These two young Tepez men, shepherd the cattle and goats and protect them with bow and arrow, in the bush of Karamoja



Our team in Uganda safely arrived in Moroto, yesterday evening. They will spend a day or to in this small base city, before taking the 20 mile trek into the mountains to settle in among the Karamojong. They will hike up with supplies to live there for the summer. This passage will take a lot out of them. It is rugged terrain.

I guarantee there is no place on earth they would rather be! I wish I could be with them! I admit I feel a bit like I did when my daughters headed off to college... except my desire to be along ministering beside them in this land that has captured my heart, is even more intense!

Things went well last night with the youth I was privileged to speak to. I could have taught for hours on this topic... and wish I had the time to do so. I have learned so much and seen so much in the area of Spiritual Warfare, that I never experienced before going to the mission field.

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that I was too immature to recognize or know how to combat it. Another is that, my walk was not where it needed to be (again too immature) to be dangerous... or a threat to the enemy.

I believe that the Lord desires that we each be so intimate with Him, that He is able to use us in circumstances that arise in the lives of others. Some of you already do this. The deepest longing on each of our hearts, generated from the very depths of our souls, should be to love and serve our Savior.

However, the enemy has defeated so many of us, by getting us to buy into desires we believe to be normal. We are inundated with images from all forms of media. These hi-tech advertising campaigns are a coup for the enemy. We see images that please us. We begin to long for what we see. Soon, it becomes a goal of sorts, and we begin to plan how we are going to get there.

Soon all of our resources begin to get invested into this plan. It may be a vacation, a vehicle, a home, a friend, an even higher education or anything else that we allow into our hearts. We fully embrace these things, not even being aware that we have yielded to the enemy. That he has won a campaign of warfare against us.

As we slowly yield to the desires for these things or people, we invest our time, our thought life, our money, etc. into acquiring that which will never bring us the kind of fulfillment that we expect. Only Christ can do that.

This is one of the primary reasons that we do not engage in the type of warfare in our country that missionaries see on the mission field. We are easily sidetracked and fooled from within our own culture and then defend what we pursue as normal, and the desire of every red blooded American. In most cases, it has become true.

Those who seek the Lord with their time, energy, thought life, and resources, are growing wiser in His ways and His Word. The result is that they are on the front lines, serving... doing battle.

We must learn to not allow other desires to supersede the deepest longing that every believer should have... to know Him, and to bring Him glory!

As we surrender more of ourselves to Him, He empowers us to do things beyond our expectations. There is more than enough of Him to go around. What is often limited is our surrender. The tight grip we tend to keep on our lives and what we will allow Him to have of us, limits our intimacy, and therefore, our willingness to do hard things.

There is so much more He wants us to know and do. Just yielding time to love and grow in Him, will bring fruit that is unimaginable from our current view. There are no shortcuts. We have to give Him our time and our resources. When we yield, He will see that we grow.

Amen!


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