Early one Saturday morning, I was sitting on the deck watching a female robin build a nest (or rather try to build a nest). She had chosen a location on the downspout that comes off the gutter. The spout was heavily sloped and made of shiny white aluminum. The surface was obviously very slick. I watched for about an hour.

She had made amazing progress. Then suddenly, as she landed on the nest it started to shift. She actually spread out her wings to use them like feathered arms trying desperately to hold the nearly completed nest in place, but to no avail. The nest slid off and fell two stories to the ground below.

Have you ever heard the statement, "The battle is in the mind"? I have countless times. I've even ministered on the topic.

But have you ever asked yourself, "What battle?" The battle that goes on in our minds is the relentless siege by Satan upon our thought life that is intended to cause us first to think, and then to behave and speak contrary to the Word of God.

 

Have you ever had high hopes for something only to have those hopes dashed and all but destroyed?

I once held a nice corporate office job with great promise for advancement. I began each day with hopes and prayers for high favor, future promotions and success. I carefully had my future neatly mapped out in a five-year plan. Then unexpectedly one morning, as I sat sipping coffee at my desk, I was handed a pink slip. The company was out of funds, folding, and I was out of a job.

Suddenly I found myself having fallen—from the land of high hopes for a bright future into the land of "the least likely" for any future at all. My days, once filled with encouraging words and events, now filled up with calls from bill collectors and worries about not having enough to eat.

Have you ever been in a predicament and someone appeared from out of nowhere to help you? That's happened to me more than once.

Years ago I took a trip from Oklahoma to Michigan driving an old, worn-out car. During the middle of the night somewhere in Missouri my car broke down. Here I was, a female with no credit cards, no AAA, no cellular phone and very limited cash, stranded in the middle of the night on the highway. I prayed and asked the Lord to help me.

Almost immediately from out of nowhere a man in a pick up truck appeared, fixed my car and made sure that I made it safely on my way. Whether he was human or an angel, heaven only knows. But of one thing I'm certain, he was sent by the Lord to help me out of a potentially dangerous situation.