Are You Attackable?: Embracing God During the Battles In Life

By David Judson

Are You Attackable?

The storm is brewing. There is a spiritual battle raging all around us. As God sees the enemy lurking in the shadows, He reaches out to help usâ but do we embrace Him, or do we slap His hand away?

When lightning strikes your peaceful and predictable life, how do you respond? Do you grip the hem of Jesus's garment in the face of betrayal, sickness, hardship, or debt, or do you allow the enemy to tear you away from your relationship with God? The Bible is full of stories of men and women who came under attack and emerged victorious, because they chose God.

Your time to prepare for battle is now. The Biblical principles in "Are You Attackable?" will help strengthen your relationship with God, as you stand against the enemy's schemes.

It's your move.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781939748751

Book preview

Author

Introduction

I love roller coasters! Whether they are fast, high, twisting, or looping, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs until my breath runs out, laughing uncontrollably in fear, and wiping the tears from my eyes at the end. On a bright sunny day or when skies are cloudy, I enjoy the waiting, the riding, and the reminiscing. When coasters are lit up in the dark of night, I’m ecstatic. But, I don’t do spinning rides. No teacups. No spinning balloons. No scramblers or spiders or anything close. No way, no how, no negotiation. I ride the coasters in our family and my wife rides the spinning rides. For me, the amusement park is all about ups and downs and twists and turns. It is not about spinning.

I wish the things I like best about roller coasters were confined to the ride. Too often, real life feels like one roller coaster ride after another. Outside the amusement park gates, we label these rides as peaks and valleys, storms, challenges, or even battles. I have found that experiencing roller coaster moments in life aren’t nearly as much fun as they are at the amusement park. First of all, they last much longer than three minutes, and secondly, they can be the loneliest and hardest journeys to endure. But when I look back, I realize how much I learned and grew in my relationship with God, as a result of the circumstances I persevered through.

It takes commitment to walk with the Lord as we face these ups and downs. Following His lead and walking a straight path can seem impossible when the world is whizzing by, and we are hanging on for dear life as our knuckles turn white. At times, the roads we travel are filled with danger and we feel like we will be launched out of the roller coaster car we are riding in. I have found the best way to ride a big and scary roller coaster is with a buddy. Even my children would rather ride a roller coaster with their dad than alone. When it comes to facing life’s dips and turns, God is the best riding buddy I could ever choose. He provides the strength I need to face the unexpected roller coaster moments in my life; moments during which God never intended the seat next to me to be empty.

This book is the result of an awakening in my spirit that God chartered as my life encountered some really wild rides. My journey has included deep suffering (i.e. really scary roller coasters) and some dramatic moments. I am grateful for my relationship with God, because He has been with me as a companion and protector all along the way.

As a first-time author, I believe it is important for you to understand my credentials. When someone speaks, we want to know the source of their authority. Have they received a degree or licensing from a reputable organization that provides credence to what they are saying? How have their perspectives and opinions been shaped by unique experiences?

My credentials are simple and sincere. I am a son, brother, husband, father, uncle, friend, boss, employee, and teacher. I have been the husband to my wife, Lisa, for over 25 years. I am the proud father of eight children — two biological sons and six adopted daughters. I have been a business leader in three different companies. My life has included numerous joys and sorrows which have formed my Christian walk and shaped my relationship with God. Allow me to briefly expand on these statements to help you better understand me.

While many marriages today end in divorce, I am blessed to have a wife who has stuck with me through the high and low points of our relationship. No relationship is easy and when the trials of life come, too often relationships crumble. Lisa and I have weathered many storms together, facing some very difficult times. We have experienced joy, excitement, and love, as well as anger, hurt, and frustration. I am grateful that our relationship has matured through our trials together. By God’s grace and strength, we remain lovingly committed to each other.

We have a very unique family. When our boys were teenagers, God led us to adopt special-needs children from China. At this time, we have adopted six girls, four as toddlers and two as pre-teens. As you can imagine, we have faced many challenges during the adoption and integration process. Each child’s adoption and transition period put pressure on our finances, generated mountains of paperwork, and required many family adjustments. All of our children have unique and changing needs as they grow and work to overcome their challenging pasts. This is a continuing journey, as it is for every parent.

As a business leader, I have tried to balance my work and family life. God has taught me many valuable lessons, through success and failure. I have experienced the pride of developing employees to positions of promotion inside and outside the organizations I led. I have delivered multi-million-dollar projects that improved business processes and results. I have also dealt with challenging bosses and customers, downsizings, and the need to dismiss team members. I understand the difficulties of being a strong, credible leader in an imperfect business world.

Like many of us, I have endured trials throughout my life. I experienced an extended personal illness when our boys were young. I’ve known financial hardship, the weight of debt, the loss of loved ones, and the pain of broken relationships. Although this suffering bruised my ego and hurt my self-esteem, God has blessed me and delivered me from each of these trials. He has healed my hurting heart. I now know that living on this earth can be difficult, but I also know God walks with me every step of the way.

