I have put my testimony online before and as with any testimony of your life, it should be changing until the day God calls you home. My testimony is no different. I was exposed to junk growing up. It was not just the problem of the person initially responsible for the junk. In its own way, it became my problem as well. Over 20 years after that exposure ended, it is still a problem at times and the other person cannot be at fault for that as that person cannot control how my brain works. The devil tries to get in my mind saying that giving into the junk will be OK. It is spiritual warfare at the most basic of understanding. Certain areas of my life I try to guard heavily to prevent the junk from creeping in and taking over. There are certain things I avoid and certain things I do in that process. We are called to guard our hearts for the heart is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23). For me, I need to guard my mind as well. The Jews used heart and mind somewhat interchangeably which makes sense as a person cannot live if either one of the 2 organs fail to function let alone both of them.
The last several weeks have been ones of struggle. The junk has been trying to creep in several times. When that junk creeps in, a depression tries to join it. I know letting the junk in is letting sin into my life thus creating a separation from God that does not need to be there. When I do that, I tend to get depressed until I attempt to get things turned over to God. The depression is mild and I know what causes it.
Back in January I received a song entitled “I Will Follow (You Are With Me)” as part of my pre-order for Jeremy Camp’s new album I Will Follow* (yes it is the title track). The first time I heard that song, I knew it had some power to it. It also came at the time that temptation was trying to sneak in and rear its ugly head. The song was not listened to as often as it should have been. But when I did listen to it, the temptation was kept at bay for those few minutes. I got through the temptation with many prayers from dear friends over a 2 week period. The spiritual warfare subsided back to its “normal” level of trying to creep in and I say that I won’t go there. Jeremy’s album came out February 3 and that song still had its strong impact. I can tell that the devil is trying to get that junk snuck back into my life and I am fighting to keep it out. My son would rather hear a different song from the album on repeat, but there are times that I tell him otherwise in the most basic of terms as he does not need to know, yet, what happened.
As I write this entry, I have that song on repeat. Since February 3, the album track of this song has had over 200 listens on my iTunes. Since I originally received this song in January, the 2 tracks have over 600 listens. It is keeping the devil at bay because he does not belong in my life. God belongs in my life. Sometimes what comes across as legalism to one person is how another person has to live, at least for a while, to keep from going off the deep end into serious temptation and sin. There are certain sites that although not bad, I have to avoid at least in part, if not completely, to keep the temptation at bay as some of the user content is not healthy for me while someone else may not have issues with the same piece of content.
So what about the song does it? I am not completely sure, but I do know that the first verse speaks so much truth about the devil trying to get in to our minds with stuff that is not of God while reminding us that God is there through it all, in spite of it all. The song forces the Truth in while forcing the lies out. Even if my mind wanders to where it shouldn’t, I find that the wandering is not lasting as long as it could have otherwise. I press on in this fight because I am a child of God and the devil can’t take that away. I will do my best to follow God wherever He goes.
*The album review can be found here.