Bound and Tongue-tied…

Has this ever happened to you?

You invite a dear friend to church, someone who is trying to find God, or perhaps who feels the need to seek Him, or perhaps it is someone who is hurting or struggling and your heart goes out to them. Whatever the reason, you plan the whole affair, but then you go and greet them (on the phone or their front yard, whatever) and are met with these words, “yeah man, I REALLY want to go, but, I dunno, I just don’t feel good” or some such variation of the same phrase.

When I heard those words today, they really struck inside me, and left a chill in my heart. I’m not saying that I felt all emo and depressed because I essentially got the equivalent of being stood up (might I add that this actually happened twice on the same day). No, I felt sorrowful because I was witness to the Enemy’s work firsthand in this.

All my life I’ve been raised with the conviction that their IS a metaphysical, supernatural realm. It’s where the Creator God exists, but, on the same plane, where the adversary dwells as well. I’ve come to believe that he has a way of doing his evil work in the most mundane and seemingly simple tasks, but they work to great effect. This friend of which I wrote, I could almost sense the devil’s hand in his overall lack of energy today. The fact that, conveniently, on the day when he might just receive a blessing, a blessing I felt in my heart he was desperately looking for, he has one of his worse days, and it saps the will to do anything out of him. I find that far too coincidental to be the work of mere chance. Especially because this has happened before. Nor do I consider my friend the type of person who would play games with me.

Some might be wondering about the title of this post. Well, the problem arises that I couldn’t exactly communicate that little point about the enemy to him without appearing to sound dogmatic, fanatical or just plain insane. What was I supposed to do, tell him “you know, the reason you probably don’t feel like going with me today is because Satan has engineered events and circumstances around you to sap the will and energy out of you, and if you don’t go you’ll be playing into his hand…”

Reading that last line, I feel like I would have smacked myself in the face if I had ever mentioned that. It sounds coercive and manipulative, something that Christianity SHOULD NOT BE!! And I don’t mean in the sense that no religion should be like that (they shouldn’t!) but in the sense that THAT is not how God works, and thus we ourselves cannot likewise do so.

On the other hand, that IS what I felt like doing (which in and of itself could’ve been my carnal man working in conjunction with the enemy to try and drive him away, who knows). Truth be told I was actually trying to work out a way to express it without sounding all doctrinal and authoritative on a subject I can’t say we fully understand.

So, in the end, I said nothing. I think that worked out for the best, because he DID claim to want to come with me on Sunday, but I’ll have to see how that will work out. I suppose the best thing for me to do is to pray, pray that the same merciful loving-kindness shown to me might be manifested in his life.

luinel