Fodder For The Devil

If you don't believe that the devil is alive and well on planet earth, let me assure you that you are incorrect. Because he is. Satan is after me. You will not understand this in the way that I wish for you to if you have not read White On Rice. So click there where it's underlined and read it. Then come back. :) But for those of you who won't, I'll give you a quick summary. I discovered early on after this blog went public that my written word was ammo for satan. The devil is the prince of the power of the air. Ephesians 2:2 - "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air..." God allows that to be. I can't tell you why. I'll explain in heaven. (Haha. That is a joke. I won't need to explain it in heaven, because you'll know and understand it there, too.) But I don't question God much and I know that if He permits something, it is for my good. I KNOW that God is omniscient. He knows everything. Not only does He know my thoughts, but He knows them before I even think them. He knows my heart. The secret places. I don't have to pray to 'reveal' anything to God. He already knows. Psalm 139:1-2 - "O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off." But it's not that way for satan. I believe that the devil only knows my thoughts once I've spoken them. Not when they are contained quietly and neatly in my brain. Not until I spill them out. Until I speak them into the air. Or until I write them down. That worked out great for me in the past. I am a private person. Until January, the innermost thoughts of my heart did not get spilled out very often. Very rarely, actually. My friends were many. But my inner circle, people to whom I would open my heart and reveal my most intimate thoughts, was a very tiny group. My choice. It's ironic, isn't it? No kidding, there have been hundreds of people throughout the years who have confided in me their uttermost secrets. Many hundreds. Probably thousands. It's the very nature of what I do and who I am. I, even before I got my degree in counseling, have been that soft place to fall and the keeper of secrets for others. But throughout all of those years, there have been only a very few with whom I have truly shared my heart. I could count them on one hand, and that is the truth! But then, just recently, God told me that He wanted something new from me. He clearly showed me that it was time to share my heart more. To be more open. I was to write for the eyes of others. I recently wrote of how that came to be in One Hundred Posts. I didn't know at the time what that would mean. I couldn't have possibly known that seven months later, ten thousand people would be following what I write. I love the Lord a lot and want to obey, but I have to tell you, if I'd known that in January, I'm pretty sure I would have run for the hills. God would have been pulling me out of a cave somewhere by my ankles with my fingernails clawing onto the granite floor, trying to get a grip. Good thing I didn't know. But I did begin to write and then publish, and I discovered that it wasn't people knowing my thoughts that I had to fear. Through circumstances, God had taught me to no longer care what other folks thought of me. Really, that was one of my biggest struggles. That was my last stronghold before complete and total surrender. I finally gave it to God, what others thought of me. I was only to be concerned with what He thought. He wanted me to please Him and Him alone. It sounds easy now. I guess you would have had to be there. It was the struggle of my life. Truly. And God won. Finally. No, it wasn't people who I had to fear. It was satan himself. Because now that my thoughts were no longer safely contained in my brain, they were revealed to my enemy, satan himself. The enemy of God. 1 Peter 5:8 - "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." I have seen demon-possessed people in Haiti. I've seen them with my own eyes. It's a very obvious thing. I will write of that some day. I knew the workings of the devil throughout my own life. I knew. But nothing like this. Satan now takes my words and uses them against me, in a very real and obvious way. I write, and he attacks me with my words. Usually before the sun sets on the day that the post is published. If I were to be able to present my evidence against him in a court of law, a conviction would be certain. Satan is, indeed, alive and well. And he goes after God's servants. It's not personal, really. He just HATES God. Now you may think this is a just a series of coincidences. But that is impossible. Too many. Too specific, down to the tiniest details. Too frequent. Too obvious to possibly be coincidental. It's like the devil wants me to know it's him. I'm glad I can't see the battle that goes on around me. Ephesians 6:12 - "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." And so, yesterday, I wrote in And Now I Am Seven that I was ready for the next storm, because in them I grow closer to the Lord. And before the day was over, another storm came. Vicious. Unexpected. But I know the remedy. James 4:7 - Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Ephesians 4:27 - Neither give place to the devil. And so, I run to the Lord and hide under His wing. No more cave-hiding here. Let the wind blow. My armour is on. I covet your prayer. Who knows, maybe I'll be eight when this one is over. :)