don't be decieved!

There's so much I want to tell you in this blog that I honestly don't know where to start. I've learned so much because of what Jesus has done for me that I can't possibly fit it all into one blog post. So today I decided to write about how the Lord opened my eyes to deception. If there is anything about anxiety and fear that people need to understand it's this. Deception is the power of the enemy and by believing his deceptions we open ourselves up to so much hurt and panic. By being decieved we allow the enemy to fill ourselves with fear and feel distant from God. Excessive anxiety and fear is decieving and it's not from God!
I realize now just how much of the anxiety consumed my life; as I look back upon the days of my worrying and constant fears, I see just how unnecessary it all was. But my life was just dripping with panic that I couldn't see past the next fear ready to attack me ... Or was there really another fear ready to attack me?
One of the biggest ways anxiety continued to cripple me was by making me believe that I had to worry! Not only did this illusion of anxiety decieve me into worrying more, it decieved me into believing that without worrying something horrible was going to happen. I was living in one big illusion and I was completely oblivious until God opened my eyes.
I thank my Father God for whispering the word "illusion" to me; I can remember the day it happened too. I was sitting in prayer asking, pleading, with God to show me how to deal with my fears.
"You don't! There is nothing to deal with. It is an illusion..."
"Let me deal with your fears, give them to me and stop being decieved."
I was living in an illusion and the sooner I grasped that fact, the sooner I could be set free. I wanted to be set free from my fears so badly that I began to take matters into my own hands, but this is where I let the deception come in.
I believed the lie that I could deal with my fears and I believed the lie that I could stop something bad from happening by worrying. In a sense I was playing God. I was trying to control every litte thing in my life that I ended up writing God out of my life without even realizing it. The door to deceptiveness was opened wide because I had already been decieved by worrying and I'd been decieved into believing I could control my anxiety.
I can't even begin to tell you how much the enemy decieved me. I believed those lies for so long that eventually my life was drawing farther away from God. But because of His loving grace I was brought back to the truth.
Are you willing to stop believing the lies? Are you willing to hand over your fears to your Heavenly Father who can take care of those monsters in the closet?
Open up the Bible and see what God has to say about deciet; you can start with Genesis 3:1, Genesis 3:4-5, John 8:44
I encourage everyone to meditate on Psalm 27 and let these words fill your being. When you realize that God is for you and protecting you just as a father would his own child, then your life will be radically changed for the better!
The Lord is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1
May God bless you all!
~Gretchen