You’ve traded your joy for lies
Each and every day we are all bombarded with voices…physical and spiritual.
Many of these voices are lying to you.
You have one of Satan’s helpers whispering in your ear…words that bate you into making a trade…a trade for a lie.
That’s all they have…lies…and lies are nothing but non-existent reality.
Lies. Shadows. Fog. Pure and empty nothingness.
And they want to trade their lies, the only thing they have, for your joy.
They wanted take your joy and give you nothing in return.
But there must always be a trade.
So you give your joy away and take up the lies.
You take the lie and make it your pet. You stroke it. You talk to your lie. You listen to your lie. You make your lie your best friend.
And it grows…until it consumes you. It grows so big that it finally takes all of your time and then the lie, not being happy with just taking your time, it eventually wants to grow so large that it takes your life.
You can keep letting it grow. You can keep allowing it to become what it wants to become and you do this when you focus on the lie…when you adore the lie…when you embrace the lie…when you don’t remove the lie.
But what you don’t understand…what the demon does understand is that your joy is your joy…it can’t be taken away… it has your name written all over it….you have the deed to your joy…your joy is titled in your name.
And whenever you want to trade back…whenever you demand that your joy come back to you…the demon has to give it up. He has to let it go. He has to trade back. He has to take his lie back to him.
But you can’t keep a lie and your joy. You have to give the lie back. You have to reject the lie. You have to send it on its way, no matter how much you love the lie…it has to go first.
By the way, the demon doesn’t own the lie. He doesn’t own anything.
The lie is Satan’s. The Father of Lies.
And the demon never wants to return it to Satan.
That’s a problem for the demon. It’s as if Satan wants interest on his loan of the lie to the demon and the interest he wants is first your joy, then your time and then your life.
The demon can always try to trade with you again and again and again until you tire of the trade and refuse to do any more trades.
But as long as you’re willing to trade, that demon will come back each and every time.
He knows your weakness he knows what you fell for once and is going to come back and sell you the same line once again. He’ll always take the easy road.
And once his lie doesn’t work…time to move on. Remember, Satan requires interest on his loan of the lie. The demon must find someone that will trade and pay him interest.
But others will come and/or this demon will be back with a bigger lie to sell to you.
He is willing to drive a hard bargain for you so he brings back a larger lie…something that appears to have even more value because he wants your joy.
You have to be on guard.
You have to hold every thought captive.
You have to make sure that you retain the joy God gave you.
And how do you do that?
You do it by making sure each thought that comes through is captured, compared to the scripture, and if it is a lie, it is rejected and demanded to leave.
And if any of those steps are skipped, then the lie finds a home in your heart.
And when the lie finds a home, the joy is gone.
The choice is yours.
You can keep your joy or you can keep the lie, but you can’t have both.
Make your choice and choose wisely.
Choose joy….choose life.
Life is fleeting
Life is fleeting and I absolutely hate that.
It doesn’t help that your wife says “Look you’re over 40 which means you’re ‘half dead’”…
Depression of the deepest kind sets in…
And then your 5 year old daughter says “Dad, I like your hair.”
You smile and proudly say “thanks” and the she says “Gray is my favorite color.”
Depression gives way to humiliation.
Sometimes I wake up discouraged from the day that lies ahead.
But by 5 pm I regret how quickly it went away.
Because I know that I will never revisit the day. I lived into it and now it is gone never to be changed or repaired…only to be remembered and even at that, only for a short time.
So many days I have thought it was the most important day I had lived in to that point…only to find one week later I can’t even remember what happened on that day.
And then the disappointment sets in.
Have you truly lived if there is no rememberance? Are we truly alive if the time we’ve lived in is quickly forgotten?
A sort of majestic melancholy sets in knowing that so much has been given to you and yet so little has been accomplished.
How do we cope with this sad state?
How? Only by knowing that these fleeting days are simply a small old piece of bubblegum that has been smashed into the eternal road known as our lives that go on into the distance and continue on for miles and miles and miles with no end.
It is only in this knowledge does the perspective set in that this life is fleeting and yet never-ending and so I can truly say that that which lies before me is certainly greater, wider and longer than that which lies behind me.
Never forget the past if you can help it…but, never give up on the future…lean into it, embrace it, dance with it, revel in it, but only as it comes and not a moment too soon.
It is God’s gift to you wrapped in rays of sunlight and moonlight, seasoned with troubles, tragedies and triumphs.
He loves you, He wants the best for and He waits for you…to walk the road…with Him…forever.
As the Son sets, the shadows grow longer…
I have found that as you stand and the Sun sets, the shadows grow longer and longer until your image is deformed into some elongated giant.
As the light dims and darkness advances, my height never changed. But it appears that I am
As the world becomes darker and their appears to be no “light” or the “light” appears to retreat,
Darkness retreats at the speed of light
However, there is something that you must do. You must determine if the light is retreating or advancing. Long shadows occur at sunset and at sunrise. The only way to tell the difference is in the movement of the shadow.
One of my favourite seasons is football season. I love the smell of the grass, the crisp air, the feel of a football. But in Texas, football starts in July, in the middle of Godforsaken heat while the grass is brown and you’re sweating like a pig.
I love practicing but I also love the Saturday games. In the background of it all though, something’s changing. You see, each and every day, the day gets shorter. You might practice from 5:30 to 6:30 or 7 o’clock, and within two months there’s a time change. You don’t even get to practice at all. Along the way, I’ve noticed that as the sun sets there’s a beautiful sky that’s painted. And at the same time, your shadows get longer and longer as the sun sets.
It appears in our world that the sun is setting, that the days are getting shorter, things are getting darker. Evil is becoming more prevalent. Chaos reigns and there’s no hope. However, as the sun is setting, the shadows that we’re casting grow larger and larger even though we haven’t changed, and sometimes our shadows look like giants. But when the sun finally sets and darkness reigns, we must not sit or stand gazing at where the sun was or the shadows have grown. We have to light a candle. We have to turn on the lights. Because it’s only when we turn on the light or light the candle that the darkness will recede, and the darkness recedes at the speed of light.
©2009 Eric Bruntmyer. All rights reserved.
Champagne Pyramid
Have you ever seen a champagne pyramid?
You know where they stack the champagne glasses in a pyramid shape and then pour the champagne from the top? Continue reading
Eric Bruntmyer
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