How God taught me about FAITH by using a ROACH...Twice.

The first time was pretty interesting, but by the second time I knew God was really speaking to me. 

I've been on this serious walk with Christ since I was 21 years old. I've always known of God, but it was around 21 when I really decided to give this whole relationship thing the best shot I could. BEST DECISION EVER. Even before I decided to really give my life to Christ, God was there with little hints and secret lessons in everyday life. Everyday God was pulling me in without me even knowing it. Praise God for that! God still does that to this day, not only for me, but for all of His children. The Bible says "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day." - John 6:44 Jesus comes to us even when we are/were in the very midst of our sin and draws us out of it -- we answer the call (hopefully) -- and on the last day Jesus says that he will raise us up! 

Being a Christian yet alone a young Christian isn't a walk in the park though. I still mess up on the daily, and even for longer periods of time it seems like I can't get anything right. Glory to God though, because He's still drawing me to Him in the midst of my stupidity, lack of faith, fear, disobedience, etc... Although it's a repetitive process (because of my constant slip ups) God uses different ways to communicate to me each time.

However, this time God used a similar "item" to teach me the same lesson (sort of.) This "item" so to speak was a cockroach. Yes, you read it right. Well two cockroaches, if you're being literal. 

THE FIRST TIME 

I was sitting in church during Bible study listening to the pastor preach one Wednesday. Suddenly I looked down at the chair in front of me and there was a medium sized roach crawling there! (My church isn't dusty and dirty, so don't start judging)...anyways I won't lie I started wondering "Is it wrong to kill something that's in the church?"... "I know it's just a bug...but is it really JUST a bug?"... "God created everything under the sun, even the bugs"... "Plus this is supposed to be a holy place." All the while the roach is just steady crawling up the chair in front of me. So, after a while of random thoughts I finally (softly...very softly) stepped on the roach. Just like that, it was dead. Well at least it looked dead. I kind of felt bad, but then again I didn't. There was plenty of indecisiveness going on that day. As Bible study went on I kept looking to see if it was still dead. Eventually I told myself that it was dead and stopped looking. There were about 10 minutes left of Bible study when I noticed in my peripheral the roach get up and start moving very quickly back down the chair...It's like it got revived or something. At this point I told myself that it HAD to die, and I really tried to kick it...but it was too late. The roach got away. Why are roaches so fast?

THE SECOND TIME

Ok, so the second time was literally a few days ago. I was on the phone with my girlfriend, laying in the bed switching between Facebook and Instagram checking my feeds. My GF gets off of the phone to go to sleep when I start scrolling through my IG "explore" page. The explore page on IG is literally one of the worst places for your eyes to be at any time of the day, but especially at night before bed. SideNote: #GuardYourGates. Don't give the devil an opportunity. Be careful what you watch and what you listen to. So of course I started noticing that there were a few women on the explore page, and as a man I will admit that I am a visual creature. However, I kid you not I had only been on the explore page for 13 seconds when I see out the corner of my eye a (bigger than the first) cockroach crawling on the floor next to my bed! (Unlike my church, I can't lie my room is kind of dusty but it's not cockroach dusty, you know?...Stop judging!) Learning from my experience in the past, I knew that cockroaches were fast on their feet so I knew I had to make a move quickly. I dove to my drawer and got the Raid spray ( I couldn't get a shoe that quickly, my room isn't that dirty! Stop judging) and I sprayed the roach on sight. The spray didn't slow it down, it actually sped it up and it darted behind my nightstand. I looked behind it and saw no roach. Did this one get away too? After waiting for like ten minutes to see if it would pop up anywhere I figured it escaped. I tried to go about business as usual, reading the bible and praying before sleep, but I couldn't. In the back of my mind all I could think of was the roach hiding somewhere waiting for the lights to go off so it could continue whatever it's mission was. After I finished the bible I decided I would look UNDER the night stand. The night stand is also a drawer so it wouldn't have been an easy task to lift the nightstand and try to kill the roach at the same time. Here's the part where I put my pride to the side and tell all that's reading this that I was nervous. I'm man enough to admit it. I was even contemplating just saying forget it and going to sleep nervous. However, this time I couldn't do it.  After a manly pep-talk to myself, I put on some shoes and had the Raid on standby. I lifted the nightstand in one quick motion and prepared for the worst. (Who knows, there might have been a roach family under there or a spider colony...) However, none of that was true. The only thing under the nightstand was 1 dead cockroach. (I told you my room wasn't that dirty) I vacuumed it up, and went about my business. LIKE A MAN'S SUPPOSED TO! lol.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM ALL OF THIS

You'll all have to bear with me on this part. For a lot of people, this won't make sense, but I guarantee you will learn something if you allow yourself to. 

The cockroach in both instances represent the FLESH. Or fleshly nature. 

"Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!" -Galatians 5:19-21 

Of course I don't do/wasn't doing most of the stuff on that list, but even so one can still live by the flesh. 

"For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want." - Galatians 5:17

So in other words, [everyday] there's a battle going on between the flesh and the Spirit. 

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things there is no law. Now those that belong in Christ have crucified the flesh with it's passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also behave in accordance with the Spirit" -Galatians 5:22-25

We have to metaphorically "kill the flesh" daily. Not literally kill ourselves, but the desires of the flesh that cause us to to sin.

In the first case with the cockroach in church we see the flesh creeping up out of nowhere. It goes to show that you can be in the flesh anywhere at anytime. Even if you're not doing anything "fleshly" so to speak, the desires are still there within your heart. We tend to get indecisive when it comes to killing the flesh, we ask ourselves a lot of questions instead of just ridding ourselves of the problem that is at hand. When we finally do decide to kill the flesh, we half-heartedly kill it, or give the appearance that the flesh is dead when in reality it's not. If we aren't careful, our flesh will leave us with the feeling of regret wishing that we would've actually killed it when we had the chance... By then the flesh may have already "gotten away" from us. KILL THE FLESH, DON'T JUST INJURE IT.

In the second case with the cockroach under the nightstand we have the flesh creeping up expectedly. There are times when we get into situations where we know that the flesh is at work. We can either decide to roll with it, (let the cockroach just do it's thing) or kill it. James 4:7 says Submit to God but resist the devil and he will FLEE from you. So literally resisting the flesh and it's desires is the Raid to your roach. How do you resist the flesh? By submitting to God! Living in Spirit! Sometimes, however we don't think the flesh is dead even though we killed it. This is a trick of the enemy. He'll try to make us feel like we aren't winning or we didn't do something right. He uses the spirit of FEAR to get us to feel this way. However, once you get over the spirit of fear and look at the true reality, you'll see that what you were so afraid of is actually dead and gone! However, don't just settle for the appearance...you make sure it's really gone and it won't come back again! (that was the vacuum reference in case you didn't get it.) 

I could go on and on about what else happened that night with the roach in my room, but that would have nothing to do with the topic of this post. 

I'm proud to say that I'm going to start back sharing stories and bible studies on this blog from here on out! I actually want to share other's experiences as well! If you have a story you would like to share, feel free to email me @ livingoutvisions@gmail.com 

God bless, and YOUNG & CHRISTIAN IS COMING BACK SOON!