Fleeing Seven Ways

There’s been a galloping sound in our house the past week. Our little grandson, not quite two years old, is enthralled with horses. His favorite toy, a stick horse that makes clopping sounds and alternately neighs and whinnies, portrays a simplistic picture of a pursuit that God has promised as part of this ‘remaking Nancy’ journey I’m traveling on.

Like one putting his ear to the ground to hear the first rumble of horses’ hoofs, my heart’s ears are on alert for that sound I’ve waited a long time to hear… the sound of the enemy fleeing seven ways.

Tomorrow morning I am scheduled to receive chemo treatment #3. For weeks I’ve anticipated getting this far into the treatment cycle. This evening I have put six weeks and two chemo cycles behind me and am halfway done. But for some reason, I have felt the second half will be giving the enemy of cancer – and the real Enemy behind it – a run for their lives. Tables turned. All the fearsome things they have done turned back on their own heads; defeated before my very face.

Had I encountered this season before now, I don’t know that the fulfillment of what God is doing in and around me would have been as complete.

We talk (gripe) a lot about God’s timing as He seems slow by our standards. When you have waited, and waited, and waited some more for His promises to begin to come to pass in fuller measure, and then begin to witness it before your very eyes, there is a greater level of gratitude that rises up.

One can look back and see where God was pruning, purifying, preparing, and priming for something that is so much more than what would have been a year, five years, a decade, or even several decades ago had those promises come to pass much earlier. In His wisdom, He is the Keeper of the Calendar.

At this point in my life, this I do know. He’s mounted His steed on my behalf as I have sought after Him, listened for His voice, and have followed – often against my own nature – His footsteps, regardless of where they have taken me.

Tomorrow, there may be more chemo drugs flowing through my veins, but there will be something of greater consequence taking place. The Enemy who has come out against me, not just once but several times in my lifetime to take me out through physical illness, including twice with breast cancer, is going to be dealing with the Lord my God personally. I’d be getting out of Dodge if I were him…

Oh, wait. That’s one of the promises! He and his cancer soiree will be fleeing seven ways…count ‘em. Vanquished. Vanished. Fulfillment accomplished.

If you’re one who is still waiting for that which God has personally and deeply spoken to you – full of promise – don’t give up prematurely. He may be saddling up His horse even now, preparing to roust the Enemy on your behalf and defeat him right in front of you. Hold on for the showdown, dear friend.

To that end, the holy voice of Wisdom tells us what to be about while we’re waiting so we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that day will come…

“If you will listen diligently to the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments which I command you this day, … ²all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God. ⁷The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.” Deuteronomy 28: 1-2 & 7 (AMP)

If we do our part, the Lord our God will do His. And we will yet hear that invigorating sound of the enemy fleeing seven ways.

Overtaken by His love and faithfulness,

Nancy Charlene