Keep Fighting

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?