"The greatest weapon anyone can use against us is our own mind. By praying on the doubts and uncertainties that already lurk there." - Revenge (the TV show)
There are a million reasons I'm not proud of who I was or who I still am. But nothing frustrates me more than when I write posts like the one below. It couldn't be more Job if I tried.
I've said this before about Job many times to myself and probably on a number of my blogs over the years. God let Job and his wife and his friends ramble on about why Job was suffering and how it did or didn't feel for 38 of 42 chapters. 38 of 42 chapters.
Let's say you translate that to life. If you lived 48 years, God would let you try to figure suffering out and listen to you and all those around you for 38 years. 38 years. Can you imagine being God and listening to our emotions get the better of us 90% of every day for 38 years? If not more? Us telling ourselves and each other and God Himself why we are suffering. It's ridiculous. I don't know how God sits up there and listens to us yell and scream and cry and complain like children for so long.
And that is what I do every day. That is what I did in the post below. It's what I've done in probably most of them. And do you realize how I try to end them? With a prayer, with logic, with God's Truth. Why cant I just go there first and only there, all the time? Why do I let my emotions sneak into my mind's uncertainties. Why do I let my emotions doubt His Truth?
C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, Randy Alcorn's modern adaptation of that, The Ishbane Conspiracies, have flat out told us exactly how the Devil and his demons pull us away from our Lord and Savior and we have learned nothing from it. Nothing. Or at least we do nothing about it.
Donald Miller tells us there is a war going on. A war between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Princialities of Darkness. But nothing in the way I live will show you I am a warrior for Christ in this battle. Nothing. And that is why the Devil gets me all worked up over not sleeping and being in pain and feeling lonely. Because I haven't accepted my role in all of this. And that is the tragedy.
If we don't realize how the Devil uses every moment in our lives to pull us away from God how will we survive our time in these bodies on this planet and come out knowing God and having Him know us-- having never let anyone or anything keep us from Him and the relationship we can and should have with Him? I don't think we can.
The Devil is winning in my life all the time and I don't even know it. And if I don't know it, how do I expect myself to do something about it? How do I expect things to get better for me, for my relations with others, and most importantly for my relationship with Christ?
Every sleepless night I let my mind and my emotional lies get the better of me, he has won. The Principalities of Darkness have won that battle.
Every sleepless night I spend with God cherishing the evening I have Him all to myself with not a single distraction as I get lost in bewilderment of all He has done for me and the ones I love and all He will continue to do, The Kingdom of Heaven wins.
Look, just because we are blessed enough to know that The Kingdom of Heaven will win in the end, doesn't mean we don't fight now. Know thy enemy. He has a lot to teach us. About himself, about God, and most importantly about our strengths and weaknesses.
I think as humans who are sentient, being aware we are suffering in this world and the ability to over analyze it and let it haunt us every moment of every day, is one of our easiest weaknesses that the devil can and does endlessly use to get us to draw away from God, from trusting Him, from loving Him regardless, and being content in His love no matter what.
When I stop believing my emotions, when I stop letting my mind convince me something is true that isn't, when I only look to God for Truth, that is when I can smile and feel joy and contentent no matter what is happening in my life. Be it a sleepless night, a painful day, a loss, I can look around at everything, and not just the pain, and see there is so much of God in everything around me, that all I can do is the best part of the story of Job.
After Job and his friends and wife put their two cents worth in for 38 chapters God spoke to Job in a whirlwind. Do you remember what God said? He basically says that if you really look around you Job, not at what you have lost, but at all that remains, like the sky and the animals and all these people, and the waters and the land--if I can do all this, and understands its physics, if I can control the rain and snow and wind and sun and all the creatures of the earth, and continue cultivating the lives of every living thing on this planet, can't I be trusted?
God doesn't offer a reason why Job suffered.
He doesn't tell Job He will restore all Job lost.
He doesn't even tell Job things will get better or easier.
He doesn't hold Job in His arms and let Him cry some more.
God simply says, "Trust me."
In other words, cling to me, stay near to me, find comfort in me, let my love fill those losses and look around at all that is still here and be dazzled by it.
Do you remember what Job's response was?
Job, well I imagine He was humbled into silence for quite a while. I imagine he then looked all around him, and for the first time since he lost everything, saw all that God was still doing in his life, and he saw all that he had left, all that remained, and I imagine he started to cry.
And then, all that Job could utter was... "All this is too wonderful for me."
All this is too wonderful for me.
All this is too wonderful for me!
Job is sitting by the fire picking the scabs from his wounds, mourning the loss of his family, his wife, his friends, his land, his possessions, his cattle, his livelihood, and after He looks around at all that God has done and still does and will do, he is humbled into an awed sense of pure trust in His Lord.
It suddenly doesn't matter if things get better or worse. It suddenly doesn't matter what his emotions are telling him. It doesn't matter what tricks his mind is playing as the devil is attempting to scream at Job all his lies, playing on his doubts. At this point, sitting there listening to God speak through a whirlwind, Job was no longer afraid of anything. He didn't doubt God at all. There were no uncertainties. No matter what Job had lost or had left to lose, he had God and knew Him, for all that God really is. And in that moment Job couldn't hear, or see, or feel anything but God and His Truth.
