Whenever you step out and start serving the Lord, Satan isn’t happy. He will try to discourage you. That’s what’s been happening to me.
My last few blogs have been on spiritual warfare and how to defeat our greatest enemy. I knew going in that I was going to jostle the hornet’s nest in writing them. Nevertheless, I had to obey Jesus, my Commanding Officer.
The point? Satan has been using one of his most effective tools against me–discouragement.
Any of you been there?
Even though I was guarded, and recognized that my melancholy of late was due to spiritual attack, I still couldn’t seem to shake it. Although I did have respites from the gloom it continued to return again and again and again.
Why, Lord, why? Am I sinning? Do I have unconfessed sin? Did Satan win another skirmish? These are all valid questions I asked. But do you know what I discovered?
In this case I didn’t lose the skirmish. I didn’t sin. Emotions in and of themselves are not a sin. It’s what we do with them that counts. In my sadness I did:
- Turn to God
- Speak His truth to my soul
- Persevere and do what I needed to do.
Not perfectly, and only with His enabling grace, but I did the best I could with a heart to follow God.
That’s when my precious Lord gave me this new insight:
Discouragement/sadness is not my enemy it is a tool of the enemy.
Satan tries to make me sin; he tries to stop me from fulfilling my God-given mission. My battle is with him not my cloudy mood. If the blahs remain, but I keep doing what I know to be right (i.e. not sin):
It means I have won, not lost the battle! It means I have persevered!
And if I get relief from my melancholy, but it returns in short order, it’s simply just another attack from my enemy. (I have to remember my first blog in this series that the struggle is normal.)
Here’s another thing I realized:
I know why Satan has been attacking me a lot lately.
First, he’s annoyed that I’m revealing some of his tactics. Secondly, I am going full force with my workshops on “Handling Your Emotions God’s Way.”
Do you see the connection? I sure do!
I am an emotional yo-yo. It’s one of my vulnerable areas. Of course the devil will attack me more from this angle! I’ve seen that time and time again.
God is allowing these strong repeated assaults to:
- Make me stronger
- Help me identify Satan’s schemes quicker
- Pass these new insights on to you
- Keep me fully relying on Him
In what areas are you vulnerable?
Friends, sometimes Satan’s attacks are subtle. Sometimes they are intense frontal attacks. Sometimes they are repeated, fierce and unrelenting attacks—or a combination of them all!
I cannot and will not quit! I hope you won’t either!
Our biggest weapon is:
Greater is He [Jesus] who is in us [believers] than he [Satan] who is in the world. (John 4:4)
P.S. After writing this I don’t feel so blah anymore! Thank you, my Deliverer! But I must remain en-garde!
