Breathing life into your standing-sails

Hi friends!

I’m preparing to speak at a women’s conference in New Jersey this weekend and everything in me feels like I can say verbatim what the angel told Daniel in Daniel 10:13 – that the prince [of the power of the air (Satan)] has withstood me twenty-one days. I can tell you unequivocally that I feel that deep down in my bones. My strength has been zapped, and I was telling God this morning about what dirty tricks Satan uses.

I don’t know about you, but when spiritual warfare hits, I feel absolutely helpless, almost stunned, because I never see it coming.

Well, that’s not true. I usually anticipate a certain amount of warfare as I prepare to teach or launch something (in this case I’m launching and teaching in the same week! I should’ve probably planned that one better.) But still, the tactics Satan uses are sucker punches, right?

As ai read Ephesians 6 and begged that God would make it tangible for me, I saw the word anew: “Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). That’s exactly what we need to be doing – what I need to be doing – when all I want is to wave the white flag, cry uncle, and crawl into bed, I need to withstand and hold my ground, because Satan is holding his.

And those dirty tricks I was lamenting to God about? He also pointed me to the “wiles” word. I laughed when I saw it, because it literally means “trickery.”

I need to run and pick up my oldest from preschool, but these words by John Piper infused strength into my morning:

“One of the things that constantly astonishes me is that God, who could with one blink of an eye or flick of a little finger, dispatch all of Satan and all of his hordes out of the world and out of the way — instead of doing that — employs human agents to do war with them and fight them in order to get victories. And all I know to say about that is, in his inscrutable wisdom, more glory will come to him and more joy will come to you in participating in this triumph.

“When you’re in a battle and you’re standing, you’ve still got a chance to win. And if you’re on the ground, a horse is going to step on you or you’re getting stuck with a spear. You’re doing nobody any good on the ground. So, standing is all-important in a fight. In boxing, you go down, you lose. If you stand, you might win. And so here, standing is of utmost importance. … his methods are tailor-made for your situation, to mess you up and to make you weak, to make you fall down, to ruin your life. … He’s got methods and schemes and we have to have armor so that we can discern and figure out how to be protected against it.” (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/spiritual-warfare-and-prayer)

So, friend, I’m squaring my shoulders today. Holding my ground. And standing.

xo!

Jane