New Devils STOP!

What adversaries are stopping you from taking a leap of faith? Just pick any distraction.

Distractions are interesting. Distractions cause us to pause and more often than not, miss out on important, right-now moments in a life we’re not promised to be living tomorrow.

These disruptive distractions are unnecessary hesitations that delay what we know in our hearts we need to be doing. They are also emotions fed to us by others seeking to infest us with their own innate fears.

Today should be the day we stop living our life based on other people’s fears!

These distractions are simply your adversary seeking to delay you from your purpose. And man, did one hit me just this week through a loved one.

I found myself on a call that was intended to be a moment to catch-up, but it became pretty shady fairly quickly. I felt as if my talent and choices to transition to a new career was being attacked through a hidden, one-sided verbal war I thought I was unsuited to fight.

Out of respect, I could only sit there in shock as I listened to an onslaught of self-righteous opinions that sought to apparently somehow correct me. The goal, of course, was to stall me and take me off of my game!

I finally just hung up, but I could only stand there, stupefied. And then it hit me out of nowhere.

NEW DEVILS.

Earlier that morning, while running errands with my husband, he pulled to a STOP sign in our neighborhood that we’ve passed hundreds of times before. However, my eyes caught something posted on the sign that I had never noticed before. The two words somehow screamed at me just then, and I instinctively knew that it was a warning:

NEW DEVILS

I Corinthians 16:9 rushed to mind. I recalled that as doors and resources are being opened up to us during a season of growth and transition to greater, many adversaries rush in right along with the blessings. Now, this sign can be seen in different ways if we add punctuation:

  1. NEW DEVILS STOP. (Meaning new devils distract you and keep you from moving forward.)
  2. NEW DEVILS, STOP! (Meaning we shout out and tell the new devils to stop distracting us!)

I immediately just thanked God for the warning because it allowed me to focus back on what He told me: that this time won’t be like last time!

Both interpretations of this sign today were important to me!

Some of you, like myself, have taken risks before and failed very well, and are now in a season of trying again. God has promised that this time won’t be like last time.

That last time, you didn’t have a plan.

The time before last time, you were younger and didn’t seek wisdom and understanding.

This last time, you didn’t trust Him like you do now.

This is not the last time. This time, is your time.

Despite what your adversaries are doing, focus on what God said to you! Do you need discipline? Buckle down. Do you need help? Ask Him for it.

Fulfillment will only come when you are in pursuit of utilizing your gifts and talents to help others.

Cory Asbury’s moving song, Water and Dust, reminds us that God makes beautiful out of our ugliness. When everything around us is falling apart and not shaping up to be what we thought, don’t lose heart. He is working. 

You were created for greater! Tell the new devils you are three feet from striking gold, and you are not quitting!

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