Stop choking me!

I was awoken suddenly from my sleep early this morning. I was gasping for my breath. It felt like someone was choking me. Choking is not a very good feeling at all. You know exactly what I mean if you have ever choked on a small piece of food, it clogs your air passageway and all of a sudden you cannot breathe.

Of course, nobody was actually choking me this morning. It was just a "feeling" that had come over me. I guess it goes right along with the "feeling" that some of us get when we get discouraged spiritually. You know .... those things that you know that you know that God has birthed in your heart and so you take on a great passion and desire to see God work thru you but then all of a sudden something comes along your way that steals your joy, robs you of your passion and chokes the zeal right out of you.

What a scary place to be. To feel like your life, your ministry, your desires, your hopes, your faith could be choked right out of you.

Of course, this is only what the enemy does. This is his tactic. This is how he gets perfectly good Christians to throw in the towel. Quit. Give up. Feel unworthy.

LUKE 8:14 "Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity."

If you saw someone who was choking, say on a piece of food, no doubt you would rush over, wrap your arms around them and do the Heimlich maneuver and do everything you could possibly do to clear their passageway. As Christians, when discouragement is so strong that we feel like we are choking, this is what God does. He wraps His loving arms around us and applies His maneuver of love, grace and hope to our lives and He does everything He can to restore our faith, our ministry and our passion to labor for Him.

How about you? What kind of life-saving techniques do you apply to someone who may be choking spiritually?