ok, havent written in here for about a week. i knew this blogging thing wouldnt catch on very easily. oh well, i suppose you dont need to write in it that often.
Now i have a story to share with you all. not just for the sake of sharing. this last week has been one of those weeks in a big way. i spent monday to sunday in my room in wollongong, the only vetures outside being meals, one bible study and church. i had a whoping SEVEN assessments due on the monday 6th of June. One notation task, one composition, one book review, two journals, and two essays. although the expierience was boring and mind numbing, it was bearable and i managed to work it all through and looked forward to the freedom of tuesday and seeing Beth again. however, on sunday night things changed. i had done about a quarter of the last essay when i hit the wall mentally and physically. my body was tired and it was 12 30 in the morning and had endured several late nights in a row. my mind simply had no more words left in it, and suddenly struggled to string together cohereant sentances, let alone structured argumentative paragraphs. i have a bad history with stress. coupled with the depression of years 10-12, it has caused me to really struggle with certain assessments in the past. i am also defintately not an academic, essays can go burn in hell. give me a guitar or mixer or computer or something tangleble anyday. SO, i was exahusted both physically and mentally, the week's underlying fears of not finishing in time and thus failing assessments and thus not completing a course and thus failing and thus wasted 6 months worth of time and work (breath and a pause) were now being relized.
it was at this opportune moment that Satan rocked up, and i underwent the harshest demonic attack ive ever encountered. there was a particular point in time when i knew there were other things at work in the room other than me, which was around about when i realized that i wasnt going to be capable of finishing and started to give up (around 2 am). i know some people are really good at spiritual warfare and have been gifted with really kool insight into the movements of angels and demons. i am not one of these people, but sometimes i feel an ugly thing in a room or along a path and figure its a spiritual gift hinting that a demon could be around. i have nothing to back this up, and could be wrong, but the vibe i got was that there were three demons in the room with me.
So i was at this heaps broken point. hope, peace and certainly joy had well and truely evaporated. they say the person who calls on the lord will be answered, but in that place there was only anguish. i lay on the floor for around two hours in tears and pain as hope was removed (this was at this point a much bigger thing than not finishing an assessment), and found myself addicted to the most unusual activity considering the cercumstances. i worshipped. not because God was giving me light at the end of the tunnel, cause he wasnt. not because i was feeling better by worshipping, i wasnt. but i worshipped, with everything in me. Psalm 22 says it quite nicely:
"My God my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, i cry out by day and you do not answer, by night, and i am not silent. "
(get this next bit, its awesome)
" Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered and were not dissapointed..."
and so it goes on. you may recognise some of the phrases in there. this is the psalm Jesus quoted, if not sang, whilst dying on the cross. indeed i was brought to a place where my only hope was in an Almighty God i could not see. Forced to give up and place my hands in those that wern't there. Even though my soul was overwhelmed, God is God, God is love, and God provides. God is wiling, God is gracious, God is good, and God knows.
The demons didnt let me sleep for a few more hours, when i did sleep it was only for two. i had to get up to submit what i had. after returning from a silent breakfast and came back into my room, it was then i felt a whisper of courage. i had rebuked the demons several times in the night, but the authority it normally carries had been removed. now i felt it restored, and so i rebuked them and thank God, they left. I was comforted my Maja, a good friend in the college and a lover of God. she looked out for me for the rest of the morning and drove me to uni to submit the assessments. i was no longer under trial, and peace had been restored in me. i found out at uni that the assessments were due at 12 30, not 9 30 when i thought. this allowed me to go back home and complete the last essay with a fresh mind before the due date and submitted it by email (saying that it didnt make it onto the CD burning process with the rest of the assessments, a half truth i admit). such a good God!
I learned many things from the expierience, and although it was entirely negative, everything that came out of it was positive. i leanrt a lot about worship (i understand Tims "when silence falls" better now) and about its importance and place regardless of circumstance. i learnt about faith, that we MUST TRUST HIM at all times, everywhere, anywhere, and in everyway. why would we do any differently? he's got the whole world in his hands and we dont, never did. we must have faith that he is good, that he loves us, and has it under control, and admit that we have little or no control at all. we never have, and never will. i learnt a lot about what kind of experience Jesus went through on the cross, sampled the lonliness and anguish he felt, and am blown away by his pain and love, fused into one almighty powerful demolition-ball of faith. such is the perfect nature of the Trinity. WE MUST TRUST CHRIST
so, this has been my little account of my most recent life-changing experience, sorry it was so long. but i encourgage you to seek out expieriences such as these, invite god to test and change you. they're uncomfortable and sometimes painful things, but you only grow, you only learn, you never shrink and diminish from the things God allows us to go through. all for Him yeah? all about Him, %100.
This is Benny McSee, thankyou for reading
