As I write, direct, encourage or whatever, in response to God's calling upon my life, the more I recognize the correlation between my successes and the number of problems I experience.

During one trying time, I spoke to my pastor. Expecting some sympathy, I was stunned when he just laughed. After a moment, he added, “Be thankful, Connie. You're threatening Satan's game plan; he doesn't want you touching hearts and minds for Christ. The greater the impact you'll have, the more you'll be attacked. Spiritual warfare is what's happening to you.”

It is true. Only the people influencing or with the potential of changing lives, according to God's plan, receive Satan's attention. The evil one's primary aim is to discredit God.¹
So he uses old hurts and partial truths to lure us away.

Being a personality that wants to be in control, it is easy for me to take over—even from God. After all, God gave me the talents, desires, skills, and abilities to be in charge, didn't He? I can always turn to Him for the big stuff. Right?

When I do “do it myself,” Satan is my entire cheer leading section. I do not have to join his team. I just need to be out of bounds, mess up and ruin the game.

However, God, as the best team manager and coach, allows bad plays. He nurtures, disciplines and guides as the players learn His game plan.

Yes, I have slowly, unknowingly drifted farther away from God's playing field. I have been sidelined, benched, out of bounds—totally distracted from my purpose on the team. Even so, God has used my messed up plays to reach others on the sidelines! Oops! Not Satan's intent—I'm suppose to be leading others away, not helping them into the game.

But think about this. God can work through me even better, if I climb out of the pit of discouragement, never “good enough”, “you'll never be a winner”, too busy, my own agenda, depression, anxiety, shyness, not enough money, too fat or whatever distraction Satan is trying to get me to believe.

Although I still sit on the bench at times, I am doing better at staying focused on the game. When the timing is right, the Coach will put me back into the game, which we'll win, of course!

Whose team are you on? How do you avoid being distracted from God's purposes? We'll talk about that next month.

¹See 1 John 5:19 and Revelation 12:10-12.

Copyright © 2009 by Constance Gilbert
*Coda = the ending, in music, or the section at the end of a text giving additional information.
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