You better duck

A former pastor of mine Ron Webb used to have this saying "whenever you step into a ministry that is going to effect peoples lives after your first step you ought to duck because Satan is going to take a swing at you."

That statement couldn't be more true. Every time we as a church or I as an individual have stepped out in faith we get hit with something we weren't expecting. It's just part of the deal with ministry. Something happens to a church member, or a member of your family, or anything else that the Devil might throw up at you. The deal is we need to know it's coming and be prepared for it so that we don't allow the attack to cloud our vision and our mission. Failing to recognize this can take a person out of God's will by not completing the mission or task we needed to accomplish.

A practical example of how this works is this. April is teaching this weekend at church. She is has never taught on Sunday morning. Since we are devoting a whole month to teaching on the subject of worship. I felt that God would have the worship leader teach at least one of the sessions. Anyway, of course, she is nervous, and of course, she is a little uptight wondering if she'll be good enough to teach. Those are the things everyone deals with when they first teach in church. No biggie.

This last week has been a little tougher on her though. At work she has been hit with some projects that are time sensitive. So she has been getting up at 5 am so she can get to work an hour and a half early. She has been working through lunch and still she is struggling to complete her projects this week. The kids came to stay with us for a week because of some issues at their mom's house. We have a concert we are preparing for next weekend (of course she is nervous about that.) Chelsea, being a 16 year old new driver misjudged a work bench in our garage and took out part of a bumper on my Jeep. Along with a host of other issues that have come up this week. Needless to say it has been a stressful week for April.

This weekend April is teaching on worship. Her message is how to worship instead of worrying.

Now, having talked about the kind of week we have had is in any wonder that Satan has hit us with stress on a week that we are talking about worship instead of worry? Nope. That is what he does. The point here is, when your life is going crazy and you are in the midst of doing something for God. Understand where the attack is coming from. That will save you a ton of stress!

Oh yea.....and you better learn to duck too!