It was at that moment, in the encompassing and thundering silence of God's absolute Truth, that Job is so stunned by God, by who He truly is, by all that He is, that Job can't think or feel anything but awe and calm and a joy that probably brought him to tears as God revealed not a glimpse of what this is really all about, this sentient life, but the absolute Truth about this sentient life: All this really is too wonderful for us. It truly is. Anything else you think you know or anything else you are feeling for even one second, is a lie. The Devil's lie. Contentment and wonderment are God's Truth. Unwavering faith is His Truth. And of course love and joy and light and beauty and grace and peace and all the other endlessly glorious things that God is.
You know, I used to be able to say that. All this is too wonderful for me. There were quite a number of times I was able to say that, even on my worst of days. I hate myslef for not having said it in longer than I remember. I have been blinded and consumed by my emotions and uncertainties. They have kept me so preoccupied that I have forgotten this war we are in. And that is everything the devil wanted to happen...and I'm sick of it. And I'm dissappointed in myself. And I'm angry I've let it get this far. In almost eight years, have I really learned nothing? By the looks of my life and the emotional hurricane I've been in, I'd have to say I haven't.
God, I am begging you to help me believe nothing but Your Truth. I am weak. I need Your help. If there is one thing I hate the most, it is having been lied to for so long, for being so weak I believed the lies, and nothing has changed. May what I know about You be what I live to be True. Help me.
I know we are in this war, and I want to fight for Your Kingdom. He may know my weaknesses, but I know they are his greatest weapon against me. Please help my knowledge of that catch him off guard and help me to prevent him from using it. Knowing he needs my doubts and uncertainties can be my weapon against him.
I will be able to say it again. And soon, with God's help and with an awareness of my enemies tricks, and a knowledge of how to fight back against the principalities of darkness, most especially the ones that live inside of me. Our minds trick us into all kinds of trouble. And using that against us is the devil's greatest and oldest trick. Here is how we are going to fight back:
Be still and know that I am God...
Be still. Stop thinking. Stop feeling. Shut up and look around you. Look for God in everything you see, smell, hear, feel, and taste. Trust that if He can do all that, then He not only can be trusted, but He should be trusted. Know there is a war going on and the devil will make you, your soul, a casualty in this war at any and every opportunity. Be alert. Be on the lookout. Fight back.
If you are an athlete and you are struggling with your running speed, do you say "oh well" or do you work harder?
If you are a student and you have good grades in every subject but math do you ignore that fact, or do you study harder?
If you have specific weaknesses the devil uses to make your soul drift farther from God, are you going to sit idly by like nothing is happening and/or there is nothing you can do, or are you going to work with God to make your weaknesses your strengths? Strengths that enable you to cling to God, know God, and trust His Truth more than ever before? Strengths that enable you to look around you in wonderment and joy instead of pain and doubt and anger?
I am sick of my feelings trying to convince me they are the truth. I'm sick of my mind's doubts, fears, and insecurities tricking me into turning away from God instead of walking towards Him. I'm am tired of my sentience being a bad thing. I am tired of focussing on what I have lost instead of being astonished and humbled into reverent silence by all that remains. I am annoyed that I have known all that I am saying right now for years now, and nothing has changed. I have not changed. I have not done what I have written to be True. What I know is Truth. His Truth. I have sat idly by in this battle allowing the devil to trick me. I have wasted my time and God's. I am disgusted knowing that what I need to do, should do, want to do, I haven't--I don't.
It is my fault I feel lonely. It is my fault I ask why I can't sleep. It is my fault why I get angry I am suffering. It's all my fault. The devil is using my sentience against me. He is turning it against me. He is making it my biggest weakness instead of me fighting back and making it my greatest strength.
If I only listened to God's Truth and applied it, none of this would happen. If I knew, wholeheartedly, instead of just sounding it out, that "All this is too wonderful for me," then none of this would happen. There would be no doubts. No insecurities. No emotional lies. Only God and His Truth and His Love and His glory and grace and His peace.
I need God's help. We all need God's help. Being sentient gives both God and the devil a way into our lives and our souls and our minds. But with true focus and tenacity and support from God and each other, our sentience could/would no longer be something used against us and against God, but it would finally cultivate the relationship God longs to have with us.
I know this can happen. I also know it will be hard and we will never do this flawlessly. We will make mistakes. But if we fight the good fight together, we can keep each other on track, or at least get each other back on track faster than if we were doing it alone. We can remind each other the importance of our sentience and how God's plan is to use it to help us grow closer to Him. We can beat the devil back from using our sentience for his plans: to devour our souls so God can't get them. We will stumble in this path. We will undulate up and down, from moving towards God, back to falling away from Him, and then climbing back up to Him again. But that's ok. It's expected because we are human. All that matters is that we undulate toward God more than away from Him, that we never lose sight of His Truth, and that we keep each other focused on all that God has done that is just too too wonderful for all of us.
I promise you this: if you believe this Truth I am telling you, if we fight this together, if we hold each other accountable and always lift each other up, if we help one another always find God's wonderful around us no matter how diffucult life seems, we will be able to say it more and more until it's all that we know.
Being sentient makes us capable of feeling. Aren't you sick and tired of feeling sick and tired? I know I am. I choose feeling God's love and wonder and grace and love and joy over whatever this crap is that I normally feel every day and especially every sleepless night. Let God use our sentience for His purposes, and fight the devil back from using it for his.
All this, all this, really is too wonderful for all of us. God and I promise.
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