Despair has long been a heavy weight on my soul that brings painful memories of my childhood. WebDictionaries defines despair as a state in which all hope is lost or absent. My life as a child was frequently hopeless. I felt lost even after I accepted Jesus as my Lord in the 4th grade. A stronghold is any bad habit you just can't break, or having self-defeating attitudes, negativism, lacking Godly wisdom, or feelings that overwhelm you with hopelessness. From the web site www.cwlinc.com it helped me understand strongholds as part of ourselves we give over to Satan and we justify keeping those secret places in our mind because no one understands not even God! That was me for forty years of my life.
Then the real battle came like a runaway freight train when my daughter at the age of fifteen was pregnant. My baby was going to have a baby. Then there was the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, hypertension and soon behind all that type 2 diabetes. Next came my inability to work. I needed to file for permanent disability. NO! I'm too young for this! I still have a whole life to live! "God, what are you doing to me?" "What have I done to myself?" I loved being an RN, I love having my master's degree so I could teach others going into the medical field. I have forty years of medical field knowledge and I' an excellent teacher. Losing my ability to teach took a big piece of heart. Only God could get me out of my own selfish despair and find a way to break strongholds to my sanity.
From http://www.cwlinc.com the author writes, " Satan knows what hurt and trauma will activate our strongholds, trigger us to fortify them, and to erect new strongholds to protect our deceptions. Of course, demons are drawn to strongholds, like vultures circle death. We need to get rid of the death." So, why do I fight to keep my strongholds that keep me from knowing God's freedom for me? I'm still answering these questions for my- self. So, what are the answers? Can I still hold on to wrong thinking because I like being hopeless? Not really, but it would seem that way.
I began taking steps to identify my struggles and strongholds so I could learn how to loose the bondage Satan has wrapped me in. One thing I know, after using Psalms and Proverbs for daily Bible Study over the last 12 years, is that there is more hope in these scriptures than I'll ever need. So, now I need to utilize these verses on hope for my own personal salvation, so to speak. Maybe that is not such a bad comparison-salvation to hope. Without hope, salvation would seem useless or redundant. When we go to Christ, it is usually because we have lost hope and need His salvation to save us from a hopeless mind set. What really gripes my gut is that the very moment I was saved, I had no strongholds. I was brand new, white as snow, forgiven and set free, healed and whole. Christ was wounded for my hopelessness. He gave his life for my forgiveness and bore the stripes on his back for my healing. "By His stripes I am healed!" Hope! Is love really the "greatest of these?" Faith, hope and love and the greatest is ________________. Fill in the blank. Is it faith? Hope? Love? The original King James Version of the Bible states it this way. "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." I Corinthians 13:13
However, the minute I got up from the altar after praying for my salvation and asking Christ to abide in my heart, as soon as I walked away, Satan already knew where my weaknesses were and had his plan for an attack before I left the sanctuary. So, wherein lies the hope? Is it remembering our salvation as a constant work? Is there enough "work" in me to keep my mind free and my soul safe? Wait a minute? Should it be this much work to maintain a free mind and a safe soul?
Yes, living for the Lord isn't an easy task. It takes work to do the following in the name of the Lord:
- Pray for forgiveness daily;
- Exalt the Lord with singing & praise;
- Give God thanks in all things;
- Assemble with others who believe and worship as you do;
- Take up your cross daily;
- Share the gospel with others;
- Put on the full armor of God; and
- Wait and watch for His return.
Despair does not have a stronghold on me any longer. I have the mind of Christ--single-minded, secure minded, submissively minded, and spiritually minded. There is no room in my mind for evil-mindedness or despair. In Jesus' name...Amen!
