Putting away fears

I awoke this morning (after discussing some fears with friends last night) full of some irrational fears about the adoption process. I realized that I had let a spirit of fear come in and encouraged my girls to join in (in a way that I won't discuss here). I realized that if I didn't confess this to the girls and ask them to join me in embracing truth, and truth alone, I would continue to carry this around with me and give satan a foothold in my home. I confessed to the girls as we ate our oatmeal and asked them to join me in telling and embracing the truth in Jesus' name. They did, and we sent that spirit of deception "to the city dump" in Jesus' name.

We then turned to our Daily Light reading, and I tearfully read there what the Lord had given for us today:

Remember me with favor, O my God.

"I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown." - "Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you." - "I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. - "But if it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed , miracles that cannot be counted." - Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare."

These thoughts coupled with the words of a brother in our Bible class yesterday combine to give me comfort and peace in the path the Lord is clearing for me to walk. Joe said that we need to throw out our bad theology that says that God makes bad things happen in our lives - satan is the one who is at work in those things-killing, stealing and destroying. Yes, God redeems and uses those situations, but they are not His will. He is always for life and health and joy. Sometimes I think I look at God as being "out to get me" and "teach me a lesson." He does want to have me and teach me, but not in the mean way I sometimes imagine.

In these thoughts I rest...and at the same time I realize who the real enemy is and the battle that needs to be faced and fought in prayer against fear. Now, to battle.