By Carol Gilham
I woke up feeling defeated. My circumstances felt out of order and chaotic. I felt inadequate, insecure and well, down. It took me leaning in to Jesus, when I certainly didn’t feel like it, to realize we have a very real enemy. In this world we’re so distracted by our schedules, our jobs, our kids, or our Netflix marathon that we forget there’s a real enemy that wants to kill, steal and destroy. I don’t know about you, ladies, but it always seems to surprise me when things are going great, we’re drawing closer to Him, we’re taking steps of obedience, and then BAM, somehow everything starts to go wrong. You would think I would learn by now that our enemy doesn’t want us walking in humble confidence in God. He doesn’t want us finding joy in our circumstances no matter what they are. He doesn’t want us to find joy in obedience to God’s unique calling on our lives. Things are going great in your marriage, your workplace, your social life and then the whispers and lies seem to enter in to your mind. You look up and problems seem to be all around. Shouldn’t things be getting easier given our new commitment to live out God’s plan for our lives?!
I heard at a conference last year that God has a unique, God-sized dream for us all, and we have a very real enemy that doesn’t want us to walk it out. The enemy will steal our joy so that we take ourselves out of the game. Have you ever heard the whispers? They start creeping in, causing insecurity, condemnation and resentment. Where did these feelings come from?!
The joy stealer steps in. Now listen, I’m not the kind of person that thinks every hardship is an attack. I’m pretty practical, so sometimes even recognizing the attack comes way after I’m already feeling well-defeated. But once again, during a time of recommitment to putting Him before all things, I felt the pushback. We had an insanely busy holiday season (like every other adult with kids and jobs) and after our birthdays and such, Lent was a perfect time to reposition our hearts. We had some major goals during Lent, but most importantly it was to focus on Him first again, our marriage and raising our tiny human. I’d been overwhelmed with life and all the demands, so I needed to step back and focus on what mattered. My marriage seemed to be in a major pit, we had a distance between us like the grand canyon (ok, I might be exaggerating that, but at the time it feels epic), resentment and insecurity started creeping into both of our minds. The enemy was using our circumstances to create wedges. He was stealing my joy from taking steps of obedience and filling me with sadness, discontentment, even jealousy for my friends who were flourishing in new careers. Why would I feel this way when I was taking steps to fulfill my own dream? Our enemy doesn’t want us living out of abundance in Him. I truly believe we can get ourselves into these kinds of messes (which I do often), but I also think it’s naive to dismiss actual, spiritual warfare. Every time things are going great, big moves of God are on the horizon, and we’ve actually been praying hard for something—our world starts to crumb