Before my eyes were barely pried open with caffeine I stumbled to my chair to verbalize what was pressing on my heart.
I decided to pray about the day before it could threaten to unravel.
Isn’t it amazing how we can determine to not obsess over a pressing need only to find yourself preoccupied with it for the day.
This is where I found myself one morning and I have a sneaky feeling you’ve been there too.
That subtle thing lingering around. Resisting the temptation to worry, but you hold onto it and carry it in your pocket for the day.
Reminding myself I prayed about it, God knows, and yet there it is.
It’s subtle but it surfaces like this: Maybe you should just check on that need. See if anything has changed, perhaps it has from five minutes ago when you checked.
Just a casual glance to see if there is anything different.
Questions about the direction I’m going starts to surface again.
Sure enough. Reality bumped into me and I knew I wasn’t resting in God, I was trying to wrestle an answer from God. As if He was withholding it from me.
Eve’s Struggle
Let’s look at someone else who wondered if God was withholding from her. Eve. She knew the sweet fellowship place with God and God’s faithfulness.
She was close with God in the freedom of the garden. She didn’t hide because there was no need too. She was completely free.
Watching and waiting for a vulnerable time in Eve’s life the serpent slithered up to present a scenario.
Leading with a question, the serpent placed a suggestion to drop straight into her heart. That seed showed up in doubt… It showed up in her teetering about the faithfulness of God.
What she once confidentally knew as true about God is now challenged through uncertainty.
She knew intellectually God had never held out on her but what if?
Eve’s What if moment entered in when trusting God slipped away between the beginning days of the garden to the middle of that day. The day she sat down on a rock to ponder.
The serpent watched until that opportune moment and then, slid up taking an uninvited spot.
The Cunning Question
Capitalizing on the moment He cunningly waited for, He started with one subtle suggestion. Then another.
Has God said?
Don’t you want to have opened eyes? Spoiler alert: Her eyes were already opened.
You want to be like God don’t you? The irony is, Eve was already like God. She was made in His image.
Isn’t this how the enemy dupes us? Making us wonder if God will follow through for us?
Maybe, He wont this time? Maybe He is holding out on you? Can you trust his plan?
Questions come from the enemy to distract us from what God has already said. God finished His statement for you with a period, not a question mark to make you wonder.
The enemy challenges our identity, offering us something counterfeit to put on. To look to yourself, not God.
The enemy encourages us to live independently from God. To cut our apron strings so to speak.
Our path of trust now seems treacherous. Our trusting heart feels jaded if we don’t remind ourselves what God says to us in His word.
When we move off the foundation of His word in our lives we can start obsessing. Worrying and wondering.
The very access point the enemy looks for when we are at a crossroad in our lives.
When you come to the fork in the road the enemy wants to meet you with questions. Questions if you heard God correctly.
Questions to make you doubt God’s goodness towards you.
Questions not only about who you are, but whose you are. Casting those thoughts down instead of meditating on them will ensure your victory.
To entertain them is to give the enemy a foothold turning your faith into fear. The adversary wants to take your trust in him and causes you to obsess about what is ahead on your journey.
The Universal Temptation
The enemy wants you to take it in your own hands so it is no longer in the hands of God. He wants to exhaust you and consume you with whatever it is so you relinquish your trust in God.
When we resist that temptation to take it into our hands it stays in its rightful place, in the hands of God. We stay at rest and have peace because we know God has got it. Whatever it is.
You defeat the enemy with your mouth by agreeing with God. Everything He says about you and has for your future is already written in the book. We keep walking it out day after day.
You win friend. I win. We win together. Let’s choose to trust even when it looks daunting. Having shaky faith is faith. Keep walking uphill. He’s waiting for you.
God Is Faithful
Everyone won’t go with you. The crowds get thinned. The enemy turns up the heat because you are choosing to trust the process of what God is doing.
But God is faithful to you, His beloved. He has already gone before you. Your name is always before him. He has inscribed it on the palm of His hand.
Keep pressing forward as Paul directs us in Phillipians 3:14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
He will never let us go. When we are faithless He is faithful.
Father, help us to see you and keep trusting you as we walk out your will. Let us not give up easily. Give us the courage to stay the path and recognize the tactics of the enemy. We trust you and place all of our needs in your hands, knowing you are working all things out so you will be glorified. In Jesus name. Amen.