Watch Out!

Satan is a slick, tricky, sneaky dude. If you don't watch out, he can trick you just like he tricked me the other day....

I had been praying fervently over a specific trial I am going through right now when I was standing in the kitchen and a thought popped into my head out of nowhere, stopping me dead in my tracks.  "Adrien, you are praying too much."

Say what?

"Adrien, I am telling you...you are annoying God. You need to take a break for a little while."

A sense of dread washed over me. Is this right? Oh my gosh, am I annoying God? I've been afraid that maybe all of my crying out has been annoying him!

"You pray so much that it's proving to God you don't have faith that he's going to answer your prayers. You already asked him about that, so leave it alone."

Shoot, that makes a lot of sense! I want God to think I have faith!

"That's right. Give it a rest. Not praying for a while is definitely the answer."

Would you believe that I walked around the rest of that afternoon ashamed that I had been praying too much? Here's a hint in case you didn't already know this: There is no such thing as praying too much! God tells us to bring all of our issues to him with fervency (over and over), all day long, without ceasing. Pray, pray, pray. God LOVES when we pray. Bringing our issues to God shows our faith in him to solve our problems, it definitely does not display a lack of faith. Crying out to God proves that we trust he is the one who is in control.

But did you catch how Satan tried to use "logic" to throw me off? Anyone who didn't know better might think it reasonable that I was praying too much. But that's simply not true. Of course the enemy would LOVE for me to stop all of that pesky praying, it was foiling his plans!

When I finally woke up and realized what was going on, I literally laughed out loud. I remember standing in my bathroom and saying, "I prayed too much? AHAHAHAHA! Nice try!" I laughed and laughed the rest of the evening. I told my mom about it and laughed some more. It was just so lame when I could see it through the lens of truth, but I've gotta tell you, it was NOT funny as it was being spoken to me. I legitimately thought I was doing the wrong thing. By praying. Don't ask me...when Satan speaks he speaks LOUDLY and with (false) authority. It's enough to make you believe whatever he says is true, no matter how ridiculous.

When Satan tried to tempt Jesus after his time fasting in the wilderness for 40 days, do you remember one of the things he used to try to get Jesus to sin? Scripture. The Word of God. Satan quoted scripture to try to convince Jesus to do things he shouldn't do. Of course, it was a twisted version of scripture out of context, and Jesus just quoted scripture right back at him to make the enemy flee! (Wielding that sword of the spirit - just like God tells us to do!) It's a little bit terrifying to me that Satan can even use the bible to attempt to lead us astray. But I'm telling you...sneaky, sneaky dude.

There is another great example of this told by Shauna Shanks in her new book, "A Fierce Love." Shauna went through a really difficult season of her life when she found out that her husband was having an affair, but God was calling her to stand for her marriage. One night she found herself sleeping in the basement of her home, when just before bed she was hit with a barrage of scripture verses in her head...

"That night, however, the Scriptures that came to me were the ones that talk about not associating yourself with fornicators and those who commit adultery (for example, 1 Corinthians 5: 11). I can’t even remember what all the verses were specifically, but I remember fragments from verses swirling through my head, phrases like, “cutting off the wicked person” and “purging them from your home,” and words like “unclean.” It seemed to be a warning. The verses pounded in my head.

At first I thought God was speaking to me again. He often spoke to me in the quiet of the night. This was Scripture after all! Is God giving me a warning? I began to panic. I thought, “Oh no, Micah must be going to make another bad choice and God is getting me ready, this time my instructions will be to cut him off!” I thought about everything we had been through to get to this point and how truly happy I was to have his heart returning to me. I didn’t want to lose him! I didn’t want to go through all of this again! I became anxious and I realized I felt sick. I had a giant pit in my stomach. I felt nervous and scared. Just the thought of cutting Micah off or making him leave our home made me feel nauseated. But I realized it didn’t make sense for God to take me through all of this, finally start to see breakthrough, and all of a sudden, “Nope! Never mind! Cut him out!” 

Looking back I can see that the verses that swirled in my brain were broken up, pieced together, out of context, random, and distorted. I realized all the other times when God would speak a word to me, it was followed by peace. Always. Even when he told me to do something extremely difficult and challenging, there was peace. It was never followed by panic or fear. Right then, I felt a dark presence right above me and I knew it was a spiritual being speaking these things to me, but it was not God. By now God’s presence was familiar to me. This one was not."

Yes, he will really sink that low to use scripture out of context to try to manipulate! There are some really important lessons to learn through all of this, but perhaps the most important is to know what the Word of God says so that when Satan tries to use it against you, you will know the truth from his lies! If you aren't reading the bible daily, do that. Pray and read, read and pray!

Of course the second thing, and the reason for this post, is to watch out! Always be on your guard against the enemy's schemes! His ways are extremely predictable when you begin to open your spiritual eyes and see the way he prowls around. Same old devil, same old tricks. And here's the thing: If you are not someone who is familiar with scripture right now, then no, he's not going to use that against you most likely. He knows exactly what to use to trick YOU and make you fall. The fact that he uses scripture on ANYONE just proves how dirty he will play. He will use anything, anyone, anytime, anywhere...speaking exactly your language. The best way to avoid being tricked is to know the voice of God (truth and love) vs. the voice of the enemy (lies and deceit.)

I will make mention of this many times throughout the posts on this blog, but I'm going to add it in here as a reminder...a sort of quick and dirty guide to deciphering the voice of the enemy from the voice of God:

*Satan will speak loudly to you and cause panic and fear. He will spurn you to act fast! Don't think! Just do! Go with your guts and your emotions right NOW! More often than not something doesn't ultimately feel right about what he's asking you to do, but it's likely the most instantly selfish and gratifying thing to do, so it's very tempting.

*God will speak quietly, calmly, and rationally. He is typically in no hurry for you to act...often telling you to pause and pray before you make any big decisions. He will leave you with a peace (as Shauna was describing!) and even when what he is telling you is HARD to do, you will ALWAYS feel good about doing it.

Always pass your thoughts through this filter before you make any big decisions. Read the Word of God, put on that armor of God every single day, and guard yourself against the lies of the enemy! If something doesn't seem right to you, go straight to scripture. Let the bible be your measuring stick for right and wrong, NEVER a thought that just pops into your mind. You may not know right away just where that thought came from! I may be one of the few bloggers out there telling you NOT to always trust your gut. Sometimes your gut is deceiving you! The more you are versed in scripture the more easily and quickly you will be able to determine if what you are being told is true or not. Watch yourselves, my friends. :)

Have a great day!