While driving in bright and early this morning I prayed for God's grace to receive a negative report and be unmoved.  Numbers, words, and reports are all like debris in the wind to me.  They swirl and threaten and confuse.  Instead I asked myself, what has the Lord said?

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life,so that you and your children may liveand that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deut. 30:19-20 (NIV)

The past few weeks have been really challenging for me.  I went through a few death days.  Every single place I turned it was like another puzzle piece that fit within a puzzle called death.  Each piece was clarifying a picture of doom.  With each additional piece I cried, considered, processed - even wondered if God was resisting me - if He was saying this is the end.

Sometimes my strengths become a weakness. I was processing with my gift of strategy, not my gift of faith.  As I read the land, the signpost and the options, I began to project the future.  My thinking became cloudy with despair, disappointment and fear. I was being invited to believe the lie that God was abandoning me on the field, in my football uniform (squared up) completely crushed and wounded.  I imagined Him looking at me with pity and turning away.  I was left defeated.  Dead.

As I type these words I am amazed at how easily I can be sucked into the lies of the devil.  All of that reasoning produced death in my thinking and aligned me to the wrong head. I was leaning on the wrong gift and slowly, surely surrendering my authority and my future.

Thank God that in His great love for me and in His wisdom, He has heard my cries.  He came to me in my pit of fear and accusation and sat with me.  He began providing an onslaught of life-changing, thought-revoking, mind- transforming images, prayers, and conversations. He allowed me to process those experiences with Him and gave me an opportunity to make a different choice.  I began to ask myself well "What has God said?"

He said square up and fight from a position of rest.  He said the battle belonged to Him and that if I would wait upon Him He would scatter, rout, and completely disperse my enemies. And finally, He said when I had done all He instructed to simply stand.  If he gave me all these strategies then He wants me to live.  My obedience will be the proof of my love and my trust in Him and Him alone.

I noticed it says all of heaven and earth are called as a witness against me. In my mind's eye, I see all the spectators of heaven and earth looking down into the pit where God and I are talking.  They are holding bated breath to see what I will do.  Then some shout choose life and others shout choose death.  I am in a gladiator ring where the outcome is sure.  Someone is going to die.  It is me?  Or is it cancer?  My decision at this moment is so important.  So...

I choose life and I choose it carefully, with a sober mind and thought.  This is not positive or wishful thinking. This is not believing that somehow I'm in charge of this situation. This is a faith-filled, anointed, authoritative decision to trust God more than I trust myself.

I choose life and when I choose it I also choose the blessing.  I choose to obey so that my children and I  will live.  I choose according to His goodwill so that I can love the Lord with my whole heart, hear his voice, and cling to Him.  I choose life because He is my life and he wants to give me many years in this land.

So with a little (a lot) of help from my friends, over the past few weeks, I've broken the curse and power of death over my life, broken a generational curse of early death in my family, and broken soul ties and alliances with the enemy again.  I've confessed my weakness, my doubt, my fear of abandonment, and received a fresh baptism of faith.  I obeyed over a situation that was terrifying and difficult.  I've had a greater vision and understanding of the term "square up" and I have decided...

I will live and not die and declare the works of the Lord. Psalm 118:17

So many of you have gone out of your way to let me know you are lifting me in prayer.  Can I invite you to declare life over me with new confidence?  I know the good report has yet to come, but it will come.  And please don't stare into your own pit of despair and let the spectators sway you. Christ is with you. Choose life. Choose blessing.