Recently during class at church, we
were asked to sketch a picture that represents our spirituality. At
first, I thought it would be difficult; I can barely describe
my spirituality, let alone draw it. Everyone
got creative, though. There were drawings ranging from bumpy roads to
mountains and valleys.
Mine
may sound kind of cliché, but it really does fit. I drew a game of
tug of war. Two people pulling a rope, trying to pull hard enough to
cause the other to fall in the patch of mud that's in the middle.
I
consider myself the little flag that usually hangs in the middle of
the rope. I'm being pulled in either direction, whichever one happens
to be stronger at the moment. I think you can guess who is on either
side, right? Well, yes, it's God on one side and Satan on the other.
And of course, God is usually the one winning. But the question is:
why hasn't God won already?
See,
most of the time I think I find myself right in the middle. Standing
in the mud, so to speak. Stuck, not really knowing which way to go,
being pulled in different
directions. I desperately want God to win, to get that one good yank
that will pull me out and right into His arms. There have been so
many moments where I feel like I've gotten so close; moments where I can practically see and feel Him.
But then, Satan happens to get a particularly strong pull and I find
myself right back in the mud.
The
same Sunday, my dad taught a sermon on the metaphor used to describe
the birth of Jesus found in Revelations 12. Satan is portrayed as a
great dragon that tries to kill baby Jesus as soon as he is born, but
he fails, so he decides to “wage war” on “those who keep God's
commands and hold fast to their testimony about Jesus”.
So
my depiction of my spirituality as a game of tug of war seems pretty
accurate. It isn't as gruesome as a full out war, but either way God
and Satan are fighting over us.
These
two lessons hit home. I recently had an experience that had me
questioning God, wondering why He let this happen. These thoughts
allowed Satan to pull me closer for just a second. And it's like I
can just feel God begging me to trust Him, to have faith in Him. But
it's hard, isn't it? It's easy to tell someone else to have faith
when they're going
through something hard. When it happens to us? Faith can sometimes go
out the window entirely.
The
story that went along with the drawings was about Paul. Persecutor of
the Jews turned passionate missionary for Christ. Can you imagine
what his drawing would look like? Considering how quickly and drastically his life changed, I'd say it would be kind of hard to describe. But the fact is that he did change. In one
instance, Paul describes how God put a thorn in his flesh to torment
him, and at first he begged God take it away. But God responded, “My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness.” You know how Paul reacted? 2 Corinthians 12:9-10,
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so
that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I
delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
I
pride myself in being a Christian, but I doubt I would have been that
understanding. But that's just how we have to be. We go through
hardships so that we realize that we aren't
strong enough, that we need God because He's
the strong one. There's a song that I learned at a summer church
camp, and I love the words in the chorus:
You
are stronger
You
are stronger
Sin
is broken
You
have saved me
It
is written
Christ
is risen
Jesus,
you are Lord of all
That's
what we need to remember. God is
stronger. Sin is broken,
God has saved us.
Yes,
Satan is occasionally going to get a good, strong pull now and again.
That's life. But we just have to know that, in the end, God is going
to win. And in the meantime, we should be helping Him; trying our
best to get to Him, pulling against Satan
and toward God. Who
wants to be just a stick in the mud, right?
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“If
God is for us, who can be against us?”
