Blessed are those who
risk personal attack from the enemy, to bring encouragement and hope to those
in need.
No, that’s
not in the Bible, but it should be! I believe
I speak for many of us enlisted in God’s army, including my hubby and me, when
I say that serving in ministry (which in our case means taking a stand to restore the value to marriage in today's culture),
can be hazardous to your physical, mental and spiritual health. To put it simply, if you are a child of God-you
have a bulls-eye on your chest!
From the very beginning of our ministry, teaching
and mentoring pre-marital couples, my husband and I would experience an attack
on our resolve to serve others; it often played out like this:
It is the day we are to teach our
quarterly class on Marital Roles and Expectations. I have a bad day at work and my
hubby has an equally rough day. We are
both tired and hungry, but dear hubby was stuck in traffic and arrives home too
late for us to eat before our class. I
(being so gracious when I’m hungry…not) am now in a really bad mood, and I
accuse dear hubby of purposely trying to wreck our evening. Dear hubby then volleys back a list of
complaints about me, and off to the races we go!
We then end up fighting in the car, all the way to
church. By the time we arrive just minutes before we are to stand before a
class of pre-marital couples, we are convinced that we are in the wrong
place…after-all, who are we to teach others about marriage, when we cannot act civil towards each other on the one night we teach class at the church! Then it hits us…hey…
wait a minute! We have been getting
along pretty good lately. In fact, we cannot
remember the last time we had a really nasty fight before tonight. And then we remember-we are in a war, and
it’s not us against each other, it is the enemy of our souls.
This
scenario used to play out time and time again, and always when we had a
pre-marital class to teach, or before meeting a couple to mentor. Even prior to that, when we had a home bible
study one night a week, we would end up arguing before our group arrived at our
home. We must be slow learners; because
it took several years for us to catch on to the truth…we were under
attack.
Once we
became aware of what was happening to us on these particular dates, we were
able to see an obvious pattern that the enemy followed: Hard day at work, not
enough sleep the night before, anxiety about being late, hunger, grouchiness in
my spouse and me…and then the lies. Oh,
the enemy is good at that! The bible
refers to the enemy as the father of lies. You are a fake; you have no
business serving in this ministry; you
need to get your act together, and, God
can never use someone like you. Those are the lies he would whisper in our
ears.
So what did
we do to defeat the king of lies? We
prayed to the King of Truth. We now pray
for wisdom, discernment and protection prior to serving others. My dear hubby and I make a pact with each
other, not to be tempted to give in to minor irritations. We agree that Grace towards one another is to
be our goal, and we ask God to fill in the spaces where we are lacking. He has never let us down.
In fact, on
more than one occasion, my hubby and I would stand just outside the door to our
classroom and pray before going in, asking God to help us because we felt weak
and empty. You will never guess what
happened. Those would be some of our best classes! We would often hear great reviews from the couples
afterwards, and go home praising God for his love and mercy toward us.
Once we were
onto the enemy’s schemes, the attacks became less and less frequent. We know that he will continue to try to make us stumble, but we know who we are in Christ, and though we know we are fighting a
war, we will never give up, because the outcome has been pre-determined…the kingdom
of God wins!
“Resist the devil, and
he will flee from you.” James 4:7
“In all these things we
are more than conquerors … (Nothing shall separate us from the love of God.” Romans 8:38-39
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