While I was going over the past the other day, thinking of the crazy situations I lived through and it dawned on me through them all Satan certainly meant to cause me harm.
When we go through trials it often feel like Satan has the upper hand. We struggle to see what good could come out of suffering, but after a while, we gain a new perspective that what Satan has intended for harm has instead been flipped on its head and turned into good.
In Genesis 50:20, Joseph didn’t Satan when he told his brothers,
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
But, it’s not hard to imagine Satan working for Joseph and his family’s destruction every step of the way. Joseph kept his attention not on what Satan was attempting but on what God was doing.
I used to work at a faith-based drug recovery center. They had a thrift store in which the proceeds would go to help addicts seek rehabilitation for free. I talked to a few people who said using drugs or alcohol filled the void in their hearts. But seeking recovery and focusing on God changed their lives. Satan overplayed his hand in a few situations.
He overplayed his hand a lot, most notably, when his involvement in Jesus’s crucifixion. God’s love an faithfulness was evident through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.
Satan may have won a few fights, but he will not win the war. In certain situations or temptations might seem like a victory for satan, the ultimate fight against evil is still ongoing but despite setbacks a larger war against evil is winnable through faith and commitment to God.
1 Peter 5:8-9 warns us,
“Be don’t and self-contained. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour. Withstand him steadfast in your faith, knowing that your brothers (sisters) in the world are undergoing the same suffering.”
God gives us the grace to be called to his eternal glory, while we may suffer a little while, perfect, established, and strengthened to settle on us.
Peter was talking about persecution, but the general assumption is that suffering is common to us all. Suffering and illness are a special type of suffering that Satan uses to discourage us even to the point of hopelessness. Hence, being devoured by our enemy.
However, we can render him a toothless lion by recalling when God has gotten us through and comforted us.
There are three things to remember when satan is attempting to devour us.
- God has already won the war. Satan cannot defeat any who stand with God.
- The battle is not only a physical one. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
- Remember the result when Satan overplayed his hand. Our victory over satan is assured by our resurrected bodies when Jesus returns.
Suffering satan’s painful arrows proves unequal to the task of spoiling our faith, and our hope grows stronger as we discover that he cannot win.
From Pity to Praise 