Not today Satan

When my husband told me he got a new job I was ecstatic. He’s wanted this. We’ve prayed for this. We’ve trusted God with every fiber within us and finally we were beginning to see his plan unfold in front of our eyes. We were about to venture out on a new adventure which meant a new job, a new town, and a new life. See the job my husband was offered is in his hometown. He grew up here. His family still lives here. This great adventure for us seemed more of a plus for him than for me. This town was a new place. A new town. A new set of friends. An unfamiliar foreign place for me.

Now before I go on, NOT ONCE have I regretted moving here or been upset that we were close to his family and not mine. Those thoughts never crossed my mind! We’d lived two years away from all family members so it was a pro to be moving closer to family.

Since we got that settled. Once we moved it didn’t seem real. We were here finally. That’s when things for me began to go a little crazy. I had a pretty good connection for a job, but after the interview I was left with a terrible feeling. You know the feeling where it feels like your being punched in the stomach? well that’s how I felt. I’ve always been pretty good at knowing when something just isn’t right and I was so afraid to tell my husband.

Now I wasn’t afraid to tell him because he would be angry or anything. I was afraid because satan had crept inside my mind telling me every negative thing possible: he will be disappointed, he is gonna think you are not good enough if you don’t have a job, etc. See that’s satan’s way in for me. He immediately hits my weak spot: my self esteem.

Satan and I have played the dance of self worth over and over. It seems that when I let my guard down he enters in and begins to chisel away at the wall I’ve built to keep him out. I began to feel worthless as each job I applied for hit dead end after dead end. Satan continued to pick and prod at me filling the crevices of my mind with empty lies. I felt like I wasn’t good enough. I felt like it was my husbands fault for making us move and making me leave my job. I felt like he didn’t want me. All these feelings began to swell up inside me.

I began to become bitter and resentful towards my husband. I let satan win. I didn’t even realize it till one day I caught myself speaking to my husband unkindly because I was upset over the lies that satan continued to feed me. My husband wasn’t the issue. I had to step back. I had to apologize and ask for forgiveness from my husband. I had to do some soul searching and get back on track with my relationship with Christ. I didn’t have to have a job to make my husband love me. I didn’t have to have a job to feel worthy.

As satan began to attack me, I began to turn from the refuge of the Lord. I ran. I began to question his plan and began to become angry with him. How many times do we let satan win and we put blame on God? How crazy is that. We blame him or get angry at him when he hold our world in his hands. He knows our plans, our thoughts, our fears, and our battles. He already defeated satan. He already won, yet we let satan try to tell us different. I am so thankful for God’s grace and mercy that he loves us even when we fall short of his glory.

Thankfully, by God’s grace, I have a husband who sees when I am under attack and prays fervently over me and for me. I finally let go of my fears and my doubts to be able to talk with him about how satan had been continuing to feed me lies. That’s when my husband reminded me of something that makes me love him even more. My worth is not found in a job, in a friend group, not even in my marriage. It’s found in the Lord Jesus Christ who saved me from the fire and loved me enough to die for me to live eternally with him.

I may not have all the answers. I may let satan win a time or two. Thankfully God’s grace wins every time and how beautiful that picture is. The picture of God’s grace pouring out for sinners like me, and like you. I am far from perfect and I make mistakes, but I hope that my words and my experiences can be used in order to bring glory to the God who is perfect and who loves me anyway.

Today I challenge you that if your are in a battle with satan and if he has his hold on you to turn to the Lord, fill your mind with his word, and pray continually! The bible tells us that satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy and that’s exactly what he does. Thankfully, he flees in the name of our Lord Jesus. So remember not today satan because you have the most powerful man on your army and he is stronger than any lie that satan can muster.