Job XII

 If the enemy were allowed to do as he wills when he wills, not one of us would be alive to tell the tale. It’s hard to fathom that type of hatred. It’s hard to come to terms with the reality that your destruction is the singular thing that brings Satan joy. It may sound extreme, but there’s no getting around the truth of it. There is no mercy, empathy, kindness, or charity in Satan’s heart. He roams about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

He has one mission, one purpose, and one goal: the utter destruction of God’s children. It’s not a part-time job for him, a hobby, or something he does on the weekends. He does not seek your destruction out of boredom or because he couldn’t get a tee time at the local golf course. He hates you in the purest definition of the word hate and knows that with each win, with each deception that got through, with each capitulation he was able to enable, with each temptation that someone gave into, it hurts the Father’s heart. The destruction of God’s creation to Satan is a means to an end. The end he seeks is wounding God; you and I are the way he can go about it.

We must look at our enemy in these terms lest we let down our guard or come to believe that the battle isn’t as intense as it is. The quickest way to lose a battle you should have won is to underestimate one’s enemy, whether his determination, ability, commitment, or intent. We’ve seen this scenario play out countless times, wherein someone who should have known better, who’s had enough experience with battling the darkness, somehow falls into the enemy’s snare. It’s because they stopped being watchful, on guard, and ready to defend against his attacks that they ended up shipwrecked, and not because the enemy became stronger. While you and I can grow from strength to strength and faith to faith, the enemy’s power is static. He doesn’t grow in strength but learns from his mistakes and streamlines his attacks whenever necessary.

Satan is always looking for an opportunity. Don’t give him one. He is always looking for a chink in your armor or a moment of distraction he can exploit to the utmost, and it is your duty to make sure that you’re always prayed up, read up, and armored up, no matter the time of day, or the circumstances you’re currently facing.

Have you ever wondered why attacks come in waves or why bad things happen in batches? It’s because the enemy is hoping that one situation will keep you distracted enough to make you not notice or outright ignore what he’s doing on the other front. It’s not as though one attack comes, and then the enemy lets you recover before he commences the next. He presses his advantage whenever he thinks he has one, and the pattern is so obvious that I’ve learned to be ever more vigilant after the first attack, knowing that a second is soon in coming. It is inevitable because although his schemes vary, and his attacks differ, Satan’s instinct to try again once he’s failed the first time is so ingrained in his nature that he can’t help himself.

While I was still living in California, back before the wife and the kids, I was pulling out of a parking lot when a young lady with more highlights than sense got tired of waiting for the light to turn green and attempted to whiz by on the right and pass the long line of cars. Unfortunately, my front bumper was in her way. I can’t say she was distracted by her cell phone since they hadn’t made their way onto the scene yet, but perhaps she was playing with the radio or checking her pager. For whatever reason, she didn’t even brake or try to turn but barreled into me hard enough to rip off my bumper and make my car inoperable.

Thankfully, I wasn’t one of those young men who thought his car was his life; otherwise, I would have reacted worse than I did. After the police report, the tow truck, and getting a ride back home, a friend came by to ask how I was doing, and my answer was, “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.” There’s a reason it’s a saying, as is the trope that problems always come in pairs.

The next day, my grandmother asked me to go to the Price Club up the road to get her some potatoes, and since I had no car, I walked. As I was walking through the parking lot, a twenty-pound bag of potatoes balanced on my shoulder, a little old lady pulled out of her spot without checking her mirrors and managed to run over my foot. It hurt, but thankfully, no bones were broken, and as I hobbled back home, I realized the other shoe had dropped.

If the devil does not relent in his attacks, neither should we in our defenses. If he doesn’t take a break from scheming and plotting, neither should we in being watchful for his plots and schemes. We must possess endurance because, more often than not, it is a war of attrition, with Satan hoping to wear you down and you tapping into reserves of strength you never knew you had because although it may feel like it at times, you are not alone in the fight. What you will come to realize is that those reserves are not your own but God’s help in your time of need.

The Bible tells us to resist the devil. It does not give us a time frame for how long we should do it; it is just that we should. War isn’t like boxing. There are no referees or three-minute rounds with breaks in between. It’s a given that the enemy will attack; resist him. It’s also a given that he will attack repeatedly; resist him every time.

Satan didn’t think much of Job’s faith or faithfulness. He did not believe they would weather a storm of any mentionable strength, so his opening gambit was that if God took everything he had away, Job would surely curse Him to His face. Satan believed what he was saying. He believed Job’s faithfulness was due to the blessings he’d received, something situational that would change the moment the comforts of life were stripped from him.

The only way for Job to remain faithful in the face of losing everything was if God was his everything, and that was something Satan couldn’t wrap his mind around. If God is your everything, then anything you lose in this life, any hardship, trial, travail, or valley, is weatherable as long as you still have Him, His presence, and His love.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.