Below in red are my Aunt Betty’s words to me during a spiritual direction session.

“Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.”  (Song of Solomon 2:15). 

Betty asked the Lord what He meant by catching those foxes and she heard:

It’s the way our faults trick us.  We become the protectors, trying to preserve the very thing that is destroying the vineyard, namely the fruits that God really intends through our lives.  So they are like the little foxes that fool us.  They are very clever.  It’s easy to see a fault in another and then hide all our foxes under the other person’s faults.  Meanwhile, they’re destroying the fruits in our life that God wishes to work for others. 

These little foxes are keeping us back from being the person God has called us to be.  We play the game because we’ve been fooled.  We don’t know they have been hiding there. 

I found myself upset with someone for pushing me too hard and expecting so much.  She didn’t have the same expectations for other people.  Betty told me to renounce the comparison part of me because that part of me is not doing me a favor. 

It is a trap to compare and the enemy uses that to give you a reason to rebel.  You let yourself get fooled by it and it’s a saboteur inside.  I suspect it is that part called the perfectionist that’s controlled your life and it’s getting afraid because it is losing control.  That part is going to try to stop that which you’re doing that’s causing her to lose more control over you.  So stay alert.

Under the sabotager is a lying spirit that builds up cases inside of you; you are gullible and believe and then it takes power over you so you’ve got to renounce those lying spirits.  I don’t know how many there are, but when you believe, it takes power over you.  You need to renounce those.  Any voice within you that is calling you to turn back on what God is doing that has really been good for you, be suspicious of that voice because it could be one of those lying spirits. 

 The lying spirit is a part of what’s letting you get off of following the Lord and you got to come against it.  Whether it is a spiritual entity, and I think it is, or a psychological entity, I could care less.  The fact is that it gets to you and you use it as an excuse not to move and that’s what I want to work on.  It was so strong in you today.  That’s why I took authority over it in Jesus’ name and bound it because my spirit felt repelled by that spirit talking in you.  I don’t want anything that has to do with the Father of Lies. 

We are giving the spirit of deceit more power in our society as more people adapt the lie that truth is relative.  Pope Benedict said, “You can no longer have a society if you refuse to believe that there is objective truth.”

You have to be careful not to complain because that could be an open door.  You know that this part doesn’t like that you’re taking over with a sense of discipline. It had control so when you give yourself permission to complain, it could open the door to darkness so be really careful. 

Self-pity can sneak in and have itself a pity party.  No more of that.  It’s a weakness so you’re not going to go there anymore.  You know where your trap doors are where you can fall down and quickly slide to the lower level, so when you get to know those, you don’t go play in them anymore.  The image I had was of a trap door when you said, “Well, don’t push me.”  Before you know it, you’ll slide down it if you don’t say no. Ask the Lord to show you where the trap doors are where you get caught. Don’t feed that part. 

Don’t go into that place of comparisons because it’s not a good place for you from the results I see happening.  They are not good.  If anyone had a right to feel sorry for what we put Him through, it’d be Jesus, but He didn’t go into self-pity. Look at the fruits of self-pity in the Bible.  They are no good.  So self-pity, if we’re going to live the Christian life, is something we have to say no to it.