Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. EPHESIANS 6:11 NIV
In her “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters,” Portia Nelson wrote: Chapter 1: I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out. Chapter 2: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again . . . but it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out. Chapter 3: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. . . . My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately. Chapter 4: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. Chapter 5: I walk down another street. Satan has his schemes and tactics, and we need to devise ours to defend ourselves from his temptations. If you know there is a temptation down one street, take a different one! Clothing yourself in the armor of God is step one in devising strategies to resist the devil’s schemes. Dr. David Jeremiah Morning and Evening
I hadn't quite thought about it this way, but that example is more true than I first realized.
Even soldiers in all their training and with all the gear they carry to be able to fight, often fall into snares.
It's oh so easy to fall into the snares of temptation. It's so easy to not acknowledge that we really do recognize where we are going in our thoughts. We recognize it and go anyway.
Prayer should be one of the first things we latch on to. But all too often it's what we do after, as his example shows, we fell in.
Some that I know believe that I am not very stable in my walk with God. That I am often asking for prayer for difficulty in my life.
It's not at all that I am unstable in my life with Christ in the way they perceive. I am obeying the Word of God in bearing one another's burdens. If I don't disclose my burdens how would anyone else who believes the same know that I have specific needs? What some may see as a sign of weakness is in fact the opposite.
Prayer is not a crutch as it has often been called. It's a lifeline. Some may remember the movie "Airforce One" with Harrison Ford. Near the end, the bulk of the bad guys are gone, the President sits in the pilot's seat, puts on the headset. Starts talking to those back at headquarters. He was having conversations on how to fly the plane. It was his lifeline that he was relying on. In no way was it a sign of weakness but of intelligence. A wise man knows when he is in over his head.
I am not strong enough or able enough to fight in this world on my own. Like in our devotional I often fall into that hole in the street.
Prayer and my time in God's Word are what I keep feeding my Soul every morning. I may not remember it all but I know that when God chooses to I am reminded of it.
I also am not strong enough to fight Satan's schemes on his turf and win on my own. The battle belongs to the Lord. Satan was already defeated at the cross. He's an exceptionally sore loser. He cannot read the minds of believers. He can, however, predict what our weaknesses are and try to set us up for failure. His minions know how to understand our weaknesses better than we do.
He is not stronger or better or more powerful. A single, well timed, well placed shot, often turned the tide in many wars. It wasn't at all the sheer number of people. Jesus often used incredibly few people to defeat vast numbers of the enemies of Israel.
TobyMac has a song called Get Back Up. There's so much truth in it. It's never too late to get back up again. The problem we often fall into is dwelling on the failure instead of moving on from it. As in our example in the devotional, it's the same as standing on the other side of that hole and staring at it for an excessive amount of time rather than moving on. We aren't called to dwell on our failures. But to dwell on Christ Jesus and our relationship with God.
Be alert to the trappings of sin and temptation. Don't let it snare you in a trap of your own making by not moving on from it.
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