I've been thinking a lot about my kids and the group of kids that surround them.  some in the pictures I've taken for this post, some not. :) if your kids pick winners to hang out with, it's hard not to love and "adopt" them as your own.  after the eleven, I had to smile a bit...I was surrounded by my two kids, two graduated guys, one big senior guy, and four girls still in high school. all of whom I love. and all of them open to talk and wanted to talk. this afternoon has gone on and I still can't shake the message and my thoughts about the group of kids that I'm regularly around.

"…so that we would not be outwitted by satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs." + "be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil." 2 COR 2:11 + EPH 6:10-11

I want that for them.  to BE STRONG in the Lord.  be STRONG.

this week was hard.  just really really hard.

and if I'm being honest, I don't see the hard letting up any time soon.

some of the hard is due to life just being hard sometimes.

some of the hard is due to our tendency to be terds and be self-absorbed selfish creatures on the regular.

it just is. ;)

but I know that without a shadow of a doubt that some of it is due to satan.

corinthians says to not be ignorant of his (satan's) designs.

he's had centuries to perfect being a distractor.

he's had millennia perfecting his evil.

and it's organized evil...and he's not alone.

and he's been honing his methods for years.

so what are his schemes that we're asked to stand against?

tim broke it down into these...there were probably more, but these are the ones I caught:

satan distracts us with things we need the least.  knowledge without the pursuit of holiness. sacrifice without life obedience. we are so prone to add knowledge but don't DO. or we're so good at doing "god-things" but we are not doing them dependent on Him and in His love. there is no power in just doing good things or with positive thoughts.

satan loves to deprive you of things you need the most. we've been saved into THIS/HIS body. it's the one-another's that accomplish the mission of God. we NEED each other.

satan tries to get us to settle for the good instead of the great. he just has to convince us to stay marginal. lukewarm.

satan stresses us with minor distractions. money, relationships, fatigue, one little trouble and then our flesh has such a short trigger to come flying out. God does not move from us...He is with us always. satan is a pro at distracting us with reeeeally minor things.

satan lies to us by convincing us that there are burdens that we should be carrying. instead of turning to Jesus with our burdens, satan convinces us to try and carry burdens that we aren't supposed to carry.  Jesus has set us free from those burdens. and He says He can and will carry them for us. 

back to these kids I love.

so if satan was going to win with these kids I love, what would he do?

he'd separate them.  I've been doing this student thing for over twenty years.  and the times I've seen kids burn out on life is when they are separated from the group.  call it busy, call it being involved in school/work/life...but they get separated and 9 times out of 10 that's when burn out happens.  so I pray that as they pursue sports/cheerleading/college/evit/photography/emt-ness that they remember to stay with HIS people.  and that when they notice that when one of their own isn't around as much, that they chase each other.  and that when they're chased, they come back.

he'd stress them out with minor distractions.  school sucks and is the easiest most justifiably distraction. relationships, busyness, tiredness, laziness, what they fill your minds with, how they spend their time...so I pray often that God reminds them that He is with them...in everything and everywhere. I pray that He fills their minds first in the day...I pray they remind each other of truth and practice being honest with what is hard and distracting to each other for accountability.

he'd fill them up with knowledge and false security or even the opposite - he'd whisper words of insecurity that would make them just lukewarm enough to be marginal. 

I'm thankful for visual imagery creatives and because of their talent, I can't not see life's relationships the way j.r.r. tolkien did.

or even sometimes the way j.k. rowling did.

in groups. in need of each other and dependent on each other. on mission.

I see warriors in these kids.  literal sword wielders in battle.

I see encouragers and those with the ability to exhort and prop up and come along side.

I see unique abilities that so compliment each other and how they would be remiss to lose even one friend.

I see strengths and weaknesses in each of them.

so I pray for these kids.  hard.  I love them so much and can't not.

I desperately want to see THIS group of kids BE STRONG in the Lord and to do work on mission for His kingdom...together.

we were never meant to fight this life battle on our own.

we need God and His whole armor.

and we need His people.

always have, always will.