Who Are Your Enemies?

Eternal One, my adversaries are many, too many to count.

Now they have taken a stand against me!

Right to my face they say,

“God will not save you!”

Psalm 3:1-2 (The Voice)

This psalm was written by a man who was fleeing for his life. It’s the story of David and Absalom. Absalom was seeking to take the kingdom by force, and David had to flee his home in Jerusalem to save his life. You can read the story beginning in the fourteenth chapter of second Samuel.

Never have I had to flee for my life. While I have had adversaries, I don’t know what it’s like to be hunted and pursued by people who want me dead. Most of the battles I fight are not as clear cut as fighting for my life or control of a kingdom. Most of the enemies I confront are not so easily named.

As I reflected on this passage today, I wondered if I could name my enemies. One enemy jumped out at me right away and a second one followed close behind. Two of my primary enemies are Distraction and Deception.

It has always been easy for human beings to be distracted from what is true and of eternal significance. However, I am convinced that this has never been more true than it is today. The explosion of information and communication technology and its usage that has occurred in the last fifty years is staggering. We live in an age where devices are used by organizations and people with sophisticated marketing strategies designed to capture our attention and create loyalty to their ideologies or products. While these are useful tools, the point is that we have never had so much information, so many people vying for our attention. It takes effort to be centered on God and our relationship with him. Once distracted, we can easily be deceived.

Any of us, given enough distraction, can eventually become so deceived we might hear and believe, “God will not save you!” However, initially the deceptions are not so grand. In the beginning most deceptions start as an innocent question. “ I wonder what would happen if…?” Because we are distracted, because we are not fixed on the one in whom our soul finds its worth, we entertain all sorts of scenarios. Sometimes we imagine the worst. Sometimes we imagine things that on their own are not necessarily bad or good, but they might not be consistent with God’s intention for our lives.

Even if we do not embrace and act upon these scenarios, we have wasted precious mental and emotional energy that has robbed us of the peace and confidence that is ours in Christ. Obviously, this lack of peace and confidence has a detrimental impact on all our relationships and endeavors. We make the wrong decisions about what to do and not to do. We become defensive and perhaps hostile in the face of the most innocent comment or well-intended suggestion.

If we are deceived because we are distracted, then we must figure out how to remove or minimize the power of distraction. We must establish practices, habits in our lives that will anchor us; keeping us from drifting awash in a sea of information that seeks to distract us from our love life with the Holy One. For me, sacred spaces must be marked out in my life where I am minimizing distraction and building on attraction. While diligent study and reading are an important part of that process, I would also include things like sitting in my recliner and pondering over a short devotional I just read or taking walks where the purpose is not physical exercise but prayerful thought. These are the things that work best for me.

What about you? What name would you give your enemies, and what is your strategy for fighting? Make no mistake. You have enemies that seek to deprive you of the joyful, fulfilling life that God wants you to live. You need to know who they are and have a strategy to make sure they do not succeed.