Illusionist

A good friend sent me an email about the best illusion he had ever seen, and I have to admit it was a good. If interested, the post was terrificillusion.wmv. As I watched it, I got thinking about another friend of mine that I had just spent the morning with talking about 'stuff' going on his life. His work load keeps growing, and he goes home every night wondering what 'emergency' will happen tomorrow, and whether or not he'll have the energy to face it. He also is the 'man in charge' of one our fastest growing ministries at the church, and he's feeling quite overwhelmed with all of that. Then yesterday, he was faced with a decision concerning a movie selection to watch, and even though he felt a 'check' in his spirit, he didn't respond as he knew he should, and it may end up costing him relationally. I share all that because the really terrific illusionist isn't the guy in the video, it's the enemy of our souls.
Each of us, whether we are aware of it or not(and most of us are not), are under attack by a extremely deceptive manipulator. In my friends life, he using busyness and a 'prideful attitude' that 'no one but he can get the job done right', to overwhelm him and cause him to feel like he's failing and he can't go on, that he's all alone in his struggle to succeed. The result in my friends case is his personal time with God has gotten less and less of a priority, no real quality time, and the end result was making a decision he would of normally never had made. Now he has to add 'damage control' to his already bulging schedule.
What we did this morning was take a collective breath, and look at everything from God's perspective. Do some reflecting on what has been going on, and then prayed together in an effort of surrender and in order to refocus his life on God's plans for it, and not the enemies deceptions of it. I also realized, just how much we all need to pray everyday for the protection of those that serve our churches in areas of ministry. The enemy loves to come after them, because if he can deceive them and defeat them, he can scatter that part of the 'flock', (Jesus' favorite descriptive term for the church). And by doing that, he can take the pastor off their 'game', and if he can do that, he can maybe scatter the whole church.
So fellow believers in Christ, open your spiritual eyes to see the real illusionist in your midst, and then pray. And pray specifically for those leading ministries in your church, whose lives are already jammed pack, and so 'ripe' for deception. God bless each of you, as we stand together as one against our unseen foe.
PJ