My heart today:

Today, I don't know what I want to write about but there is so much in my heart today (and this week, and this month and yeah you get the point) that I feel like I need to start writing some of it down to make room for all of these expanding emotions. For starters, I am mostly excited and happy. God has so deeply been opening my eyes to how profound His blessings are on me. Too many to accurately write about them with as much detail as they each deserve. And I lately have been so beyond impressed with God and all that He seems to want to do for me. The things He shows me, the things He says to me, they are things that He doesn't have to show me or say to me. He does all things because He loves me. He wants to share things with me, He wants me to know who He is and He wants to be with me.
He wants to bless me.
And too often I either don't realize that something is a blessing (most common in my life), or I choose to dwell on the opposite of God's blessings: Satan's attacks. I wish I could simply say I don't think I am alone on this, but sadly I would wager to say that everyone at one point has fallen victim to this grotesque fact about Satan: whenever God is raining blessings, Satan is spitting curses.
And like most good things, God's blessings often times come with a price that we are not qualified to pay. Too often times we allow ourselves to wallow in the curses Satan fires at us, and we are so angry and hurt and frustrated that we usually miss the point: Satan doesn't attack us for no reason. Why would he? Why would he waste his time like that? No, Satan's biggest and most hurting attacks come either right before God moves mightily, while God is in our midsts moving, or right after we have seen God do something incredible and we've made it (yet again) to that spiritual mountaintop.
But as we are at the top a strong wind that smells of jealousy, hurtful words, shame, doubt, chaos, tragedy, or a mixture knocks us down and instead of holding on to the mountainside of God's righteousness, we allow Satan to push us all the way down until the hurt we now feel gets too much to bear and we look up and beg God to take us back.
What is most ridiculous is that He does.
God NEVER says, "Oh now you want me." or "I told you so." No, He is so enthralled that we are back to Him that He forgets about how we let Satan get the better of us. (Read Luke 15:11-32)
Oh my goodness, how great is our God.
And this has been me lately.
Too much lately.
I will feel God so completely; I will be basking in His grace and Holiness and I am growing so deep in my relationship with Him. But like clockwork, Satan comes to steal my joy, and lately I have been letting him. He's been getting me through hateful words, through hurtful things friends have said (albeit unbeknown to them,), through confusion and uncertainty and mixed signals and blah blah blah.
And I let Satan rob me. I basically invite him in for a cup of coffee and then I give him some cookies and then I give him my joy and he's on his merry little way. And Jesus is standing there saying, "but, I gave you that joy. And I wanted us to share it.".
Double ouch.
I guess where this post ended up was how lately, I have been letting Satan rob me and that is something that honestly needs to stop. God's blessings are so good and beautiful, and I want to spend all of my time praising God for who He is and what He does in my life over anything else.
So Satan you can have anything you want. Just not my joy.
My prayer for those who read these words is that you would keep your joy as well.

Peace,
Ashlee