JANUARY 29, 2014
Submitted by: Kim
Today my daughter and I went to the gym and got on treadmills side-by-side. As we looked up at the TV screens, I was drawn in by a program that had cage fighting. Two fighters, face-to-face and chest-to-chest. The two fighters doing everything they could to intimidate the other.
Immediately I told Madison, “I would love to be one of those guys. Look at the strength and intimidation. I love that.” Madison said she would hate to be in a ring having someone kick and beat the heck out of her. I told Madison I felt like life was just like that cage fight, especially as Christians as we live out our lives. There is always something coming against us, sticking its face in ours and pushing us around, doing everything it can to make us think it can beat us. Battle by battle and blow by blow, we get stronger, yet the enemy seems to not weaken either, but rather seems to grow more dangerous every time we get in that ring.
As I’m getting ready for this upcoming mission trip, I feel as if the trip is putting me and our whole team right in that cage with a very real enemy that does not want us to win or to finish this race.
But I know we are not called to sit on the sidelines like so many do. We are called to fight the good fight as in 2 Timothy 4:17, so we can each say I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. My faith is in Christ alone and His purpose for me. And with all my heart I want to fulfill that purpose and bring glory to His name.
The first year I went on the mission trip, I was just young and stupid in all of it. Clumsy, insecure, very much alone in the church body because I had just made my way back to DCCC after being gone six years. I went on the mission trip so naïve, not knowing what would lie ahead, but God in his grace protected me, trained me, humbled me, and had me fall in love with the people of Mexico and knit me into the body of believers to an even greater extent.
The second trip, I don’t know, maybe not prepared enough, too confident, not prayed up or filled up. God did use me, but I got my spiritual butt kicked as well as my physical body.
But this time I want to go in so differently than before. I hope to be better equipped from the whipping I took in the past. I want to be as strong as the Lord needs me to be, not lacking in any good thing, and with spiritual muscles that allow me to stand in the fight and take whatever the enemy throws at me.
So I’m starting now to prepare for this fight ahead, praying, getting prayer, reading the Word, worshiping, and doing daily devotionals. I want to go prayed up, read up, and filled up with the Holy Spirit. I hope this year to fulfill the purpose God has for me, to draw near to Him, and to love like Jesus loves. I want to go into that cage having the confidence I need to stand and then the rest…well, that’s up to God.
Be blessed everybody.
Love,
Kimberly