It is my intention that through this brief description of my credentials, you will understand that I have lived through circumstances similar to those you have faced, are facing, or may face. It is my sincere desire that you know and believe that God desires to walk with you each day. Although I am imperfect, I serve a completely perfect God. As you read the words of this book, I hope you will be inspired to build a deeply personal relationship with Him that will equip you not only to survive, but also to thrive in the battles of life.

The idea for this book was born one Saturday morning as my wife and I were talking about our dreams and God’s plans for our future. In one memorable moment, my wife asked me, Are you attackable? Her question was so simple, yet intensely deep. What is it about our lives that make us attackable? As we discussed this question, we began to realize that the opposite is often true – we aren’t attackable; we are ignorable.

For many of us, our lives are no different than the world around us, and our relationship with God is limited to one hour a week in a Sunday morning service. That simple question from my wife took me down a new path with God. Since that discussion, I have seen things with my spiritual eyes that scare me. I have experienced more pressure and strife than I ever expected, and I have matured in my relationship with God in ways I would have never dreamed possible.

This book is the result of reading God’s Word and regularly journaling with that one nagging question in mind: Are you attackable? God has a lot to say in His Word about battles, strife, suffering, and, of course, victory. My journey has taken me to a place where I have begun to understand the subtleties and tactics of the enemy – even though I still fall prey to them. I have also been forced to ask more questions of myself: "How well do I know God? Do I know of Him? Do I know about Him? More importantly, do I know Him?"

My journey has also taught me something that is very important and has become the foundation of His ministry in my life. We must know God in order to truly have a relationship with Him. Before this journey, I knew a lot about God and I knew what Jesus did for me when he died on the cross for my sins. But I did not have the drive and commitment to know Him – I was just too busy.

My desire is to know God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) more intimately through a deep, authentic relationship. As I visualize Jesus, sitting across the table from me over breakfast, I wonder, What would I say to him? What should I say to him? Would I open up to him about everything in my life or would I cautiously limit my sharing to the highlights of the day? Do I want to know him intimately? Am I afraid to open up because of my basic human weaknesses?

If I want to know God, then I will build my relationship with Him by reading His Word, studying His teaching, and talking with Him. I have many relationships and I know my parents, my wife, and my children, but when my life comes to a close, will I have invested the time and energy to know God? Since I will be spending eternity with Him, I want to know Him; just knowing of Him or about Him is not enough. How about you?

Shortly after I began writing the manuscript for this book, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I was devastated. Cancer is a very scary word and I was afraid. The entire experience brought a whole new level of suffering and thankfully, faith, into my life. I could not have faced cancer without knowing God. Through this specific roller coaster ride, He has taught me so much about how He cares for me. This book is not about cancer, but I want you to know that no matter what you are facing, or might face in the future, building a deep and lasting relationship with God is critically important for us all, especially when a battle shows up on our doorstep. Is your relationship with God strong enough to prepare you for the battles in life?

My second desire is to show God to others. Knowing God and not sharing Him is selfish. Jesus instructed us to Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. (Mark 16:15). Whether at home, at work, or in the community, my desire is to show Christ in what I do and in the way I treat people.

With the desire to know Him and show Him have come numerous challenges during the eight years of study that led to this book. We must be aware that the enemy does not want us to know God, because he wants to keep us separated from God. The enemy certainly does not want us to show God, for that would mean more people would receive God’s gift of salvation. This is why the enemy comes. He wishes to do all he can to prevent us from being successful. This is what I call the battle, and it has become my focus in preparation for ministry and for this book.

The battle is very real, and I hope that as I describe it, you will understand that not only is it real, but it is necessary. For you to truly experience God there will be battles you will need to fight. As a matter of fact, we will discover the most important battles are those that we fight in alignment with God’s will. We will explore how God is with us in every battle we face, as we walk with Him, and are in fellowship with Him. We do not fight alone. As we experience trials, battles, and storms in our lives, we will realize they are best faced with God. Seeking God’s help in the midst of our trials is essential, regardless of whether the trial is the result of our own poor decisions or due to uncontrollable circumstances that have arisen in our lives. Whatever we face, we are encouraged to remember, The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (Psalm 18:2).

This book is based on two basic truths that I have come to understand. First, there is a battle raging between God and Satan and, like it or not, we are caught up in it (Luke 4:13, Hebrews 2:18). Second, God wants to have a personal relationship with us, so much so that He sent His son to earth to die for our sins (John 3:16).

It is my prayer that through the course of this book and your individual study of God’s Word, you will come face to face with the God of the Universe who loves you more deeply than you want to believe, who wants to have a relationship with you and knows that although the road may be difficult, as His child, you will develop Godly character and maturity.

Thank you for allowing me to share God’s truth with you. I pray that you will better understand the battles in your life, and you will be better prepared to walk with God through them. May God richly bless you in your life, as you journey through this book, and beyond.

