Early Morning MSN.

I wanted to share this here.
a conversation I had with a dear friend, this morning on MSN.
through a cut and paste and some puntuation editing to add a flow of sorts I pasted it into here. If your interested in my 2am ponderings, here they are. It still is a little choppy, due to the fact I removed all speech by my friend
[I wasn't sure whether she would mind being identified...it's safer this way ;) .]However I think generally it does make sense, at least I hope you can put it together.

[I hope that you don't see it as me preaching, because I am not a preacher - I wanted to share this here, because it's impacted me hugely. If it can offer the same to you, well... God is always Good.]

I was having the worst Ugga day today, seriously didn't want to go anywhere, just lug around the place in tracky dacks screwing my face up and averting my eyes whenever I passed a mirror.
But of course there was church and of course because I really didn't want to go it ended up being fantastic. One of those services where one line hits you, and carries you through the whole day and then some, one of those big light bulb moments.
my issue at the moment was that I've been trying to push my relationship with Christ along..wanting to go in deeper, harder, face the challenges and the growth.
But then today Darryll [pastor] says this.
"The higher the level you go, the tougher and stronger the demons. God is not going to allow you to move up a level untill you've defeated and overcome the devils on the level your on, because if you can't defeat those ones you don't stand a chance we the next ones up, and if we choose, we will defeat them, because Christ has already won!"
yeah. got me thinking
stop trying to get 'there', be here now, be focused now. And be ready to fight now.
coz it really is a big cycle. we overcome the enemy, he falls onto his face and we're standing over him, we stand on his back, and we're higher than him, then God grabs our hand and pulls us up to the next level and we start it all again.
I thought about David and the lion and the bear and then Goliath
God didn't give him Goliath to defeat first, he gave him the lion, and he said, "Trust me child"
david defeated the lion.
then God gave him the bear. THEN once David had defeated the bear...he defeated Goliath, each time stepping it up that level.
But the only way he was able to do that was because between those victories and during those times of battle, he found that place, that secret place with God and he dwelt there, and grew in strength.
I was reading about the battle's David fought, the bear the lion and Goliath, and the thing I noticed was that with the Lion and the bear, Davids first levels, he sort of stood there, and just defended himself. but by the time he got to Goliath...by that time he had spent so much time in the presence of God, God had armed him with his word, with his promises, that when he came to Goliath, he no longer just stood there and defended himself, the bible says that David Ran at Goliath!
thats huge!
thats courage!
and the more I thought about it the more I know, the only reason David could run at Goliath was because of the quiet times he had spent with God. Those quiet times meant that he had heard from God, they had conversed, and he knew that God said to him. "Go, follow the leads I give to you, for I have a future and a plan for you, if your trusting me, you WILL NOT be consumed this day."
And David was able to say, "Even if I do die today, I know that I shall not be consumed, for my God IS God and he IS faithful.