{"id":1305145,"date":"2019-03-09T09:05:46","date_gmt":"2019-03-09T16:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/?p=450447"},"modified":"2019-03-09T09:05:46","modified_gmt":"2019-03-09T16:05:46","slug":"matney-finding-the-strength-to-fight-another-day-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/matney-finding-the-strength-to-fight-another-day-column\/","title":{"rendered":"Matney: Finding the strength to fight another day (column)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Friends, you and I are the focus of a very real spiritual battle. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/news\/neighborhoods-are-spiritual-places\/\">In my last article<\/a>, I wrote about the &#8220;spiritual reality of the spiritual battle being fought all around us.&#8221; The battle is for our happiness, peace and eternal wellbeing. Jesus said, &#8220;The thief (Satan), comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come to give you life and life abundant&#8221; (John 10:10).<\/p>\n<p>In today&#8217;s article, I would like to share with you a personal experience that underscores the reality of the spiritual warfare going on around us and God&#8217;s dramatic intervention in my life as a result of other people&#8217;s prayers. If you are going through an especially difficult time, God is aware of your situation and he has a solution for you also.<\/p>\n<p>Late one night, a few years ago, unknown to anyone, I had determined to resign from pastoring the church. All day, and late into the night, I had mentally and emotionally wrestled with problems in the church. I was very discouraged and could see no way out of our troubles. Finally, early in the morning, I determined I would call my district overseers as soon as their office opened and resign from the church. Exhausted from the turmoil, I fell asleep at 3 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>Three hours later I awakened with a roar of victory coming out of my spirit and mouth. I felt tremendous energy and I said, &#8220;Satan, you will not defeat me! I will not resign!&#8221; I went through the rest of the day on three hours of sleep with energy, victory and joy in my soul and I never made the call to the district office to resign.<\/p>\n<p>A day or so later, one of our church members said to me, &#8220;Pastor, I had a dream about you the other night.&#8221; I asked what night it was and it turned out it was the same night I had determined to resign. He went on to explain that in his dream he saw me down on the ground and men-like beasts were kicking me and beating me. The dream was so vivid that it awakened him. He awakened his wife and said, &#8220;Get up! We&#8217;ve got to pray for the pastor; they&#8217;re beating him up!&#8221; His wife said, OK, and turned over. He said, &#8220;No! We&#8217;ve got to get up right now and pray.&#8221; So, they both slipped out of bed and knelt in prayer. He said they prayed for me the rest of the morning. I asked what time it was they had started praying. He said, 3 a.m.! They prayed and I slept. I was strengthened to fight another day.<\/p>\n<p>This amazing intervention into my plan to resign from the church comforted me and assured me that God cares about me and my problems. It also assured me that I am where I am supposed to be. God&#8217;s intervention was not the result of any special virtue on my part, and I can only wish all of my struggles could end as wonderfully and decisively as that one did. But God gives grace for the ongoing battles.<\/p>\n<div id=\"single-mid-script\" class=\"p402_hide\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories For You<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Friends, God is at work on your behalf as well. You don&#8217;t have to qualify for his love. He loves you unconditionally and wants to help you through the battles of life. If you are feeling overwhelmed or defeated by a situation or a circumstance in your life, or just life in general, there is a place of victory and peace for you. It starts by choosing to believe that God loves you. Jesus came to demonstrate God&#8217;s love and make possible God&#8217;s solutions for your life. Today I encourage you to place your trust in him. If I can talk with you or pray with you, please don&#8217;t hesitate to contact me. God bless you.<\/p>\n<p><em><span>Dan Matney is the pastor at New Life Assembly of God in Avon. Email him at <a href=\"mailto:pastordanmatney@hotmail.com\">pastordanmatney@hotmail.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/opinion\/matney-finding-the-strength-to-fight-another-day-column\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friends, you and I are the focus of a very real spiritual battle. In my last article, I wrote about the &#8220;spiritual reality of the spiritual battle being fought all around us.&#8221; The battle is for our happiness, peace and eternal wellbeing. Jesus said, &#8220;The thief (Satan), comes to steal, kill and destroy but I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1305145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 18:12:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}