[Editor’s note: This article was written by Laura Houle with the approval of Hopewell Counseling. Laura is our daughter and is a passionate patriot for America. She is also a committed believer in Jesus Christ and an unashamed witness for the Gospel.]

What will a frog do when you drop it into a pot of boiling hot water?  It quickly leaps out to safety.  However, if you put a frog in a pot of lukewarm water, it will get very comfortable.  So comfortable, in fact, that it doesn’t even notice the water temperature being turned up until it’s too late.

That’s what has been happening in America.  The water in America was lukewarm for a very long time, and we became very comfy and complacent.   Heavenly Father, please forgive us for our lack of passion, urgency and righteous indignation over issues like abortion, transgenderism, and the socialist and anti-God curriculum that is being forced upon our children.  We have not done enough to stand in the gap, cry out and demand justice for children that are being trafficked.  Child sex trafficking is the new drug.  It is far more profitable than cocaine or heroin, and the epidemic of pedophilia is soaring out of control and is prevalent at the highest levels of power.  We are easily living in one of the most blatantly evil periods in human history.  Second only, perhaps, to the time just before the flood.

America is staring socialism and, ultimately, communism straight in the face.  As this reality slowly settles in and threatens to become the “new norm” many people seem to either be asleep and completely unaware of the magnitude of this crisis or they see and understand the severity but feel overwhelmed and powerless to stop it.  We all have jobs, families, commitments, responsibilities, etc., but everyone can do something.  Too many people wait for others to act, but time is not on our side. The situation is dire.  If not us, who?  If not now, when?  We must rise up right now and take a stand or America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, will be overtaken by power hungry tyrants who will steal our rights and freedoms and usher in their globalist, one world agenda.

Please hear this.  If Jesus is your Lord and Savior, YOU ARE NOT POWERLESS!  You are a WARRIOR, and as a warrior I believe with all my heart and soul that we were each placed upon this earth, right now, for such a time as this.  This is our Esther moment.  II Timothy 1:7 says, “For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind.”  And, if that’s not enough, Romans 8:31 says, “….If God is for us, who can be against us?” and Isaiah 54:17 says, “no weapon forged against you will prevail…”  Do you hear that?!  The future of this nation depends on what we each choose to do.  Do we turn a blind eye and pretend it’s not really happening, or do we rise up in a righteous fury and ask God to empower us to fight – not only for ourselves but for our children, grandchildren and every precious person created in His image and deeply loved by Him around the world?

God gave us His armor through the power of the Holy Spirit the moment we made the decision to invite Christ into our lives to be our Lord and Savior.  That armor is ours!  We were born to be warriors.  Each and every child of Christ is equipped with everything he/she needs for battle against Satan and his dominion of darkness.  It’s clear to me that what we are seeing unfold in the world around us is not one group or race or political party against another but God vs. Evil on a scale that we have never seen before.

You cannot fight Satan in the flesh.  You must battle him in the spiritual realm but how can you do that if you don’t understand your power or how to use the battle armor God has given you?  It’s like driving through a torrential downpour without using your windshield wipers or headlights. The wind is blowing your vehicle all over the road, the sky is black, the rain is coming down in sheets and you can’t see a thing.  Once you flip on your wiper blades and headlights, you stand a fighting chance of making it safely to your destination.

Ephesians 6:10-18 outlines the armor of God and the purpose of each powerful piece.  I will discuss them in more detail in the next newsletter, and I will also provide a battle plan on ways every one of us can get involved and push back the demonic forces that are destroying our beloved country.  We must stand as ONE NATION UNDER GOD, and we must declare that Satan cannot have our children and he cannot have America.  Together we must claim the power God has given us and boldly stand together in our resolve to defeat wickedness.