Sometimes The Answer To Your Questions Is More Faith

Have you ever felt God calling or leading you to do something only to be met with one obstacle after another? Often this happens right away. As soon as you try to obey God everything gets twice as difficult. It makes you question what you’re doing. Maybe that’s just me. I did frequently get in trouble for “backtalking” while growing up, and I do have a journalism degree. I’m fairly sure questioning is my factory setting.

I’ve been in a season of obstacles, and I default to question mode. Am I sure I heard Him, right? Maybe these are roadblocks that God is throwing to guide me in a certain direction. Is He testing my heart to see if I can hold up? Like a spiritual stress test? Is it just Satan attacking because I’m on the right path and that’s what he does for sport? The Bible says (James 4:7) that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. How long do I have to resist? Y’all know he won’t flee for long. How do I know the difference in all of these?

This has been so on my heart and mind that I felt I really needed to spend some prayerful, studious time with it. I spent time reading about Eve’s encounter with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. I spent time reading about Job being tested. I spent time reading about Satan tempting Jesus. I read that portion in James about resisting the devil. I read some commentaries on this overarching topic. I read some additional sources that put those Biblical instances into more context.

I learned a lot. I was able to determine that Satan often attacks at the beginning of your “yes” to God. If he attacked Eve at the very beginning of creation and attacked Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, we can expect similar efforts. He just needed to cast a little mental doubt with Eve. He tried to play on the physical hunger that Jesus was feeling after fasting. He tried to crush Job spiritually by taking away everything but his life. Job submitted to God and that itself is an act of resisting the devil. After three attempts to break Jesus, the devil left him (just like James 4:7 says) until an opportune time (Luke 4:13).

After a lot of time spent deep-diving on my questions, I decided that the specifics themselves are just another distraction. We know that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44). We know that he roams around like a lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Bottom line is that if we’re saying yes to God, we can expect attacks from all directions, but he likes to aim for your weak spots. He will come back and try again when he thinks the time is advantageous. He will use any means necessary. Conclusion: Maybe the answer to all of my questions is, “yes.”

Hmm, that didn’t exactly leave me with the warm fuzzies. It did lead me back to Ephesians 6:10-18 and the Armor of God. We know we’re going to do battle, there is no way around it. We best suit up. I encourage you to read and study the entire passage but allow me to highlight a couple points that jumped out to me this time.

Verse 11 says that with the whole armor we can stand against the devil’s tricks. We can hold. You can be new, weak, rich, poor, hungry, tired, at an absolute loss, or carrying all the sinful baggage of the past, and still stand. Verse 16 says the shield of faith puts out all the fiery darts of the wicked one. It says “all” not “some” or “most.” All. Faith is the best defense.

Faith means my questions don’t always come with clean answers. Or answers at all in some cases. What I know is that having a little a faith in God is the only real answer that matters. If I’m submitting to Him, then I’m resisting the devil. Those two things can’t exist together. If I keep submitting, He makes sure I get where I need to go.

I’ve made it no secret that I believe God is calling me to encourage and share with you through my writing. I have experienced several attacks trying to discourage me and cast doubt in this process. So, let’s consider this post an official act of resistance to the devil’s scheming. I’m going to keep writing and encouraging you to get to know God. He is delightful. In fact, I read something recently that said, “some people wouldn’t give you their only begotten French fry and God gave His son.” He wouldn’t have done that if He didn’t care about every detail of your life.

Attacks and obstacles will come. Keep submitting to God and have a little faith.