I Can't Hear You!

I have a very fiesty aunt and for the sake of privacy I shall refer to as Aunty Anne (Yes, like the pretzels). When I say fiesty, I mean she is a firecracker and on more than one occassion I have witnessed her pull a troublemaker up by the collar and give them a good talking to.  She bites her tongue for no one and if you weren't rooting for her favorite football team on Sundays, she will kindly (or maybe not so kindly) ask you to remove yourself from her home. However, as fiesty as she is, she is twice as loving. When times get tough, she is the one to pull my family up by the bootstraps, lend a helping hand, invite you over for a home cooked meal, a laugh, or a shoulder to cry on.

A couple of years ago she began to search for a church to in order to cultivate a relationshiop with God. To say she had a difficult time adjusting was an understatement. In particular taming the tongue. In the weeks that followed her new found faith, lots of other trouble came knocking at her doorstep. The devil came looking to stir up trouble, and he had a merry lot to help him.

One afternoon while scrolling through Facebook I saw she had posted one of her troubles and how she had amazingly enough handled herself calmy. In the few minutes that it took for me to type up a word of encouragement, it took the enemy less time to have her children, friends and other family members do his bidding. After all was said and done, of all the comments posted, only TWO had been encouragement.

To make matters worse, her children and friends began then adding their own posts (all stemmed from her trouble) where they began threatening others, being hateful, and generally fueling the firecracker in my Aunt that she was trying to tame. It wasnt long before Aunty Anne was letting others have a very large piece of her mind.

My point is this:
The enemy will try and use ANYONE, especially those have an actual impact on your life (like family and friends) to get you to wander off the path of righteousness, and he will waste no time at all in doing so.

Like Peter, the moment we take our eyes off Christ, we begin to drown in non-relevant details, circumstances, doubt, and hearsay.

Are there people in your life feeding your doubt or adding to it? Is the enemy using them to get you to speak negatively about your situation? Are they aiding you in cursing yourself with negative talk?

Shut them out.

Fix on your eyes on Jesus! Speak life about your situation, to your situation and to others about their situation. Only you can keep yourself from drowning.

FYI: Aunty Anne is has attempted several more times to cultivate a relationship with Christ. Pray that one day her seed will be planted in rich soil and not the rocky ground.