You're Strong Enough (20 page)

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our quest for happiness here on Earth and eternity will be based on the choices you make every day. Our Heavenly Father will try and guide us everyday with the tools He’s given us to help us on our quest. Similarly, Satan will try to be our puppeteer everyday to encourage us to give in to temptation. You have a choice everyday to follow our Heavenly Father’s plan for happiness here and in eternity, or follow Satan’s plan, which is for you to fail on your quest, give up your eternal reward and be as miserable as He is.

Everyday, you will be faced with the struggle between good and evil.
Do you choose the path filled with darkness or do you choose the path filled with light?
Satan will tempt you to choose the doors full of darkness using the media and poor examples. We must use the tools (the Spirit, armor…) God has given us to discern when Satan is doing this. Satan is not going to show you the obvious darkness on the outside of any door (sin). He is going to show you people looking “free” and having fun.

Watch out for Satan’s Fiery Darts of Lies!

Just like the caramel apple, Satan will make sin look as tempting and sweet as possible to lure you in. Once Satan has you in, He will close the door behind you, making you think it is locked or that you can’t change your mind and leave. Whether you mess up today or tomorrow, you always have a choice to walk back out of that door you were tempted to walk through in the first place. Beware of Satan’s plan of deception. He has a funny way of sneaking up on us when we are thinking about making good choices.

When making choices, try to remember why you are here, who you are and where the quest can take
you.

Always remember these CORE beliefs:

• Who are you?- A child of God
  
• Why are you here? – To take a test – go on a quest
  
• Where will you go when you die? – That’s all up to you…
  

The Power of Now

You have a choice about how your life turns out right now. Things may have happened to you that hurt you deeply.
You can’t change the past, but you get to decide, in the present, what will impact your future.
Blaming your parents, God or anyone else for what you decided to do with your life thus far will not only keep you stuck in the past and lost in the present, but confused about the future.
No matter what has happened to you, you have the power and strength within to make different choices, be happy and still conquer the
dragon.

Always remember you can’t change the past. You might have decided to partake of caramel apples, or others might have hurt you when they abused their free agency. No matter what has happened, you can decide to conquer your quest or give up. If you give up, Satan has won. If you choose right now that you want to get back on your path and move forward as an heir in the Kingdom of God, then you won.

For example: Let’s say right now on your quest you have fallen off three cliffs (drugs), two mountainsides (porn), and almost drowned in a lake (suicidal thoughts). You have also been wounded (molested), beaten (physically), and pushed around (bullied). What do you do? Do you let those past moments define who you are, or do you take your life back from Satan and let this next moment define who you are? If you were watching a movie and you saw someone fall off three cliffs, two mountainsides and almost drown in the lake while beaten, wounded and bullied and then he dusted himself off, put on the necessary Band-Aids, and tried again, wouldn’t you see him as a hero when he decided his life was worth fighting for, no matter what has happened to him in the past?

Everyone, until death, is given the opportunity to change, repent and become whole again.
If they can achieve the quest, then they will be able to receive everything from our Heavenly Father.

Perspective

Did you know that God saved the best and strongest for last?
God needed his strongest spirits to be on Earth before Jesus Christ came again. He knew Satan would use all His power, temptation and evil designs to thwart Christ’s plans for return.

Jesus Christ needs us to be as strong as we were in the Preexistence (warriors of light), so as to battle against the evils of Satan and His followers. To prove my point, have you noticed there is more confusion, temptation, evil, abuse and violence now in the world than ever before? Our Heavenly Father knew that each of us was strong enough to overcome Satan and His followers, or else He would not have sent us here when the world would be at its darkest.

Though we have many more obstacles than any others that came before us, God would not have sent us here if we were not strong enough to overcome our obstacles.
In fact, God did not just send the strongest, but the most talented, gifted, wisest spirits that He could in order to prepare for Christ’s second coming.
You have a calling or special quest for this day and age. It may be to help your family or something else. Either way, our Heavenly Father needs you to make good choices with an eternal perspective.

Eternal perspective

What if you could go back to the Preexistence and see yourself conquering this quest. What would that do for you? Would that help you believe that this Earthly life is a test to defeat the dragon of all lies, a test to not partake of any caramel apples, a test to believe in God, despite what others do to us and a test to see if we will push through by using the atonement, no matter what life throws at us.

Why not look at ourselves and our lives with an eternal perspective? If you could plant in your heart that this quest you’re on is to prove yourself worthy as a prince or princess to a Heavenly King, wouldn’t you fight harder, be better, think wiser and know you could succeed? It’s all about perspective.
If we could have an eternal perspective on what happens to us in this life then each of us would not sweat the small stuff, but overcome the big stuff and do whatever it takes to fight for the
reward.

Let’s say you came from a divorced family, with an alcoholic parent and a perverted uncle who had touched you. What would that do to you if you had no idea why you were on Earth? A lot of people would let it define them and they would get into drugs, alcohol, pre-marital sex and even commit suicide.
But if you were to have an eternal perspective and look at what happened to you as the results of others’ poor choices, and realize that this is one of your trials, wouldn’t you try and overcome to be a princess?
Wouldn’t you press forward, dust yourself off, put Band-Aids on where you need them and then be ready to climb the next mountain? If all of us could look at every trial and challenge as a bump in the road and something we need to learn from, forgive and overcome, wouldn’t we use those trials as character builders and stepping stones on our path to receive our eternal reward?

This quest was never meant to be easy—only worth it.

If you knew right now that you agreed in the Preexistence to have the trials in your life, wouldn’t that give you the strength and power to overcome them? We would not have agreed to any trial that we could not overcome. Nor, would our Heavenly Father have allowed these challenges to be placed on our path if He didn’t think we could overcome them. Satan is the one that wants to blind our eyes, deafen our ears, close our hearts and deaden our minds to the fact that we are on a quest to become princes and princesses in the Kingdom of God.
Do not doubt your individual worth and divine destiny, for doubt brings darkness to our minds, which can lead us down dangerous
roads.

Doubt

Doubt brings fear. Where there is fear, there is no faith.
If we do not have faith that God gave us what we would need to overcome our trials and challenges, then we will not overcome our trials and challenges, but just mask them with all the caramel apples to deaden the pain. Doubt—in ourselves and in God—is one of Satan’s greatest tools. Our Heavenly Father has given us the light of Christ to distinguish between right and wrong. Satan knows this and He will have us doubt right after we get an answer from God.

Watch out for Satan’s Fiery Darts of Lies!