The reasons behind the reasons

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to someone who is a part of our leadership team at the church. They were describing how difficult life was at the present, some of the old problems they had felt had been dealt with were coming back to the surface, just enough to throw them off. I asked when they had started and they reported that it began around the time they had been asked to be in leadership.



Hmm... that got my spider senses tingling. I started to check with some of the other leaders, checking on their status. They reported similarly.



It"s crude, but you know you must be doing something right, when someone takes notice.



It"s part of the father of lies work to steal and kill and generally destroy whatever is good and life giving. What I"ve observed is that when things get going well, personally or corporately, the enemy of our souls will take whatever resources he has at his disposal within us, and twist them or trigger them, or use them, to accomplish his work of disruption and destruction.



Often those resources he uses are parts of our lives that we have seen healing in, or areas of our lives that have been weakest. He will attempt to take hold of those broken parts of us and twist them until we are unable to accomplish what God has created and called us to be.



This happens for us as individuals, and it happens for us as churches.



Satan will see that something good and alive is happening in a life, and he will go after the places within us that he"s wreaked havoc in before. Places of weakness within our persons.



He may also see that something good and alive is happening within a group of people, and he pulls the same strategy on the group that he does with us individually. He goes after the weakest parts of the group, the weakest members.



He takes what resources he may have within the group, and twists and manipulates them so that his own purposes are accomplished. Disruption and destruction.



If he does this too much he shows his hand. He gives himself away.



Last week, around here anyway, he gave himself away.



It"s not just “A bad month”? for a couple of our leaders, nor is it a “bad week”? for some of our weaker members.



Therefore we are taking corrective measures. Shining lights into dark corners, taking time to do the spiritual work of prayer, and pressing in to the One who has made the way safe.