Christian Living

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One of the darkest tactics I’ve known our spiritual adversary to use in daily life is to try to push me ahead of myself. By that I mean that when I am passing through a especially challenging time or a particularly shadowy valley, he attempts to bring to mind the next challenge or the next anticipated valley in an effort to drain away the grace and strength for what I am presently encountering which requires undivided focus. This tends to introduce a sense of hopelessness and blunts the edge of enthusiasm for the present opportunity. In effect the enemy splits apart the wholeness of the needed focus. By means of this tactic he slowly, gradually transmutes any sense of expectancy into a feeling of dread. We are only given today’s grace today, for use today in today’s challenges. If we try to face tomorrow’s challenges with today’s supply of grace it falls pitifully short. If we try to face today’s challenges with a depleted store of grace the result is equally woeful. In such a predicament one can’t do justice to either today or tomorrow. When tomorrow finally arrives it shows up tainted by the dread, so that it cannot be truly and gratefully embraced. This is the snuffing out of the light at the end of the tunnel. This is at the essence of darkness which is why I am inclined to call it THE dark tactic.  Of course I can only tell from what I have seen thus far.  What the dark tries to hide, often successfully, is that Jesus is there with us. He was no stranger to this tactic, and dealt masterfully with it. What I can’t see in the inky blackness is His strong shoulder. But if I can begin at least to feel that shoulder again I can sense the returning Light. I can begin again to hear these words with Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12, v.9) Whose weakness? My weakness. The grace within this moment is sufficient for it, as the grace that will be there in tomorrow's weakness will be sufficient for it.

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