I had a couple heavy emotional/spiritual attacks recently with the devil strongly tempting me to give up. I felt totally weighed down and had so many tears and fears I couldn’t seem to look up. As I’ve shared in some of my blogs, I’ve been in this spot before! The persistent devil doesn’t give up easily!
Sometimes we may feel burdened down by trials, conflict, work, responsibilities, hormones, parenting, distractedness, lack of sleep, our character flaws and failings, etc.. We let the devil beat us up in our discouragement and negative thoughts.
Personally I usually find that if I can just hold on through that hard day, claiming His promises, those strong negative emotions will often lift by the next day. The Lord is faithful to renew my strength.
Our son, Nathan, recently sent a great video about a wildebeest escaping from lions. Link As you can see in the video, the wildebeest could’ve easily given up initially, with an “well I guess I’m a goner!” attitude. The devil is a wily foe!! As the familiar verse in 1 Peter 5:8 warns us:
“Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking who he may devour.”
Why does it mention a ROARING lion? The lion’s roar is for causing Intimidation, hunger and open hostility. It’s designed to promote fear and it’s effective!
I can still hear the pulsating, rhythmic roar of the lion echoing around a Christian youth camp in Florida. If we were awakening from a bad dream by the roar we might think the lion was after us, but soon our foggy brains would remember that he was safely in a cage at the small camp zoo..
This was siimilar to Pilgrim’s experience in the well known allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. He realized that the intimidating, roaring lions he encountered were actually toothless and chained out of reach. Cages and chains can help us feel safer around a roaring lion.
“Satan is ready to steal away the blessed assurances of God. He desires to take every glimmer of hope and every ray of light from the soul; but you must not permit him to do this. Exercise faith; fight the good fight of faith; wrestle with these doubts; become acquainted with the promises.” 5T 629.2
We often give in to his attacks too easily! God’s promises can help chain and cage Satan, the roaring lion who seeks to destroy us. When under attack let’s fight back in God’s strength and come out more than conquerors!
“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Romans 8:17
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