The Road Less Traveled

My job requires me to spend a  lot of time building strategy around how my company interacts with our customers. I think it's a really cool job and I love being able to connect the strengths and weaknesses of our customers to the solutions that my company can provide.  I can spend hours studying a customers profile to get a good sense of who they are and how we can help them.  This blog is not about my job, but as I carry out my day planning strategy around my interaction with customers I start to think how strategical Satan is to pull us away from God and, for believers, get us stuck in the wilderness.

One thing Satan has on his side is time.  He spends his days studying our weaknesses and planting seeds in our lives that will cause destruction.  Satan's goal is not that we worship him, but that we disregard and/or even despise God.  For non-believers he wants to keep you from seeing the light and for believers he wants us to keep our light hidden.  Again, it is all around strategy and I believe there are three ways that he tries to accomplish this plan.

• Distractions - The very first commandment that God gave us was that we should have no other God's before him (Ex 20:3).  Jesus goes on to say "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matt 7:24).  What this comes down to is God comes first!  We live in a world today that is full of distractions.  Be it T.V., video games, sports, finances, entertainment, school, work, etc...there are plenty of things that can occupy our day and turn our focus from God.  We need to be careful that we are not putting something in front of God in our lives!  Satan uses distractions for this purpose!  He wants for us to get so caught up in the world that we ignore God.  In the parable about the soils, Jesus talks about the seed that fell amongst the thorns and the thorns sprang up and choked them out (Matt 13:7).  Jesus goes on to say that those "who receive amongst the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful" (Matt 13:22).  Satan uses distractions to try and choke God out of our lives, we need to make sure he is not successful!

• Discouragement -Another strategy that Satan uses to pull us away is that of discouragement.  He leverages any shortcoming or weakness to try and convince us that we are not good enough.  Whether that be a sin that we have committed and him trying to convince us that God will not forgive, or it may be God has a calling in your life and Satan is telling you that you don't have the skills to do what God is telling you to do.  Either situation is destructive.  Our God is merciful and is willing to forgive, all we need to do is ask and change our ways.  Satan also uses the strategy of discouragement to give us low self-esteem.  By having low self-esteem it really hinders fully living the life and the calling that God has for us.  Satan uses this to convince us that we don't have what it takes to be special.  Don't let Satan convince you of this!  God made you the way you are and it is an insult to his creation to say you are not good enough!  You do want to be careful that a high self-esteem does not turn into pride, but God wants us to believe in him, not in ourselves, and do so with humility.  It is through God that we can do the impossible, not through our own doing.  Don't let Satan convince you otherwise!

• Deception - That leads me to the third strategy that Satan uses to pull us from God and that is through deception.  Satan is the father of lies and will fill our heads full of them to pull us away from the light.  He knows our weaknesses and will test them continuously by building strongholds in our thought processes.  I am sure we have all had thoughts going through our mind that "if so and so loved me then..." and fill in the blank.  Satan wants to make us think there is a different reality than what we are living in and he does this through temptation.  The very first example was with Adam and Eve where Satan deceived Eve to eat the apple and then Adam followed quickly after.  Every time we sin it is because we have allowed Satan to deceive us.  He knows our weaknesses because he studies our every move.  If you have an issue with pride, he will find a way to rub your ego. If you have an issue with lust, he will find a way to put you in sinful situations. If you have an issue with money, he will feed off of that.  The list goes on and on.  What is important for us is to know what our weaknesses are and to be on-guard for when Satan tries to attack.  A lot of this comes down to controlling our thought process or as Joyce Meyer's would say "thinking about what we are thinking about".  By leaning on God,  understanding our weaknesses, and controlling our thoughts we can fend off Satan!

As I sit back and plan my strategy for my upcoming appointment, I know I will have a backup plan if things do not go as planned and I also know that I will need to be patient to make sure we strike at the appropriate time that will give us the best opportunity to close the deal.  Satan will do the same with us!  He will have a backup plan and he will be patient, waiting for the right opportunity to send us down one of the many trails that leads into the wilderness.  We need to be on guard, focus on God, and stay on the straight and narrow road that leads us to salvation!

TD