Author's Note: As I worked on this article, two more attacks: Viral meningitis hit, sending me to the hospital, and my server crashed, taking ionanet "off the air" for a time.

When You Are Called

Make no mistake, God calls all believers to service. When you accept Christ as your savior, you not only become reborn in Him, but you become part of the Body of Christ. Yes, that stands for the church, but there is more to it than that.

In His earthly walk, Jesus had a body of flesh and bone. Now that body is no longer on earth, but we are! In addition to His other works, He acts through us as the Body of Christ. We are called to His service.

The Lord has a special plan for each life and a unique call to service for every believer. Many Christians feel they are exempt from active service if not called to the pulpit or mission field and have fulfilled their "duty" by simply giving to a favorite cause.

Satan isn't too upset by that. He's happy to let us write a check and wallow in complacency, so he lets us be.

Active Service

As we draw closer to the Lord in prayer and search the scriptures, we feel the leading of the Holy Spirit to take a more active role. If we respond to that "still, small voice" and begin to long for service, we will be given our marching orders.

I had trouble with that for years. I wanted to serve, but I had my own ideas of where on how, and I failed every time!

I thought I would be a great youth worker. After all, I love kids, raised a large family, was a teacher. It just made sense. But remember Paul warns us that what makes sense to man is often foolishness to God and vice versa. I was a lackluster youth leader...

And Satan was happy. He left me alone.

When I finally yielded my spirit and threw out my pride, God called me to service in an area I felt totally unprepared for: a Christian outreach via the internet.

I didn't like it. We had had the internet for three days, and I never figured out how to get off of Microsoft's opening page! The phone bills were horrendous (we live in the boonies, so calls were long distance) and I thought it was just a high priced waste of time.

But God said, "Do it!"

And, like Moses, I argued but reluctantly complied. That was one year ago this month.

God Provides A Way

I had none of the software needed, no internet access, insufficient hardware, no HTML or graphics skills. I was neither prepared nor equipped for this service in any way whatsoever. I did have some computer training years ago in college and used the computer in my financial services business, however.

So in obedience to my Father who is able, I who was not able in any way, began.

Funny thing, God called me to service and could have provided all the means, but instead made me work hard to gain the skills, buy the equipment (every spare penny went to buy it) and find the time to serve Him on the internet. My wise Father wanted me to learn and grow despite my protests that it was too hard, too expensive and that others could do it better.

And Satan didn't like that. Not one bit.

Satan Attacks

My friend Mary from the Colorado Christian Web Resource Guide warned me that Satan would attack. She had suffered from his onslaughts and spoke from hard experience. Her computer went down, her server went down - twice! - her health suffered, her finances were effected... Satan didn't like her one bit!

My daughter and her pastor husband who refuses to preach "what itching ears want to hear," have been under attack for many years. They have been maligned, had pay cuts, endured a church split. The list goes on and on. Satan doesn't let up on them because he hates what they do for Christ.

Likewise, Satan became upset with ionanet's internet ministry.

From A Small Beginning...

My first outreach efforts were pages created online (no HTML required) at free hosting services like Geocities, Tripod and Angelfire who place ads on your pages. My pages were pitiful! But even so, Satan didn't like them, so soon there were objectionable ads on my pages.

Then my computer crashed and we suffered several financial setbacks.

But God fought back, sending clients for my other business so I could buy a new computer and software.

I studied HTML and worked on graphics skills day and night and finally was ready to put up my own domain. It was small but grew as I began making pages for churches and other ministries.

Satan wasn't pleased. Soon, I became ill, there were many computer crashes, my web server space was full and there were family health problems.

Meanwhile, the Lord was busy. He provided web space by having the Karval Church of the Nazarene obtain 100 megs for ionanet on a faster server. My health improved and I lost several clients who didn't need me any more, which freed up more time for work on ionanet.

Then there were server connection problems. some folks (including me!) couldn't access ionanet at all and the mail service on my ISP lost all my mail... and there were continuing computer problems. I needed more memory to run the powerful programs.

But for every curse of the Enemy, God had a blessing. More people wanted web sites for Christ and ionanet was getting thousands of hits each month. I had not advertised - still haven't, but will soon - but people were coming by the droves.

