The Opponent

I continually fall into the temptation to try really, really hard to be better.

Let’s discuss the enemy. In sports, a coaching staff & team will watch game film of an upcoming opponent to learn strengths, weaknesses, style, & speed. They study how the opposition plays the game so that they can construct & practice specific technique to obstruct offensive force & capitalize on mistakes. They also watch past game film to gain broader perspective on their own difficulties & limitations in order to intentionally & meticulously hone the skills needed to improve. Let’s not forget we are opposed.

If the devil can’t make us bad, he’ll make us busy.

Right now, he is making me both. I have had an incredibly productive week immersed in meaningful projects. On the way to one good deed in particular, I cussed out Hubs.

That little snake really tricked me again. (The devil, not hubs.) I really thought for a second that this whole blog thing was really doing the trick. I was really getting it together. Really, Lauren?! Isn’t it funny how we can be involved in positive tasks & appear on top of things & yet still be ugly on the inside? No. No, it’s really not.

I could do another bible study (which I am) or schedule time to read & pray each day (which I will) or sign up to cook, serve, or help (which I have). But this month is not about quiet times, making to-do lists & not-to-do lists, investing in my marriage & family, or writing this blog. This is about giving up.

I could inflict some sort of punishment to myself when I say a bad word, send encouraging emails & texts to family & friends, be polite & pleasant to each person I meet, ignore the bad & find the good in all things. But this month isn’t about trying not to cuss, trying to please others, or trying to be more positive. This is about losing everything.

This isn’t about what I could do. This isn't about trying harder or being better. This is about what God can do if I would just get out of the way.

Because the Spirit of truth will guide me in all truth (John 16:13) & because the Word is sharper than a double-edged sword (Hebrew 4:12), I am led in the way I should go. I am not led in the way Hubs should go, and I am not led in the way my sister should go, and I am not led in the way you should go. There are specific thoughts & behaviors Christians are called to accept or reject, but I am also made with unique desires & dreams, terrors & temptations. So are you. The devil knows this very well. He navigates the seemingly gray areas of the Lord’s revelation in our minds like a pirate.

He has studied me intently. The devil knows what words are easily accessed & exactly what buttons to push to flood my heart with apathy for eternity. The heat starts in my gut, brews in my chest, & burst forth into audible & immediate expression—sometimes zero to sixty in less than a second.

Dark corners might take longer to pierce. God has staked claim to my heart & He knows the evil one has chiseled away at it since I was introduced to Jesus. Lord, let your light shine. I want your truth reverberating through every crevice of my inner being.

It is better to be in the light. Have things out in the open. It hurts at first, but once your sight adjusts, it is refreshing & a thing of beautiful respite from this fallen world. When the shadows are removed, those cowardly things revealed lose their power and Satan’s grip loses its hold.

When I declare with my heart & my mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven & earth, I am a threat to the plan of the prince of darkness.

The devil knows my game. I don’t need to know his. My Lord has his playbook. And I have my Lord’s.

I want to know Christ & the power of his rising. I want to drown in that victory.

“Submit to God; Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” James 4:7.

“One day the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?’” Acts 19:15

“Be alert and of sober mind. 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 fellow believers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings” 1 Peter 5:8-9.

“He answered, ‘The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels” Matthew 13:37-39.

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” Ephesians 6:11-12.

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” 1 John 3:8b.