This book is about how the enemy wants to separate you from God, steal your joy, and isolate you. So, the question you should be asking yourself is, Am I attackable, or am I ignorable?

David Judson

Are You Attackable?

Chapter 1

I am in battle.

I am tired and worn out. Battered and bruised. One moment I am swinging at the enemy. The next moment I am getting hit. I press forward the attack when I see an opening, and I retreat when I feel overcome. My life feels like a seesaw of emotions, a continual mix of progress and setbacks. Beyond my victories, there are more and more battles to fight. Where the world sees a winner, I can feel like a loser. But, even in the midst of my defeats, there are lessons I have learned to help me get back up again. When I feel like I have totally blown it, when I am weak and licking my wounds, there is a voice reminding me that I am worth dying for. This encourages me to get up again, brush off the dirt, wipe away the sweat, smear the mud off my face, and battle on.

When I was about 12 years old, my parents sent my sister and me to a Christian summer camp. I always looked forward to summer camp, but this one started poorly. First of all, the camp was being rebuilt after years of neglect. The girls had a new building with a dorm-like arrangement in the basement and a recreation room upstairs. The boys were assigned to primitive cabins, complete with holes in the walls and floors. Of the six cabins lined up along a clearing, only two were still habitable.

When we arrived, it was threatening to rain. After signing in, saying goodbye to my parents, and lugging my gear to the cabin, I lost track of the counselors and the rest of the group. As rain began to fall, I wandered from empty building to empty building. It felt like hours before I finally found my group having a good time together in the recreation room. As the other campers played games, I watched from the fringes, soaked through and feeling like an outsider.

The entire week ended up being one bad experience after another. The guys in my cabin each had their own set of issues, which they took out relentlessly on the weaker guys (did I mention that I weighed less than 100 pounds, including acne?). That week I was thrown into a pond after breakfast, lost control of the horse I was riding, and had the guy on the bunk below me totally lose control, stabbing my mattress with a knife while I lay in bed above him. He then tried to run away from camp. Getting through that week was a battle.

On the last night, the speaker’s message and the worship music were just what a lonely and worn out camper needed to hear. The week had stripped away all the protections I was used to in my life: living in my home in a small town, being a straight-A student, and enjoying the love and support of my family. I was alone, at times scared, and confronted with guys my age from rougher backgrounds. At the end of the night, I found myself standing up front with my head bowed, asking God to give me the strength to continue moving forward.

To my left, my bunkmate appeared; dirty from running through the woods like an escaped convict, with burrs in his hair and scratches on his arms and face. Tears slipped down his cheeks, streaking away the dirt. Next to him stood our counselor, filthy from chasing him and solemnly quiet. Something had happened in the woods outside the camp that day. I didn’t know what exactly, but there had been a battle for my bunkmate’s heart, and there we stood, side by side, facing the same God from entirely different perspectives: the bully and the bullied, the physically strong and the weak, the hardened and the softened.

In hindsight, that week was a series of battles for both of us against the situations and circumstances we faced in life. He brought the baggage of a broken life to camp. I brought my innocent view from a sheltered life, which was split open, revealing the myth it really was. I don’t know how the rest of his life has been or what became of him. For me, it was my first glimpse of Satan, God’s enemy who seeks to prevent us from living a life of victory over our circumstances.

It has been said that at any point in time, we are entering a time of crisis, in the midst of a crisis, or exiting a time of crisis. All of us have been hurt; some are still suffering from past wounds while others are currently struggling through tough situations. There are even those of us facing an uncertain and difficult future. I hope there are some readers who are living in a period of calmness and peace. If this includes you, take a moment to look around. God may have placed you next to someone who is lost, or has been fleeing through the woods and is broken and worn out.

This book is designed to help you face your battles each day, to help you learn how to defeat the giants in your life, and to help others defeat their giants. But even though we all have wounds to be healed and challenging circumstances to overcome, we can also experience joy, happiness, and fulfillment. The optimist will recognize that we are entering a time of joy, in the midst of a time of joy, or exiting a time of joy. Too often, as we focus on our troubles, we forget to embrace the joys of life.

Your life is a personal journey, to be lived by you and only you. So why are you going to invest your precious time reading this book? What do you need? What giants or battles are you facing? Whatever brought you to this point in time, I want you to write down why you are reading this book in the section below. (If you cannot bring yourself to write in your book, then grab a 3 x 5 card.) Write it down to get it out of your head so you can remember why, the next time you open the book. This is your investment in you.

I trust that you wrote down why you are reading this book. If you skipped it, please go back. Writing down your reason(s) will make a big difference in your commitment to finishing, and will remind you of why you started in the first place. Now, let’s go on a journey together to understand why you are attackable, what examples God provides for surviving the battles in our lives, and how to help others as they face their own battles.

God Knows You

God knows you and He knows your circumstances. He knows