I received an email last week from a friend. The conversation went sort of like this.
Friend: “Have you stopped writing your blog?”
Me: “No. Why? Are you not getting it?”
Friend: “No. I haven’t received one for almost a month now.”
(I now go and check the email list.)
Me: “It looks like you unsubscribed?”
Friend: “I did? I certainly didn’t mean to. . . . Should have known I was the problem.”
Me: “Trust me. When a computer is involved, it is the computer.”
And that’s when it hit me.
This conversation was sounding remarkably similar to the Priscilla Shirer women’s Bible study on the Armor of God that I just started. We have only completed three weeks, but the bottom line upon which she will build her study is this: Most of us are fighting the wrong enemy. What or who we think is the problem, really isn't.
We are physical people, so when something goes wrong, we ferret out the physical culprit and lay the blame at his or her or its feet. Someone wrongs us. Someone forgets about us. Something unexpected happens and our plans are ruined, and we start pointing fingers and placing blame. But Priscilla reminds us that the battle is not between us. The war is much bigger and behind the physical scenes as Ephesians 6:12 tells us: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Now, that is quite an enemy.
But Satan doesn’t want us to focus on him. He doesn’t want us to know that he is following a war strategy he has specifically developed for each one of us to undermine our strengths and play on our weaknesses. No, he wants us fighting against each other, laying blame, pointing fingers so that he can just keep on doing what he is doing and we can continue focusing on the wrong enemy and never escape our anger or hurt or bitterness.
Do you ever wonder why certain types of situations that push all our emotional buttons keep popping up in our life? They will until we realize that Satan knows he can still get that unhealthy reaction with it. Priscilla reminds us that until we don God's armor and create our own war strategy, until we look past that physical player in the difficult scenario to the silent strategist behind the scenes, we will forever be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong battle.
Friend: “Have you stopped writing your blog?”
Me: “No. Why? Are you not getting it?”
Friend: “No. I haven’t received one for almost a month now.”
(I now go and check the email list.)
Me: “It looks like you unsubscribed?”
Friend: “I did? I certainly didn’t mean to. . . . Should have known I was the problem.”
Me: “Trust me. When a computer is involved, it is the computer.”
And that’s when it hit me.
This conversation was sounding remarkably similar to the Priscilla Shirer women’s Bible study on the Armor of God that I just started. We have only completed three weeks, but the bottom line upon which she will build her study is this: Most of us are fighting the wrong enemy. What or who we think is the problem, really isn't.
We are physical people, so when something goes wrong, we ferret out the physical culprit and lay the blame at his or her or its feet. Someone wrongs us. Someone forgets about us. Something unexpected happens and our plans are ruined, and we start pointing fingers and placing blame. But Priscilla reminds us that the battle is not between us. The war is much bigger and behind the physical scenes as Ephesians 6:12 tells us: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Now, that is quite an enemy.
But Satan doesn’t want us to focus on him. He doesn’t want us to know that he is following a war strategy he has specifically developed for each one of us to undermine our strengths and play on our weaknesses. No, he wants us fighting against each other, laying blame, pointing fingers so that he can just keep on doing what he is doing and we can continue focusing on the wrong enemy and never escape our anger or hurt or bitterness.
Do you ever wonder why certain types of situations that push all our emotional buttons keep popping up in our life? They will until we realize that Satan knows he can still get that unhealthy reaction with it. Priscilla reminds us that until we don God's armor and create our own war strategy, until we look past that physical player in the difficult scenario to the silent strategist behind the scenes, we will forever be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong battle.
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