Recently, I had one of those mornings where my plans were rendered asunder which is fancy talk for my day didn’t go as I had thought that it would. Earlier in the morning I was online, going through my emails, deleting spam comments from WordPress and posting links to Twitter. Without warning my internet connection gave out and, despite my going through all the steps to reconnect, nothing worked. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Nothing.
Needless to say I was frustrated. Even angry. I had a full day of work ahead of me and I knew that at some point I was going to have to stop my work, pick up our youngest son from school and return home. Another interruption in my busy day. “Problem loading page,” was the message. Ugh.
I would love to tell you that I prayed my way through this problem, but I didn’t. Instead, I grew increasingly tense, frustrated and snapped at the cat who decided that the time for her to rub up against my leg had arrived. Wrong. Thankfully, my kids were not around or at least they weren’t in my line of fire.
With no internet connection I realized that I wouldn’t be able to complete my research for the articles I was writing. Funny, it wasn’t too many years ago that all of my research materials were offline. At the library. Or in a magazine I subscribed to. I can’t remember when I last set foot in our local public library. At least I still subscribe to a handful of magazines.
Thankfully, the Lord soon brought me to my senses. I picked up my study notes and looked over a sermon that our pastor had preached a few weeks ago: When Good Meets Evil. Using Luke 8:26-39 for his text, Pastor Rodney examined the account of the man possessed by demons — a legion of them — which means that he had more than six thousand ghoulish fiends within him. This man was under the brutal control of darkness, frequently cutting himself, running around naked, crying out like the mad man that he was, and living a tormented life among the dead.
Everyone was afraid of the demon possessed man, but not Jesus. The demons within him knew who Jesus was and begged that they wouldn’t be thrown in the abyss. Instead, they asked Jesus to permit them to possess a nearby herd of swine, a request Jesus granted. As the story goes the demons immediately took up residence in the swine who rushed maddeningly down a hill, plunged into the water and drowned.
As for the formerly demon possessed man, he was now in his right mind and wanted to follow Jesus. However, Jesus told him to stay around because everyone knew who the “crazy man” was – imagine what sort of living testimony this new follower was to the local community!
Which brings me to my point – are you being driven by the devil or led by the Lord? Sure, we’re Christians which means we always do the right thing, am I right? Not a chance. Our kids don’t cooperate, our bosses make an unreasonable demand, our computers fail to connect to the internet….life weighs in and sometimes we don’t respond in the way that we should.
And yet, Jesus still beckons us to follow him, laying aside the urgency of the moment and the tyranny of the devil who would push us in a direction we know that we shouldn’t go.
Be led by Jesus the Good Shepherd today – the world, your flesh and the devil want to drive you, but your spirit is eager to allow God to lead you to a peaceful and restful place.
Photo Credit: Elly Kellner
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