Chasin' bugs in the dark

"Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4:8)

"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."(Galatians 5:6)

 I learned a valuable lesson today; you can learn the same valuable lesson twice if God sees fit to teach it. 

"Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8)

 I dropped my guard a short time ago, or more accurately the shield of my Faith. I was not on the alert and the enemy found a chink in my armor. If I've said it once I've said it 50 times, that while Satan cannot read our thoughts he is crafty beyond anything we can imagine, the spiritual equivalent of a Grifter. That unfortunate quality along with his total disdain toward Light and Life make for a very poisonous combination. 

He used my Love against me and swarmed me so completely with conjecture and assumptions that I was "dragged away and enticed". I prayed, I released, I rebuked, I renounced but still the attacks came and the distraction was so consuming I wasted two weeks of my life chasing bugs in the dark. The enemy may prowl like a Lion, but in reality he behaves precisely as a Roach would. He finds cracks big enough to scurry through, and if he smells blood he calls in the entire Roach population to infest and dine out upon whichever base delicacy the crack revealed. He and his demonic operate and feed effectively only in utter darkness, but make no mistake, even if all you give them is a sliver they will make it into a hearty meal.

The good news, and the lesson God saw fit to remind me of, is this: Like a Roach (even a crafty one), the enemy scatters and hides when the lights come on. He knows that once we can see the proverbial rotten food on the counter we'll throw it in the garbage where it belongs, and once we expose the crack by which he entered we'll seal it up good and tight so he can't get in that way any longer.

You see I was so busy swinging my Sword around in the dark I forgot to do the most obvious thing to win the battle; I had but to extend a hand and flip the switch on the wall. 

"This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:5-9)