I was excited about the chance to speak on a subject I had not spoken on in several years.\u00a0 I worked hard updating old notes and adding new thoughts.\u00a0 I even spent several hours preparing a power point presentation to accompany my notes.\u00a0 An invitation went out to area churches including and emphasizing the live-stream links that would be available for those who could not attend in person. \u00a0To the very best of my ability, I was prayed up and prepared, but I was totally unexpecting a series of events. On the evening before my presentation, I was informed that no one was available to facilitate the live stream.\u00a0 For the first fifteen minutes of my scheduled presentation time, men worked unsuccessfully to connect my power point. \u00a0Approaching bad weather had reduced the size of the anticipated crowd. As if that were not enough to depress me, on the way home, a truck threw a rock into my windshield, creating a rapidly spreading crack. \u00a0Reflecting on such, I\u2019d just like to blame Satan.\u00a0 However, I don\u2019t think he is smart enough to put together such a scenario.\u00a0 Here is what I think Satan does.\u00a0 He takes such a series of life circumstances, for which does he gets zero credit, and capitalizes on them to his advantage and to the discouragement of those who are trying to serve God. I hope you never have a twenty-four-hour period like I had.\u00a0 If you do, just do what I did next \u2013 read your Bible (In my case, The Message paraphrase) until you get to 1 Peter 5:8-11, \u201cKeep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You\u2019re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It\u2019s the same with Christians all over the world. So, keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won\u2019t last forever. It won\u2019t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ\u2014eternal and glorious plans they are!\u2014will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.\u201d Pause there and meditate for a while.\u00a0\u00a0 Then thank God for the opportunity to serve Him and pray that the people were blessed by your service in spite of Satan\u2019s shenanigans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was excited about the chance to speak on a subject I had not spoken on in several years.\u00a0 I worked hard updating old notes and adding new thoughts.\u00a0 I even spent several hours preparing a power point presentation to accompany my notes.\u00a0 An invitation went out to area churches including and emphasizing the live-stream…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3522,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions\/3522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}