Day 7
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
—1 PETER 5:8
But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.
—2 THESSALONIANS 3:3
One of the things I love about The Screwtape Letters is that it reminds me that I have an enemy who never sleeps. I have an enemy who is hour by hour, day after day, actively trying to drive a wedge between me and God. He has a plan for my life just as surely as God does.
The devil’s plan for me is that I would die before I ever live.
His plan for you is the same.
Our enemy wants us to sleep-walk through life, never fully waking up, never stepping into God’s purpose for our lives. If he can’t sidetrack us with spectacular sins, he will do everything he can to keep us numb to that part of our heart that longs to step into the unknown with God and really make a difference on this earth.
Our enemy wants us to die before we ever really live.
In the above verse, Peter isn’t telling us to be AFRAID of the devil but he IS telling us to be AWARE. Reflecting on my long season of spiritual dryness, I can honestly say that I let myself forget that the devil was prowling around, actively trying to derail me, and in that forgetting I gave him a huge foothold in my life. Instead of looking at the difficult circumstances that surrounded me and my family as reasons to step up my prayers for protection, I got discouraged and became less vigilant in my prayer life instead. This “duck and cover” response to pain left me vulnerable to the relentless attacks of my enemy.
For you, maybe it isn’t pain so much as it is wandering. You’ve dabbled with the world here and there and maybe like “the Patient” in the above letter, you have come to think of yourself as “one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was” a month, a year, a decade ago.” But in your heart, there is a “dim uneasiness” that all is not well.
When we fail to stay alert and clear-headed to the reality that we are facing a battle every day, it is the same as walking onto the front lines of a war with no armour and no weapons.
When pressure or pain or wandering cause us to pull away from God rather than draw closer to him, we play right into the devil’s hands.
If you’ve been pulling or drifting away from God for whatever reason, today I want to encourage you to simply reach out your hand to Him. He stands beside you (He never leaves you), ready to bring you back, ready to take on your burdens, ready to lead you on if only you’d ask Him to.
PRAYER: God once again, forgive my lack of desire. I want to want You more than I do, and I need You daily to strengthen and protect me. Wake me up to your warnings that I am drifting away and thank you for welcoming this wandering heart back to You.
