The Darkness Is Real

It's Friday, May 27th. Just a few days before June hits. I've been fighting depression and the loudest demonic influence I can remember. I feel the dark cloud that surrounds me. Sometimes I can feel something(s) holding me down, a literal physical weight. There is a weight on my mind. So much so that sometimes I phase out or stop what I'm doing because my mind is cloudy.

I don't know why I'm afraid of God. I fear his presence now. It was all I longed for and nothing satisfies me like it... except now I'm also terrified of it. Maybe it's not his presence I fear, but the vulnerability it requires. After being taken advantage of by someone I trusted some months ago, I'm riddled with fear. I've instinctively put up so many walls, I can't count them all, much less figure out how to get them down.

The spiritual realm is very real. I've tasted the goodness of God and the fruit of the kingdom of heaven. On the other end of the spectrum lies the things I described earlier.

This will end. The truth is, it already has. Jesus won the victory and has indefinitely extended that victory to me. I just have to persevere until the truth of that reality is seen again in my life. Just because I don't see it today, doesn't make it untrue. Faith is knowing for certain the things you cannot see. Heck, maybe this is all just an exercise to display my faith. Who knows.

The above is today's journal entry. Bleak, I know. But I want to illuminate the struggle I'm in right now. Not to point a finger at me or to ask for help or anything. But to encourage you. Everyone tells me I encourage so well. This is why. Because I truly understand the other side and what one needs to hear to come out of it and make it through another day. My struggle is very real. I'm just a human like the rest of you. I'm just a son who knows the truth and refuses to let go of it even when it doesn't add up quite yet in my life. Because one day it will. Hopefully this gives someone some hope and encouragement.

Whatever hell youre stuck in right now. Will end. IT WILL END! There is always hope. Hang in there friends. The worst is almost over. The best is still to come.

"I Will Chase You"

So, today was rough. Been a few of those this week. I'm not sure if it was the exhaustion I woke up with that started it or the irritation of upset callers I let get to me at work today. Either way, by the end of my shift I was pretty upset. 

Now, let me start by saying I fully understand the world is not out to get me or pivoted against me. Some of the frustration I gave into and I'm a grown man, I have the ability to go to bed when I choose and stop the exhaustion before it happens. But none of that outweighs the spiritual battle I've found myself in this week. I honestly don't know if I've ever been more aware of the tension within me and around me like I have this week. There is a spiritual war going on all around us and we are all the canvas of that. This week, I feel the reality of that. 

Anyways, here's some good news for the light and those who fall to that persuasion. About 20 minutes before my shift is over I get a call from a wonderful lady in California. Her name was Gen, short for Genivive, but she went by Gen. She told me how she was having trouble staying connected to wi-fi and how she had all the time in the world to fix it cuz she was at the DMV. The brand new one mind you that looks like a spaceship. 

I'm going about my usual call flow when she says that she only really uses her phone to listen to Bethel music and podcasts. My ears perk up a little bit. I mention that I know what she's talking about and that was it. All phone troubleshooting was off and this woman was telling me story after story of the goodness of God and how she was just at the Azuza Now gathering a few weeks ago, something I would've loved to have been at. She then decides to pray for me and impart all she received from being there in that atmosphere on the ground that day when it happened. I instantly feel the anointing and power of God as I'm at my desk. Immediately my attitude changes and I've long forgotten about being upset or exhausted. She finishes praying, laughs a little bit, and then decides that she has to go and she'll fix her phone a different day. Hanging up right as my shift ends and I head home. 

That would all be more than enough except when I start to walk out to my car in wonder and amazement and how good my God is that he would send someone to call in unknowingly just to bless me when I was having a rough day and was in the middle of a fight, when he whispers, "I will always chase you down with my goodness, my love, and my glory." Wow! God is so mindful of me that he would go through all that trouble just to turn the tide of my day and keep me encouraged in a rough time. 

So, to everyone fighting the same battle I am fighting this week of keeping hope, let this be a reminder of what lengths our God will go for his children. To fight for them and to change the atmosphere around them when they don't know how to change it themselves. There is hope and all he's promised you is coming to pass. That's the very message the enemy has been trying to steal from me and counter this week. Don't give up friends. You're probably just on the brink of a miracle.