What God Can Do

I am just one middle aged, slightly overweight grandma with a computer in a small bedroom of a tiny house in a little country town. But God is awesome and He could see what I would never have dreamed of...

So today, ionanet contains over 500 pages and received over 57,000 hits last month. The site went up in January of this year and has been visited almost a quarter of a million times since! Many businesses spend thousands of dollars for this kind of traffic. It's nothing short of a miracle.

Satan Won't Quit

Now, the Lord of the Flies is hopping mad! He has stepped up the attacks and is including my husband and family.

Recently, there was great local controversy over ionanet and rumors flew that Richard, my husband who is the superintendent of our small school district, was linking to "sex" pages from his web page.

The local paper ran front page stories about the dangers of the internet and stated that ionanet had "sex links" on its church pages. The local Dept. of Social Services distributed printouts of ionanet pages stapled to those of an adult women's sex forum published by Microsoft Network's Underwire site. These were even passed out at our church services!

Few people here know anything about the internet and don't realize that once you link out of a site and follow a few more links, you can end up anywhere. They believed that if you started on an ionanet page, any page you went to from there was still ionanet's.

We tried to counter the lies with truth, even bringing in an internet expert to speak with the locals, but to no avail. Some local churches asked me to take their pages off the site. Richard's job and reputation have been permanently damaged and hopes for next year are dim. Some people in town refuse to even speak to us.

Satan also assaulted us in other ways:

Health:
There has been severe illness in our family which is ongoing. My niece Donna is fighting for her life as she battles AML, an acute form of leukemia. Other family members have also been ill. I have suffered several "bugs," too.

Finances:
We lost a lawsuit (related to an auto accident) some years back and the opposing side now has a judgement against us for "costs" which is thousands of dollars over what we could possibly pay.

Once you exceed the bandwidth allotment of your server space, there is a charge. The tremendous number of hits ionanet receives places a financial demand we have no way of meeting, hence the ads and Business District placement.

We've also had all sorts of other unexpected expenses, but I shan't bore you with details; you've got 'em, too!

Relationships & Reputations:
Richard and I both serve on our church finance committee. Now, we've been accused (by non-members) of misappropriating funds! He has been accused of doing the same thing at school. These allegations were quickly proven false, but the rumors still fly and our reputation is thus tarnished.

The rumor mill also has it that Richard is having an affair with a teacher. It seems they both went to a Reading Conference and had a wild orgy. They did, in fact go to the conference. The teacher's husband and I went with them, and there was certainly no orgy! Yet last week, someone asked our 14-year old ward if she knew that Mr. Hoeppner and Mrs. X were having an affair!!

Time:
The more time I need to spend working on ionanet, the more demands are made on my time by other things. You know the drill; everything seems to take twice as long to do; everyone needs your help with something else; whatever you're using breaks down...

Prepare for the Attack

Whatever God calls you to do; whatever service He leads you to, Satan WILL attack when you respond to your Father's call. And Satan doesn't fight fair! He'll assault you from every side. Don't be dismayed by it. Expect it.

You can't prevent these attacks, but you can prepare for them. Remember to put on the Full Armor of God (Eph.6:11-18).

But remember to be sure the call you hear is from the Lord not from your own pride. Pray, yield your spirit to Him and get ready for the most challenging and exciting time of your life!

Will you have tough times? Absolutely. Will it be harder than anything you've ever done? I'm sure it will. Will you grow from it? Undoubtedly.

Will you succeed? You may not see your success this side of Heaven, but you will succeed! You're a daughter of the King and out doing the King's business. Your father the King is the most powerful being in the universe. He could do it without you, but He has blessed you with this calling because He loves you so much. You will indeed succeed because He has already ordained your success.

God Fights Back

No matter how wickedly the Evil One attacks you, God will turn it into a blessing. He promises that over and over in His Word. Are we not told to rejoice when others revile or abuse us because of Christ?

Hang in there, sister, because God is fighting back. He is already declared the winner, and He's doing great things for you and through you.

Above all, stay close to the Lord in constant prayer, daily scripture reading, and frequent fellowship with other saints.

NOTE: If you're having a tough time right now and would like share it, please e-mail or call me at (719) 446-5238. I will pray with you and for you; fellowship with you, and love you with the agape love of Jesus.