Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings (1 Peter 5:8-9).
Sometimes spiritual life feels like this, doesn’t it? We think we’re doing things right – we’re sticking to the “water” where we don’t think the enemy can reach us. Then, the next thing we know, in the midst of our church-going, Bible-studying, and prayer, the enemy has got us on dangerous land by the throat.
Fortunately, the analogy changes there. Unlike a real lion’s prey, Christians, the “prey” of the devil, have a lot of weapons available to fight back.
When the enemy has you by the neck, it’s very tempting to forget the good stuff you filled up on when things seemed to be going well. It’s easy to turn away from those things, in fact. It’s easy to say, “Well, God said He would protect me, but I don’t see Him anywhere now, so whatever. I guess I’ll just do what I want to do anyway. I guess I’ll fall back into temptations I had been running from. He doesn’t seem to care what happens to me.”
But when we have a reaction to suffering that rejects the good things we’ve put into our spirit, we stay in the enemy’s jaws. Eventually, we can be eaten up entirely – given over to depression and spiritual death.
If, on the other hand, we have a fighting attitude in the enemy’s jaws, he cannot stay locked on us forever. We can resist him, and it will work. It may not work exactly when and how we want, but if we persevere in our faith, if we take heart in knowing that we’re not alone, if we continue to trust God when it isn’t easy, we will overcome.
Have you experienced times of great trials and suffering in your life? What was your response? Have you had times when you responded with defeat? Other times when you responded with perseverance? What are some Scriptures that have helped you in hard times?
When I was reading through Leviticus awhile ago, I came across some gruesome commandments about sacrifice. Here’s an example:
If he brings a lamb as his sin offering, he is to bring a female without defect. He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it for a sin offering at the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered. Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the lamb of the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar on top of the offerings made to the LORD by fire. In this way the priest will make atonement for him for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven (Leviticus 4:32-5).
As I read passage after passage of God commanding the Israelites to sacrifice animals, I started to feel uncomfortable.
My world view was being tested.
I’ve always been an animal lover. I suppose it’s in my genes. Everyone in my family is a sucker for cute, cuddly pets who need a home.
And here I was reading (and actually taking it in, instead of glossing it over as I had done so many times before when reading the Old Testament sacrifice passages) that God – my gracious, loving, wonderful God – required the death of cute, cuddly animals to atone for sin.
In my discomfort, I was tempted to gloss it over once again. On the surface, I just don’t know how to reconcile these two things. A tender, loving God with a God who demands bloody death and sacrifice. But this time, instead of moving on, I asked God about it.
“Father, is this really who You are? How can this be? How can the God I know and love so intimately be this same God who requires blood and death?”
Immediately, I felt the Holy Spirit respond. “Yes, it is who I am. It is very much part of who I am. And this isn’t as incompatible with your view of Me as you think. Death in Me is life. You can’t have the one without the other. You can’t be alive in Me until you’ve died to yourself – a horrible, bloody, gruesome death. It doesn’t come easily. It feels uncomfortable, even painful. It doesn’t feel fair. But after you’ve done it, true life can begin. My life in you.”
Once more, I repented of holding on to my own idea of how life should be lived. I repented of needing to feel in control of my life. I surrendered to Him again, laying myself on His altar, believing that something much better was waiting on the other side.
“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:20).
I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you] (Romans 12:1-2 AMP).
Have you ever wrestled with incompatible views of God? What happened? Have you faced questions from others about how a loving God can ask for painful sacrifices? What did you tell them?
I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God. Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal. Psalm 69:3-4
Several years ago, I was going through a very rough time in life. Many issues from my past had cropped up again, issues I hadn’t had to deal with much since becoming a Christian. In my early faith life, it seemed like God had put this protective force field around me. I was so in love with Him, so eager to pursue my relationship with Him that little else mattered to me. Even when I had difficulties in life, they didn’t touch me very deeply emotionally. It was definitely a period of “honeymoon.”
Photo taken by Andrew Mason (flickr.com)
Then, after I had been a Christian for a few years, it seemed like my whole world came crashing down in a matter of only a few weeks. Issues I had dealt with in my childhood that I thought were long gone suddenly became issues again. During that time period, I felt like Satan had personally orchestrated the most devastating set of circumstances that could eat away at my self-confidence and faith. One night during this season of life, Psalm 69:4 jumped off the page at me: I am forced to restore what I did not steal.
That verse pained me, but it also comforted me. I did feel like I was forced to restore what I hadn’t stolen. I was forced to deal with issues that others had chosen to bring into my life. It was unfair, and I didn’t like it.
But at the same time, knowing that King David dealt with the same emotions I was dealing with was comforting. I felt less alone as I realized that sometimes life simply means dealing with junk that you didn’t cause. It may be unfair, but it’s not abnormal. Rather than throwing a pity-party, I was able to turn to God with my sorrow and ask Him for strength.
Have there been times in your life when you felt forced to restore what you didn’t steal? How did you handle those times? Did God provide a word, a friend, or some other method of encouragement to help pull you through?
Last Sunday, my church celebrated Palm Sunday with a re-enactment of the Triumphal Procession. Members of the church dressed in Biblical costumes and paraded through the sanctuary with palm branches, rejoicing as “Jesus” entered the sanctuary.
Seeing that visual re-enactment of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, less than a week before the Crucifixion, all I could think about was how quickly the triumphant crowd would be replaced with an angry, condemning crowd.
Palm Sunday is a moment of refuge and joy, the calm before the storm. Only days later, the crowd will be shouting at Pilate to free a murderer and to crucify Jesus.
Have you ever experienced the turn of the tide in your life? Ever felt like public opinion was on your side one minute, then turning against you the next?
Ever felt like a friend was for you one day, then nowhere to be found when things got hairy?
One thing’s for sure. Sinful people are fickle. It doesn’t mean we should condemn and distrust one another in order to protect ourselves. With God’s help, we can all become better friends, parents, and lovers.
But we have to remember that when everyone seems turn their back on us, there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Jesus knows what it feels like to be betrayed by your closest friends and by the general population. Turn to the One who knows you and loves you when you’re going through a valley of betrayal. Ask Him for the ability to forgive and move forward in love.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:15-16
