"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God
so that at the proper time He may exalt you,
casting all your anxieties on him, because He cares for you.
Be sober-minded; be watchful.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering
are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace,
who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ,
will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen."
1 Peter 5:6-11
Captured
This morning I woke up feeling simply overwhelmed by life. I'm certain there are many people who wake up like this on a daily basis. Some of these people may know Jesus and be full of faith. Some might not. Either way, mental health is a serious issue for far too many people and Paul himself wrote that we ought to 'take every thought captive to obey Christ,' (2 Cor. 10:5) because we don't fight a war "according to the flesh". And often Christians can hyper-spiritualise this spiritual war that we fight on a daily basis, by belittling the actual struggle that rages on in a person's mind.
Peter warns us that 'the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.' What if you are that someone? Once a predator has laid eyes on its prey, it's very difficult to tear it away. Anybody who has ever seen a documentary on lions (or similar predators) will know that it doesn't just take a bite and leave. It won't rest until its belly is full.
Yes, we shouldn't give Satan more credit than what He deserves. But the fact is: he is real and he is still out for the blood of those who are under the blood of Christ. And his strongest weapon isn't necessarily to make us suffer physically, but rather infiltrate our hearts and minds and use his twisted words to turn us away from the only One who can actually offer us a true refuge - a stronghold no enemy can capture.
I was reminded this morning to be sober-minded. This suggests that I need to put aside all feelings, which are easily swayed, and find a sense of clarity. The idea of mindfulness is not a new concept that the West has adopted from Eastern practices. Mindfulness is biblical!
Why should we start the day with God and His Word? Because it's like a compass pointing us in the right direction for the day. If we don't know where our true North is then we will end up going South, East or West. We follow the path where the arrow points and know that that direction will offer us protection. This is how we can 'humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God'. It's not a tool, it's a lifestyle, because coming into the presence of God requires intentionality and a heart of surrender.
Too often I forget this. And then I find myself surprised that I've ended up in the bundus*. Once you're lost, you're lost. That's the definition of 'lost'. And once you're in the middle of the bush, you have to work much harder to get yourself out of there. This is why it's imperative not to lose sight of God's face. When you're on the mountain with God and see His glory, it's impossible for you to turn away from Him.
The Israelites have shown us that example over and over.
Outside of God's glory: stupid & bad things happen.
Inside of God's glory: abundance of His fruit, which we're invited to eat. More love, more joy, more peace, more patience, more kindness, more generosity, more faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. More of grace, because He is the God of all grace and He offers it to us freely.
It's not the faithful who require miracles. It's the lost who require them to be reminded of the God they serve. But every so often, even the faithful become faithless, and a little breakthrough, a little water gushing out from the rock, can truly refresh the soul.
So what happens if you have to wait 40 years for that breakthrough? What does it mean to 'suffer a little while'? How do you appeal to a person's mental framework who has been praying for something specific for years? How do you bring comfort to somebody struggling with excruciating physical pain? Or a couple that's longed for a child? How do you trust a God who is seemingly faithful towards others, but has skipped over you?
First of all: Has He?
The fact that you got to know Him is proof that He hasn't skipped over you!
J.I. Packer wrote:
"What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance, and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God."**
Satan convinces us that there are other goals more compelling and things more worthy to pursue. I write this having experienced numerous occasions where my mind is clouded with personal ambitions. But you cannot be both up on the mountain with God and in the valley building a golden calf for yourself. You have to choose which lion you serve. The mighty & bold lion of Judah, or the dejected, duplicitous lion of lies. (Mufasa or Scar?)
One of these lions is the holy, blameless lamb that was slain, while the other is the snivelling snake that holds no power of those covered by the blood of the lamb.
So if our God is for us, who can be against us?
This itself can become a simple, hollow mantra, which we say to comfort ourselves in times where we actually feel like the whole world is against us. All feelings are valid. This is something I have to learn as the father of a 3-year old. And often it is just too hard to name feelings and to understand why they even exist. Our 'flesh' is a complicated, inter-connected network that is bombarded with insurmountable information on a daily basis. Back in 2017, scientists had "measured the amount of data that enter the brain and found that an average person living today processes as much as 74 GB in information a day (that is as much as watching 16 movies), through TV, computers, cell phones, tablets, billboards, and many other gadgets."***
Too say that this is insane is an understatement. It's 2022, five years later, and we've had a pandemic, which forced us to spend more time indoors and consider social media as our best way to engage with one another. The mental repercussions are all but real and we cannot fathom the damage that's been done already.
In short: Satan may be a cockroach, but He has found countless new ways to multiply and find cracks through which He can enter our home.
That is why we must be watchful. We may not have any watchtowers today, but as a Christian man, we are called to protect our families by being the spiritual leaders. The world convinces men that they need to provide. But it is God who provides everything and supplies the spiritual armour for us to protect our families. We don't have the luxury to train for years to have a singular moment to face our Goliath. We have to face Goliath every single day. If our faith is in worldly weapons, we will lose. Our faith needs to be in the rock of ages.
And if we find ourselves in the dark, then that's not a bad place to be. People in the light, don't always realise they need the light. This is why suffering can be seen as a maturing (or fermentation) process. Good wine is kept in a dark cellar. Good whisky inside barrels. The more we suffer, the more we have to come to rely on the only One who restores, confirms, strengthens and establishes.
And so we are called to call out to God in our moments of weakness and declare His name in our moments of triumph. Our God is celebrated for turning weakness into strength. So weakness is nothing to be ashamed of. It is an integral, wholesome component of following Christ and being assured that we are raised to life with Him. Death has been overcome. I can overcome. And so can you.
Footnotes
*bundus = wasteland, badlands, backwoods
**James I. Packer. Knowing God (Great Britain: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973)
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