Tactics

Last week I came to the realization that I have been in the middle of an all out war lately, and to be quite honest with you – it kind of fired me up (once I realized what was going on of course).

My husband and I were talking one evening and we were were just encouraging each other.  We had just slowly walked through the past few weeks and months and did a play by play of everything we’ve been facing and coming up against lately.  It wasn’t a negative pity party or anything like that, we were just like “man – what’s going on!?”  It’s been a bit exhausting lately to be honest with you - we’ve been up against some pretty negative circumstances.  Some of them pretty big ones, but honestly it was more so all the petty, ridiculous little fiery darts (that nonetheless require our attention and energy) that have been the most draining.  As we started talking, we started noticing patterns surfacing, and through noticing those patterns, I felt the Holy Spirit give me one word: “tactics”.  Almost immediately Matthew 10:16 came to mind:  ….be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves and then I Peter 5:8 “Stay alert!  Watch out for your great enemy the devil.  He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour”  I felt the Holy Spirit reveal to my heart that these tactics were all being used against us in an effort to try and overtake us.  Once we realized that – oh man, it was on! An incredible surge of confidence (not in ourselves but in Jesus) came over me.  I literally felt my posture take it’s form again – my back straightened up, my shoulders kicked back and the grip of my hands tightened up again.

When God brings light and shines on an area of our lives, darkness has to flee.  And I felt as if that’s what had happened just then.  What the enemy was planning in secret, the Holy Spirit had just revealed to us and now we knew specifically how to be on the alert.  I’ve heard it said for so long “If you’re doing something right for Jesus, expect to be attacked”.  Sometimes those attacks are blatant and obvious, (I’ve had several of those in the past) but this time, it was suttle and he was coming at us from all directions.

I remembered an illustration given during a message sometime back.  It was about lions and how they were trained for the circus.  Here you have these huge, strong ferocious beasts – but if you’ve ever watched the trainers, they can get the lions to coward back by simply picking up a 4-legged chair and pointing all 4 legs at them.  The lions feel overwhelmed with all these chair legs coming at them at once, and they coward back.  Yet from our perspective – we know well that they could tear that chair into pieces!  Sometimes, that’s the same kind of tactic that the enemy tries to use with us – to come at us from all directions so that we feel overwhelmed, and in hopes that we will “give up” or “back down”.  But if we only knew what was really going on, if we could just step into the spiritual realm for a moment, we’d realize how ridiculous those tactics are in the light of how great a victory Jesus has already given us!

Since the Holy Spirit revealed that to us, and we committed it all to Jesus and claimed His victory over it all, things started shifting almost immediately.  I can honestly say that had I not been keeping my spiritual radar in tune with God, ready to listen to what He was revealing to me – this story would most likely have a very different ending.  We have got to stay alert (Luke 22:31-32) and as we stay connected and in constant communication with Jesus, He will reveal to us things we need to know so that we can see things the way they really are.

The most powerful part of all of this is that Jesus already won the victory for us.  The enemy can try new tactics against us to try and confuse us, sometimes even trying to twist the Word of God in our lives.  But as we continue to do God’s will and stay in close communion with Him – it’s so freeing and empowering to know for a fact that we cannot be overthrown.

Acts 5:38

LGR