*Note* Today I’m sharing some biblical facts about God and Satan. If you wonder where on earth I’ve found these concepts, click the hyperlinks and they will take you to the verses that spell out the truths I’m explaining.
Watching my little boy climb up the rock wall at the playground, I ask myself again, “Where did the time go?” Just yesterday he was learning to crawl. Now his spindly legs race across the park as he yells, “I win you!”
Why do we always marvel at the speed of time? Because a timeless God created us with eternity in our hearts. Time is strange to our souls. As is sin, which has infected the world around us. We rebel at the passing of time and pain in life and the separation of death because our souls were created to be pure and whole and to live forever. This paradox tends to throw us out of balance.
People often ask why an all-powerful God allows pain and suffering in the world. It’s a deep question that I’m not going to delve into today. But through the Bible I understand that God has allowed his enemy a period of time to rule this world, within certain constraints. Our world is presently “groaning” under sin’s corruption, and we suffer with it. Bad things happen to us because we are stuck in the world’s system.
God’s word emphasizes that we live on a battlefield. Spiritual forces, invisible to our human eyes, fight for dominance over this world. We know that with every war comes pain, suffering and every form of evil.
In my naive Western mind, I’m tempted to view life as a classroom, where every hard experience equals a test from my teacher, God. It’s pristine and orderly and I just have to check off the right boxes and I’ll get an A. When life becomes more painful and messy I start questioning God – what’s going on? Are you torturing me? Why do I deserve this horrible essay test when my classmate over there gets an easy multiple-choice quiz?
In March our family experienced some spiritual oppression through seemingly unwarranted defeat and dark discouragement. We prayed our way through it but suddenly I, was flat on my back in pain in the hospital with pneumonia and blood clots in both lungs.
We felt blindsided and I really struggled spiritually as I recovered. Clearly I could have died but God spared me. Why did he allow all this? Instinctively, I searched for the lesson he might be trying to teach me. Was he trying to get me to admit he was in control? Was he out to prove something to me? I really feared God for quite some time and couldn’t put my finger on why.
So I spent several weeks searching my heart and God’s word for answers. This is what God spoke to me. I’m living in a war zone. As believers in Christ on mission for God’s kingdom, our family fights in the front lines. God didn’t attack me with physical sickness. Satan did. God wasn’t out to prove his toughness to me. He’d been shielding me from a fatal attack from the enemy. He love my family and me so deeply that he protected me that way.
As I saw this, I wept. And I learned some rich, beautiful truths about my God in a way I’ve never seen them before. I may never have learned them this way if it hadn’t been for this experience.
Did God allow them so I would learn a lesson? Do I really need to ask that question? How pain and suffering purify me and make me like Jesus is a mystery. This we know: the Bible declares God as our protector – not our antagonist. He does redeem the corruption of sin in this world, meaning, he makes beautiful things out of the ugly, but he doesn’t take pleasure in our pain!
So in daily life, I fall out of balance when I forget to expect hard things from the invisible spiritual world. I forget Satan and his demons are attacking me with their lies and corruption. Satan masquerades as an angel of light and blends his lies so easily with the truth. He wants to destroy me. He’ll use anything to defeat me, from my baby’s teething to my coworker’s attitude to my dad’s diagnosis to my chronic pain.
When I forget about Satan, I get discouraged, or beat myself up, or doubt God. But when I put my mind on things above and remember that while physically in this world, I can separate my circumstances from spiritual reality. This provides clarity I desperately need in this hard life.
The truth is, this life is not everything. My comfort today is not the end goal. And as a believer, I have confidence that, because of his death and resurrection, Christ wins in the end over Satan. Sin and pain don’t win. Temper tantrums don’t win. Dirty laundry doesn’t win. Cancer can’t win. Jesus does. And I am his.
photo credit: _IGP0388_adjusted via photopin (license)