Looking back over the last month or so, I am not sure I have ever been surrounded by this much spiritual warfare! When Satan sees that you are about to do something good… watch out! He will be ready to attack in every way possible (Ephesians 6:12)! We have dealt with stomach bugs, viral infections, being referred to GI specialists, speech therapy appointments, doctor’s appointments, play therapy and satan attempting to cause division in every possible way! One thing after another and it can certainly cause defeat, discouragement & just plain exhaustion! That is where I was today, and have been on and off for a month or more! Pure defeat, discouragement and exhaustion.
There are so many times in my life where I’m going through a “rough season” and I run to God with my problems, my requests, my cries, my prayers….etc. And right as I start to request things from him…. I feel instant regret or instant disappointment in myself as it seems at times, I reach out to God or run to God more when things in my life are hard, or “out of sorts”. I walked outside today as my kids were eating lunch inside and just cried out to God. And as that disappointment and regret started to creep into my mind… I immediately felt God whisper, “keep running to me. Always keep running to me”. Those feelings of regret and disappointment in myself for reaching out to God simply because I was tired again and overwhelmed with life turned into me feeling like a child and simply running to my Father because I knew that was the place I would be most safe and most loved and most comforted. I thought of my kids immediately. When my kids are hurt, sad, uncomfortable, angry….. Where do they run? They run to their Father or their Mother. Simply because they know and feel confident that their Father and Mother will make things better! I can promise you as a Mother, I don’t ever simply desire to turn my kids away from me or STOP them from running to me just because they run to me with their problems all the time! No, I embrace them because I love them unconditionally! I always want them to run to me! I want them to “Keep running to me. Always keep running to me”.
Satan wants us to believe that our prayers don’t matter to God and/or that God is “fed up” with our requests! That is simply a LIE! God wants us to “keep running to him” every single time we feel weary, tired, stressed, overwhelmed, angry, discouraged…etc. He is our Father! And he is a MUCH better Father than ANY earthly Father ever could possibly be!
Once I felt God whisper this to me today, I started feeling sad “again” thinking about the kids who simply don’t have a father and mother who want them to “keep running to them”. I can’t say this enough: Foster Care is HARD! Just today, we took our 1 year old foster child to the doctor because he has had diarrhea for over a month and has had inconsistent bowel movements since we have had him at 5 months old (just being real people). There are many more things that make life with our 1 year old hard…. But praise the LORD he now has a mother and father that care for him and that love him! Praise the LORD that he has a mother and father now that take him to the doctor regularly and get him the help he needs with therapies and GI appointments. There are children ALL over the world that simply DON’T have a mother and father who desire for them to run to them when they need to. What is beautiful about this is that YOU can help. Yes, YOU reading this! Maybe you are 16, 25, 38, 47, 59, 75 or 100! YOU, yes YOU… can do something to make this crisis better! The question isn’t CAN YOU? But… WILL YOU?
Matthew 11:28-30
1 Peter 5:7
James 1:27
Psalm 68:5
Psalm 10:14
John 14:18
