Not Flesh and Blood
It has been pretty tough around here trying to walk in the footsteps of Jesus when the everyday stuff of life includes:
— Physical challenges: Near 100° temperatures at the time when trees need the hard ground around them tilled up so they can receive precious, fruit-producing nutrients; minor surgeries with small, but seemingly unending complications; aging joints and joists.
— Schedules and expectations: five people with five different purposes and agendas, five perspectives on what is acceptable as food, five opinions on what constitutes clean enough!
— Communication challenges and failures: missed communications (“Oh, I forgot to tell you…” “You didn’t ask.”), misunderstood communications (Is that an oxymoron?), miscommunications (“I thought you said this.”) and understood communications of the ugly kind (“I am angry because I felt ignored and devalued! Now I am yelling at you so you feel devalued.”)
After several really frustrating days, the message finally made it through the muddle of my brain: “This is not a flesh-and-blood battle! This is a struggle against the principalities and the powers of darkness.”
Just in case you think I am being overly dramatic or have an exalted idea of my own importance (I might, but that’s not the issue here.), the Apostle Paul tells us this is true of every struggle we face as followers of Jesus (See Ephesians 6:12). The real enemy is not the folks we live with, but the one who is and has ever been after our destruction because he cannot bear to see the image of the One True God reflected in anything! He is so full of hatred of God and jealous of God’s position as the One who rules over all, that he can’t see straight. It is he who deliberately stirs up conflict and controversy to destroy relationships and divide those who have been unified by God.
It is easy to mistake challenging, flawed humans for adversaries, but this is a fatal mistake! If that is what I see, I rage and flail and thrash and work a whole bunch of destruction in the direction of people who are precious to God and essential to my growth! And I play right into the enemy’s strategy! I have been duped into thinking that people are the problem. BAD THINKING!
The other thing I am tempted to do is say things about God that are not true! To accuse Him of not loving me because I am not happy, or to forget the good things He is always doing and declare He has abandoned me because I don’t feel cared for at the moment is also BAD THINKING!
Once I recognize that this is what is happening, I know what to do.
Say it!
“This struggle is NOT against flesh and blood! People are NOT the enemy.
“I was wrong in my thinking and in how I acted because of it!
“I am sorry, God.
“I am sorry, _________, for how I treated you. (Fill in the name of the human mistaken for the enemy.) Please forgive me!”(I still need to take care of this part…)
“Jesus, thank You that Your blood washes us clean when we agree with You about our sin. Thank You that Your blood protects us from the enemy when we submit to You. I do submit to Your rightful authority over my life and what happens in it. Thank you that You have put in my life just the people I need for my transformation into the image of Jesus!”
Doesn’t get much more everyday than that!
Christi
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