captivating

I absolutely love my life. My weeks are just absolutely perfect. From Monday night Alpha Gam bible study to Tuesday night Bama Crusade to Wednesday night at the Well to Thursday night at Unashamed. All with my very bests friends by my side. And this week is even more special because today is Candice's birthday!! It has been her "birthday week". Sunday night we all spent the night at my dorm and watched He's Just Not That Into You.. then Monday morning we woke her up with silly string and doughnuts. Tuesday we decorated her door with Happy Birthday signs and tonight we get to all go celebrate together at dinner!! Love her so much and so blessed that the Lord has put her in my life! 

Monday night at bible study was the best. It was awesome to see my pledge sisters speaking their hearts and watch us all grow together and in the Lord. I really believe relationships built around our relationships with God are the most genuine. We came to an incredible realization that the same God I talk to everyday walking to class and write to in my journal is the same God that spoke to Moses. Chills. How incredible? God is SO amazing.

We've all started discussing going to Passion Conference in Atlanta January 1-4 and I couldn't be more excited. I'm so thankful that the Lord has put me here, at Alabama, in Alpha Gam, with some awesome godly women to grow with in Him. I really can't express how faithful He has been to me, when I don't deserve it at all. I know right now that I am in the perfect place to grow in my walk with Him. And even though my future is hazy.. He's never let me down before. And He'll be faithful again to show me the way, open up doors, and guide each step I take. 

I'm in college, so there isn't much time to "read for fun" but I started reading Captivating a couple of weeks ago and I try to read as often as I can because I'm absolutely in love with this book. There are so many amazing sections of the book but I was amazed with one passage and I thought I'd share it. It's pretty lengthy but I think it's so amazing..

"Turn your attention again to the events that took place in the Garden of Eden. Notice--who does the Evil One go after? Who does Satan single out for his move against the human race? He could have chosen Adam... but he didn't. Satan went after Eve. He set his sights on her. Have you ever wondered why? It might have been that he, like any predator, chose what he believed to be the weaker of the two. There is some truth to that. He is utterly ruthless. But we believe there is more. Why does Satan make Eve the focus of his assault on humanity?

You may know that Satan was first named Lucifer, or Son of the Morning. It infers a glory, or brightness or radiance unique to him. In the days of his former glory he was appointed a guardian angel. Many believe he was the captain of the angel armies of God. The guardian of the glory of the Lord...

Perfect in beauty. That is the key. Lucifer was gorgeous. He was breathtaking. And it was his ruin. Pride entered Lucifer's heart. The angel came to believe he was being cheated somehow. He craved the worship that was being given to God for himself. He didn't merely want to play a noble role in the Story; he wanted the Story to be about him. He wanted to be the star. He wanted the attention, the adoration for himself...

Satan fell because of his beauty. Now his heart for revenge is to assault beauty. He destroys it in the natural world wherever he can. Strip mines, oil spills, fires, Chernobyl. He wrecks destruction on the glory of God in the earth like a psychopath committed to destroying great works of art.

But most especially, he hates Eve.

Because she is captivating, uniquely glorious, and he cannot be. She is the incarnation of the Beauty of God. More than anything else in all creation, she embodies the glory of God. She allures the world to God. He hates it with a jealousy we can only imagine.

And there is more. The Evil One also hates Eve because she gives life. Women give birth, not men. Women nourish life. And they also bring life into the world soulfully, relationally, spiritually--in everything they touch. Satan was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). He brings death. His is a kingdom of death. Ritual sacrifices, genocide, the Holocaust, abortion--those are his ideas. And thus Eve is his greatest human threat, for she brings life. She is a lifesaver and a life giver. Eve means "life" or "life producer." "Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living" (Gen. 3:20).

Put those two things together--that Eve incarnates the Beauty of God and she gives life to the world. Satan's bitter heart cannot bear it. He assaults her with a special hatred. History removes any doubt about this. Do you begin to see it?

Think of the great stories--in nearly all of them, the villain goes after the Hero's true love. He turns his sights on the Beauty... The Witch attacks Sleeping Beauty. The stepsisters assault Cinderella. Satan goes after Eve.

This explains an awful lot. It is not meant to scare you. Actually, it will shed so much light on your life's story, if you will let it. Most of you thought the things that have happened to you were somehow your fault--that you deserved it. If only you had been prettier or smarter or done more or pleased them, somehow it wouldn't have happened. You would have been loved. They wouldn't have hurt you.

And most of you are living with the guilt that somehow it's your fault you aren't more deeply pursued now. That you do not have an essential role in a great adventure. That you have no beauty to unveil. The message of our wounds nearly always is, "This is because of you. This is what you deserve." It changes things to realize that, no, it is because you are glorious that these things happened. It is because you are a major threat to the kingdom of darkness. Because you uniquely carry the glory of God to the world.

You are hated because of your beauty and power." 

I know that was pretty long.. but girls I hope that meant something to you. When I read it for the first time I was absolutely amazed. It opened my eyes again that there is a spiritual war going on. God and Satan are both fighting for our attention. Another amazing thing said at bible study Monday night was.. If you aren't living in God, you are living in Adam. And living in Adam is living in sinfulness. The Lord desires your heart. He wants to romance you. So are you allowing Him to deal with your heart and love you or are you believing the lies of the enemy? The one who wants to steal, kill, and destroy..