What Voice are You Listening to?

What Voice are You Listening to?

Have you ever read a quote that changed your life?  A quote that communicates a truth in such a way that like a jackhammer it crumbles your walled-up thinking so that light can shine into the darkness?  A quote that’s worded in just the right way that it gets your attention, wakes you up, shakes you up, changes your perspective and thinking in such a way that it could change your future trajectory?

I had this experience yesterday when I read these words in the book It’s Not Supposed to be This Way,

“Satan loves to take a beautiful moment of life and fill it with a negative narrative about our failures that plays over and over until the voice of God is hushed” Lysa Terkeurst. 

Within the last several weeks I felt that there was a bit of a wall between myself and God, something muffling me hearing from him and I have been asking God to show me what it was.  My answer came in this quote which shined like a flashlight into a dark week from a month ago. I had just returned from a three day Pure Joy conference we’d done in Naples. It had been an amazing weekend filled with God’s presence and His truth and many of the women that attended experienced healing and freedom in powerful ways.  So much so, that the pastor of our host church contacted our Pure Joy director a week later to tell her that revival had broken out at their church. God makes it clear in Ephesians 6 that we are in the midst of a spiritual battle, and our weekend in Naples had advanced God’s kingdom so I shouldn’t have been surprised by the warfare that hit the moment the conference ended. The night before we flew home I found myself at an urgent care clinic with a fever, chills, a terrible sore throat, a cough that rattled in my chest and hurt each time, muscle aches, and fatigue- I had the flu.  I came home exhausted but to a home that desperately needed mom after she’d been gone 6 days. I ached so bad small things like going down stairs exhausted me. I have found that when I am sick, it’s the enemies best condition to bombard me with accusations. My mind felt filled with words like, “you aren’t good enough, you are such a failure, you can’t keep up, you shouldn’t be ministering if you can’t keep your home in better order, you’re a fake, you’re a terrible wife and mother.” All playing in my mind while I could see a thousand things that needed my attention that I needed to do but couldn’t do because I was sick, it felt like evidence that proved the lies true. The enemy isn’t merciful.  He doesn’t say, “oh, you don’t feel well I’ll come back to spar with you when you are more up to it.” It’s a battle and like any militaman, he looks at all weakness as the most opportune time to attack. It was a dark week. Do you ever have those? Weeks that feel covered in torment, darkness, despair, discouragement, depression, and a bombardment of lies. My kids were at each other, my husband and I were at each other, it seemed like everyone in my family was against each other, believing the worst of each other, feeling easily offended. My husband and I were praying through a big decision but all we could feel was fear, anxiety, stress; a desire to quit, give-up, and throw in the towel.

My son’s birthday is December 30th over Christmas break so every year we plan a January party with friends since they are all usually gone on his actual birthday.  This year was even more important because it was his sweet 16th birthday party and it had to happen. I had group texted with the moms back and forth several times trying to find a time when all the busy teenage boys schedules aligned.  This had to happen, sick or not. They arrived at 1:00 on Saturday to play paintball. It was a bitter cold day and snow was falling. I always let my kids pick what they want me to cook for their friends and there’s no group more fun to cook for then teenage boys.  My son had picked a homemade homestyle chicken soup. I was supposed to go back and pick them up at 4:00 and I knew they’d be starving and freezing from running around in the snowy woods for three hours so I thought I’d get the soup ready and leave it on the stove while I ran to get them.  When I got to the paintball facility they weren’t freezing and ready to jump in the toasty car and head home for a warm bowl of soup like I thought. They had paint left, and cold or not this paintball battle wasn’t over until all the paint was gone. We didn’t leave until 5. I dished out the soup in big heaping spoonfuls and set all the bowls out, so proud I’d pushed through how terrible I felt to still make this happen for my son when my daughter said “yuck, what’s wrong with the soup?” 

I tasted it, “Boys put down your spoons don’t touch it.  It’s disgusting. It’s burnt!”

I had made two big pots knowing I was feeding several teenage boys who had been running around all day.  One pot was a nice stainless steel stock pot the other a hand me down that had seen better days. My husband had scooped his soup from the nice stainless steel pot and said it was fine.  But after he’d gotten his bowl and before I knew the other pot was burnt, I had scraped the last bit of soup out and added it the good pot to consolidate. Just like a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough, a little burnt soup spoils the entire pot.  I was so mad at myself. Why hadn’t I waited until after we got home from the party to cook the soup? Why did I risk it? Why did I add that last bit of soup from the bad pot to the good one? Why hadn’t I just left it alone? Now I’d messed it up twice and it was my son’s sweet 16.  I had been listening to the enemy’s narrative all week about being a bad mom. Now I couldn’t get this special moment right either. It was no big deal to my son or the other boys, I just ordered them pizza. They were still cutting up and laughing and having a great time, but I was so frustrated with myself.  I went to my room, hid and cried. How could I mess up soup? Sweet Sixteen Birthday Soup. Soup is the hardest thing to burn and I still screwed it up. I so wished I could turn back the clock and redo it. Not make the mistake. Get it right. But I couldn’t, so I was giving myself the worst internal verbal lashing over it. 

Now, back to the life altering quote from yesterday, “Satan loves to take a beautiful moment of life and fill it with a negative narrative about our failures that plays over and over until the voice of God is hushed” Lysa Terkeurst.  This should of been a beautiful moment. Celebrating God giving me the best son to raise and having a sweet 16 years of sharing experiences and making memories with him. Hearing him laugh and enjoy his friends. But the enemy loves to steal our celebration.  Celebration brings praise to God. It’s a mindset of thanksgiving for all God has given. The enemy has always been about stealing God’s praise. So if he can distract us and get our attention on our mistakes, our circumstances, our failures, our fear anything but seeing God’s goodness in our life then he can keep us from celebrating, keep us from praising.  I should of been celebrating that entire week what God did in Naples through our conference and the family God had given me to come home to, but instead I listened to the enemy’s narrative and allowed him to silence my celebration and my praise. We can only focus in and listen to one voice at a time. If it’s the enemy’s voice we are listening to then we won’t hear God’s.  Whose voice are you listening to?

2019/02/19 at 9:25 pm