“For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again”

Deb and I were having a conversation the other night that went like this: I started by saying, “I need to start drinking more water.” Deb said, “Yea, me too.”  After a few minutes of thinking, I said, “I am going to start with two glasses in the morning, one mid-morning, two for lunch, one mid-afternoon, two with dinner and one before bed. That way I will have drunk nine glasses a day.” Deb replied, “I am just going to drink water. Did you really just plan that all out in your head? You think too much.” 

From the time I wake up until I go to bed, I am thinking; I just assumed that is what everybody else does. I am constantly planning and evaluating. I try to figure out better ways to do things. I assess conversations, I devise study plans for Spanish, I reflect on parenting and being a husband, I talk with God and the list goes on and on. This is my normal and it works for me. As I learned in a cross-cultural training class, “It’s not wrong; it’s just different.”  

There are times that I take a mental break. Over the past several years of working in jobs that are physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally draining; I have discovered that my best stress relieve is going to the gym and totally exhausting myself.  I realize that in this time I don’t think much about anything. Over the past five weeks, I have not been able to go to the gym, due to rehab on my shoulder; now what? To be honest, a little bit of a self-pity party for me.  But, I also remembered that this is a ploy of my enemy, satan.  I was reminded that the two places he attacks are the mind and the body. In the garden, he deceived Adam and Eve by deceiving their minds; however, if that strategy does not work, he will devour as a lion (attack the body). 

The past couple of months have felt like body blow after body blow. Previous to moving to Costa Rica, I had very little physical problems. In the past ten months of living here, I have had leg problems with my calf, shoulder physical therapy, a hurt knee and a sprained wrist. I know what people will say, “you turned 40. It’s your age.” I believe that that is a mind invention of the enemy.  My body is the temple of God. No wonder satan would want to attack it. This body is my house of praise. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body.) What about right hooks; Deb in the hospital with an unknown sickness?  How easily depression is able to creep into your soul. This question remains in my mind, “Where is your praise?” 

I have this constant nudge by the Holy Spirit to remember that it is PRAISE that defeats. No matter what the circumstance may be, I evaluate my physical, spiritual, and emotional state by my praise.  If I am low on praising God, I will be low on every other aspect of my life. It is praise that defeats the enemy. It is praise that brings focus. It is praise that drives love. It is praise that overcomes heartache. It is praise…it is praise.

A champion shows who he is by what he does when he's tested. When a person gets up and says 'I can still do it', he's a champion. –Evander Holyfield