Where do you fight your battles?

Lately I’ve been thinking about my prayer time and time in the word, how much time I spend with God. It’s been weighing heavily on me about maybe I need a prayer room but living in a single wide mobile home with my hubby, two sons and my baby grandaughter we don’t really have the extra room. So where do I spend my time with God where there’s no distractions? It’s not easy. I try to spend time during the day when boys are in school and hubby at work, When it’s just the grandbaby and I but seems like everytime I start getting into it, the baby starts crying needing fed or changed or she just wants me to pay attention to her. She loves to play; or one of our dogs needs something, the hubby’s calling (which I’m not complaining about. I love he calls me every day on his lunch break), or the boys are getting home from school. Of course there’s laundry and dishes and house work in between all that as well. I feel like there’s just never enough time in the day to do all that needs to be done and no time to sit with God with no distractions. There’s nothing but distractions in my home. So, I put it off and put it off waiting for a time with no distractions that never comes. This isn’t what God wants from us. He wants us to put Him first. He wants our full attention and to be more important than the tv show we want to watch or the book we want to read or the video on tik tok or facebook posts we want to see or video games we want to play. We have to make Him the priority. If we have time for all those things we can make time for God. It’s about what’s most important to us and we have to figure out that schedule of when we are gonna make Him priority and stick with it. After all we always make time for what’s important to us.  I guess the question is how important is God to you?

Once we get the when down, we need to figure out the where. We need to find not only the time but the place where there will be no distractions. In small homes like mine that is not always an easy task. Some people have an extra bedroom or an office they can use. Some have a building outside they turned into a man cave or work room or whatever they want to call it that they can use. Some make space in their closet. Wherever it may be you need to make sure it’s somewhere that you’ll be able to be for long periods of time comfortably and with no distractions. For me, I’m still working on finding that place. I know that I will figure it out and God will help me with that. Right now my time is after the boys are in bed, the grandbaby is tucked in her sleeper bag, as I like to call it, in her crib sound a sleep and my hubby has put his sleep apnea mask on and is snoring away. This is when I am not distracted and I can focus on God and His word and my time with Him. Sometimes I’ll sit at the kitchen table, sometimes I sit on my bed, I have found laying in bed isn’t a good idea cause then I just get sleepy and start dozing so definitely not a distraction free zone there. (I really need to rethink doing my time with God like that.) There are so many things we can do to help us stay focused and not be distracted. I have a prayer journal I use to write in, and I want to start a prayer board and maybe an inspiration board. You can also keep a notebook in your prayer area to take notes on what you are reading in the bible. Silence your phone while you are in your time with God or just dont bring it into your prayer space.

We all have busy lives and we all have things going on in our life. I understand most of us have limited space, but we need to make God the priority and we focus on what’s important to us. We create that safe space and time that works best for us. It’s not gonna just happen we have to make it happen. We have to be consistent and make a conscious effort to make God and spending time with Him a priority. Looking at the world we live in, as followers of Christ we need this more and more. The world is becoming a dark place who a lot are against God and according to God’s word that’s only going to get worse. Now more than ever we have to make a place in our lives for that light to show through so that maybe we can help it to show through in the world. Even Jesus went to a quiet place to speak and listen to the Father. We need a safe place to fight our battles. As the bible says our battles are on a spiritual level not a flesh and bone level. What we battle is the darkness of satan and his minions. We start fighting these battles in our lives in our homes in our prayer rooms/ buildings/ tables/ ect, and we fight these principalities on our knees! The question for you is, are you ready to fight your battles? It all begins with time with God!

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Matthew 6:6

Come near to God and He will come near to you. James 4:8

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. Psalm 1:1-2

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed. Mark 1:35

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5, Luke10:27, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:2-3

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24

You’re looking at the wrong reflection

It’s funny how God lines things up in your life. I recently was talking to a friend about how I view myself and that I don’t always like what I see in the mirror. We tend to look at ourselves and we see wrinkles and the extra weight we’ve put on. We see that gravity isn’t always good to us as we get older. We judge ourselves by what we see in the mirror and what we think others see when they look at us. Too fat, too skinny, too old, too dark, not dark enough, hair too short, hair too long, clothes not fancy enough, clothes too fancy, our smiles, our teeth, our eyes, we wear glasses; so many judgements we put on our own bodies. Why do we do this? Why do we assume that we are viewing ourselves the way others do and honestly why does it matter how others see us? Why do we put all this additional pressure on ourselves and allow ourselves to think so poorly of the temple God has created. We are all made in God’s likeness. Genesis 1:26 says ” Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness”. So why are we so hard on ourselves and why do we allow such low self esteem to play such a vital role in our identity. After all, are we our appearance or are we so much more than what we look like? If God created us in His image then we are made perfectly the way He wanted us to be made. He doesn’t make mistakes and He doesn’t make junk. So why do we allow the world to tell us how we should look and who we are based on the perspective of the world? 
  I am still on my Bible reading journey and I am in 1 Samuel. Saul has lost favor of God and Samuel has been sent to Jesse and his family to anoint the next king. Samuel is looking at Jesse’ sons and the first one he sees, Eliab, is of big burly stature and he immediately thinks this is God’s pick. This is the one that will be anointed. God had a different outlook though. He basically told Samuel dont worry about their looks. That’s not what I’m interested in. I am interested in their hearts. God ends up picking David the smallest brother, the shepherd. David ends up going to be in Saul’s service. There was a battle that comes up and David ends up going against a giant named Goliath and again everyone thinks David is too small. David kills the giant with a rock and a slingshot.  It’s funny even in the old testament people were judged by their looks and people even judged themselves by how they looked. So many told God they weren’t who God was looking for because of their flaws. How many times do we do that as well? How many times do we say yep I’m too this or too that, I’m not enough or I don’t fit my idea of who I think God can use. That’s not how God works. Time and time again in the bible God used those who felt so unqualified for what ever reason and these people did great things in the name of the Lord. It doesn’t matter what we look like or what our flaws are. It doesn’t matter what others see or what we think they see. What matters is our heart. What matters is what God sees in our heart. As long as our hearts are for Him, there’s nothing He can’t use us for. Remember things aren’t always what they look like cause, looks can be deceiving. It’s what God sees within us that matters. We need to see ourselves from the inside out and love ourselves from the inside out just as God does. God doesn’t look at the reflection in the mirror, He looks at at the reflection of our hearts.

1 Samuel 16:7 ”But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Jeremiah 17:10 “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Proverbs 4:23 ”Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

Proverbs 21:2 “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.”

Hebrews 4:12 ”For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”