect. At the final performance though, I was a little bit more nervous knowing that this was "the real thing." I messed up a couple of times, but hardly anyone noticed. When I watched my dad's videotape of the performance, I could tell where I messed up, but I knew that was only because I was the one on stage.

Afterwards, I felt so happy to have finished it once and for all. I found myself asking, "Why was I ever nervous and afraid in the first place?"

Tonight, I just finished watching "The Book Thief." As some of you know, the story is narrated by death, which for most of the film, absolutely sickened me. It was gross to hear how death would think of a person and his/her life in general. It was quite condescending.

The very last line in death's narration was this: "I am haunted by humans."

Isn't that perfectly excellent? I could not have been more happier about that statement when I heard it.

After all of the revolting language that death had used to describe mankind, the truth comes out: death is afraid of us.

This leads me to my confession of another secret fear: anything related to death, ghosts, horror, or evil that is invisible to me, or surprises me.

It's a funny thing about fear though: fear is something that often comes from something we feel threatened by, or unloved by.

For most of my childhood, I have hated Halloween, especially haunted houses, haunted house rides, ghosts and disgusting, horrifying images on the neighbors' houses, and worst of all: people who would invite me to stare all these things in the face...and enjoy it!

The reason I dislike these things so much is because they are the absolute opposite of who God is. God is life. Those things are death. God is love. Those things are fear. God is amazingly good. Those things are dripping with evil. God looks out for me, and keeps me safe in His arms. Those things want nothing but harm for me...or at least want to laugh at my fear. God says, "I love you, I will keep you safe, and all is well. You are so important." Those things laugh at me and try to make me feel small.

When I heard that death is haunted by humans, I rejoiced to God.

THANK GOODNESS that Jesus has overcome the dead. Praise the Lord that Jesus overcame death, giving us the privilege to be sons and daughters of God: which gives us MUCH more power over death.

And that's why death is afraid of us.

Now I can go to sleep tonight knowing that I need not be afraid of death. In all of my years being afraid of things relating to death, I know now that death is much more afraid of me, taunted by me, and hates me, because through Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection, I am no longer a small, meaningless lie, like death is.

Because of Jesus, we now represent death's greatest conqueror, which we also celebrate in Jesus's resurrection today:

LIFE.

Happy Easter!

"When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." --1 Corinthians 15:54-58

Carry On, Warrior

It's February 6th, and some of you are probably wondering where the monthly resolutions post is. Instead of making the goals that I normally do, I realized an overall life goal that I think is more important to focus on for now.

More than ever, I've felt the pressure about answering the questions: "What's next? What am I going to do in my life? How can I do something that can benefit the world and glorify God?"

I'm feeling the pressure of these questions mostly because it's registration time, which means that I need to be thinking about what classes I need to be taking for my senior year, which makes me think about college and beyond.

...and it's scary. Very scary.

Then I saw this video with my mom two nights ago: a TED Talk from Glennon Doyle Melton about what she learned about herself, the world, and superheroes at a mental hospital:

One quote from Glennon's blog stuck with me:

"The world doesn't need more 'strong' superheroes hiding the truth of who they really are beneath the capes of perfection, shame, cruelty, snark, addiction, or apathy. We need more plain old 'weak' people who are brave enough to come out of hiding. We need more messy, honest, fully human beings who will volunteer to tell the truth about who they are--who will live shamelessly out in the scary, messy world. It is braver to be Clark Kent than it is to be Superman. Carry on, Warrior." 

I was in my Omnibus class this morning after pondering these things, and the teacher asked if anyone would like to write on the board, basically acting as secretary, taking notes of what was being discussed. After several moments of silence, I decided to be the one to raise my hand.

Who knows why, but right then and there I got the exact encouragement I needed. One of my classmates immediately called me "Hayley the Brave."

Goodness, I thought, what a name. Surely I don't deserve it, just because I raised my hand to volunteer. Royalty, knights, and saints deserve those names, but surely not me. 

And it wasn't until just now, as I'm writing this, that God reminded me that as a child of the One, True King, it's ok to proudly wear a name like "Hayley the Brave."

TO BE CLEAR: I'm not saying that I want all my friends to now call me something that formal on a regular basis, because I like the simple name of "Hayley" that I have now, and it would be weird to be called that all the time.

All I'm trying to say is: I think all of us are more qualified to wear names like "Victorious Heroine" and "Hayley the Brave" if we decide to be a Clark Kent instead of a Superman, to be honest, kind, loving, and gracious, to be a warrior fighting against the "capes" and worldly temptations, and to represent and glorify God in all these things, as well as helping and encouraging others to do the same.

Now that's a resolution.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak." --Ephesians 6:10-20