Despite the overwhelming darkness you might experience when devastating life-events descend on you, God is more than able to find you in the very midst of them.

In fact, in the 38 years since my second conversion, the Lord has taught me again and again that finding us, both in the joyful and in the traumatic times of our lives, is His specialty!

The ways in which God finds you can take many different forms. For example, He can use people, books, situations, prayer, dreams, and spiritual guides like myself.

But here’s the thing:

Whatever your circumstance or situation, He never stops looking for you.

In fact, you can be confident that He has already found you in your confrontation with evil, even though it might seem to you that He has disappeared entirely off your radar and forgotten all about you.

And you can be confident that He WILL do whatever it takes to protect your body, mind, heart, soul and spirit 24/7.

Even as you continue to be bombarded by evil, He will ensure your overall wellbeing. 

He will keep blessing you in the very midst of the battle. 

And when the Lord finally enables you to achieve victory in your battle with evil, He will start to uncover for you these many blessings.

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Consider it pure joy, my brothers,

whenever you face trials of many kinds…

 

James 1:2 NLT

 

When you are on the receiving end of an attack by evil, these words of the Apostle seem completely unpalatable.

In fact, they seem to belong to the realm of cruel fantasy!

They seem to be completely out of all ordinary human reach.

Nevertheless, my own experience of two exceedingly tough battles with organized evil over the last 38 years has proved them to be absolutely true. 

Like James, I came to discover that facing trials in the Presence of God, while holding on tightly to His Hand, results in a special kind of joy —a joy that you mightn’t otherwise have been blessed with had you not experienced the trial.

The key is to seek the Lord’s Presence regularly . Even 5 - 10 minutes each day, or the equivalent time each week, helps profoundly!

When you handle an attack by evil in a healthy way, the time will come when God will uncover for you the blessings that He has always had hidden underneath the evil.

When you dig deeper than the evil that is assaulting you, you find the Lord himself.

And when you find the Lord himself, He’ll guide you bit by bit through your battle with evil, often without your even being aware that He’s doing so.

And when your battle is over, you’ll gradually come to understand that it was His guidance that is responsible for the numerous blessings that now start to come your way.  

You’ll know that full healing and victory are right in sight when you begin to actually experience the first of these blessings.

 

 

Like James, I came to discover that facing trials

in the Presence of God, while holding on tightly

to His Hand, results in a special kind of joy —a

joy that you mightn’t otherwise have been blessed with

Don’t Try to Rush Your Blessings Along Prematurely

Although this battle with evil can seem never-ending, you may be completely sure that the Lord WILL bring it to an end.

Don’t try to rush your blessings along prematurely.

Leave the timing and the manner to God.

He guides you in the way and in the time that He knows will bring you the best blessings and the blessings that will last you for life.

The Lord’s blessings are never the ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ type.

They are always the type that last.

They are always the type that will successfully see you through any subsequent assault by evil or any other trial.

The HUGE POWER Gained by LEARNING to FORGIVE Those Who Have Wounded You

You’ll probably be surprised at what I’m going to say now. But please don’t dismiss it out-of-hand:

Healing the world’s violence and ugliness, including the ugliness and violence of those who do you evil, ALWAYS begins right inside your and my hearts.

In fact, healing the world always begins with you and me!

What on earth has this got to do with receiving blessings?

In order to receive the blessings God has hiding in the evil that you are experiencing, you need to understand the critical necessity of forgiving EVEN those who do you great evil! 

In fact, this is the first step to putting yourself in the very best position to receive God’s blessings!

I certainly don’t mean for a minute that you have to LIKE those who do you evil.

That would be completely unnatural and even completely ungodly.

And I don’t mean that you will not experience from time to time the emotions of hate and unforgiveness.

But I do mean that you have to decide in your will that you will try not bear hate and unforgiveness towards the evildoers.

You’ll find that once you do this, the Lord will enable your negative emotions to get in line (gradually) with your will. 

And you’ll find that, eventually, these negative emotions will start to dissipate.

Don’t panic. This process of forgiveness takes time.

It took me several years to totally forgive those who did me and our family huge and continuous evil.

But have no doubt that this time will come for you.

The Lord’s Purposes

It goes without saying that Satan’s attack against you always has a clear purpose.

That purpose is ALWAYS to destroy you in some way —mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually, or all of these.

The thief (Satan) comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

John 10:10 NIV

The Lord wants you to remember always that there’s nothing good about the Enemy. He’s never well-disposed towards you and me!

But just as Satan has his purposes, the Lord has His purposes for allowing evil in your life.

Twenty-six years ago, the Lord permitted Satan to wage war against me for a full 7 years. 

At this time in my life, the Lord and I had developed an extremely close relationship, thanks to my regular practice of praying with my heart for a few minutes each day.

I trusted the Him absolutely.

I knew, therefore, that although I often wished my time of battle would end, He had a very good reason for extending it to 7 full years.

And I knew that, in the end, He would use all that I had suffered for achieving His holy purposes in my life and for my own lasting blessing (Romans 8:28).

During my long confrontation with evil, I did not have the time or energy to reflect in any serious way on the question of the Lord’s purposes.

Instead, I chose to concentrate on reminding myself of all my past experiences of the Lord’s essential goodness and love.

But once my full victory arrived, I was able to look back and recognize the Lord’s possible purposes.

I believe He had several.

But perhaps His 3 chief purposes were:

1. to use the battle to test and purify me for as long as He knew that I could benefit and be blessed by the test 

2. that, having been fully healed from evil’s assault, I would then be able to help others using the many blessings that He had provided for me

3. to help Him save the souls of those who had perpetrated evil on me and my loved ones

The Lord uses the attack by evil to test and purify you so that, when it’s over, you will receive the numerous blessings that have been hiding in the battle but that only God could see.

The Lord also can —and does —use our times of severe challenge to help bring about the salvation of the very people who do us evil and cause us pain!

This should give us all cause to pause.

You see, the Lord truly desires that all should be saved (John 3:17, Ezekiel 33:11, 1 Timothy 2:4, Titus 2:11, 2 Peter 3:9).

He is, therefore, perfectly prepared to leave the ninety-nine that are saved and go after the one sheep that remains lost (Luke 15:1 - 7)!

If you and I want to be His followers, we have the distinct privilege —as well as the responsibility —of following suit.

You Can’t Guide Others Along a Road That You Yourself Have Not Yet Travelled

The Lord also knows that only by experiencing a time of genuine testing will you be able to help others in their times of testing.

You cannot guide others along a road that you yourself have not first travelled.

As Christ had explained to Peter:

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”

Luke 22:31 New Living Translation

(My emphasis)

 

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When you remain in the Lord’s love, refrain from the temptation to avenge the evil yourself. Focus on actively co-operating with God’s purposes, and you will disentangle yourself from the evil attacking you.

Then you are free to soar far above it.