music :: worship :: life
Satan decided to have a garage sale. Like everyone he got out all his stuff, put price tags on it, and lay it all out on some tables. People came by to see what he had for sale. One table was filled with stuff like Pride, Envy, Greed, etc. All of Satan’s most familiar tools were there. The prices were high, but after all, these were the most famous weapons from Satan’s personal arsenal!
But off to one side there was a table with only one old, worn-out item on it. It wasn’t named, and the price tag was outrageous. “What tool is this, and why is it so expensive?” one customer asked.
Satan answered, “That is my most powerful secret weapon. It works where nothing else will, and it operates by stealth. Everybody recognizes these old tools, like Pride, Deceit, and Greed. But I can attack someone with this, and they will never even know it was me. Its name is Discouragement. When everything else has failed, just when someone is on the verge of fulfilling God’s purpose, I can launch this at them, like a submarine torpedo, and it goes straight to their heart without them ever knowing. It destroys their hope, their faith, and their joy, and they give up on everything God has in store for them. And because it works by stealth, they usually blame themselves and God. They never think to blame me at all.
“It’s the perfect weapon!” Satan said.
Well, maybe it was the perfect weapon. But now his secret is out.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
—Phil 4:6-7
God has more in store for us than we can even imagine, as long as we keep “pressing in” and “pressing on.” “Pressing in” like the woman with the hemorrhage, who pressed in through the crowd to get close enough to Jesus that she could be healed, having such faith that she needed only to touch the hem of his garment to be made whole. Recognizing Jesus, and seeing him from a distance as he passes by, surrounded by the crowds of the curious is not enough. As in the song, Breathe, “I’m desperate for you; I’m lost without you,” it is only when we are desperate enough to fight our way through whatever worldly roadblocks stand between us and Christ, that we can be become fully ourselves in the fullness of his mercy and grace.
And “pressing on” like Paul, who never let anything distract his eyes from the goal, which was to know Christ, and to be all Christ had in mind for him to be. As Stephen Covey said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” And the main thing is to focus on Christ, so that we don’t get sidetracked by worldly concerns or Satan’s torpedoes, and so that, as Paul says, “it is God who works in you to will and act according to his good purpose.”
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