The best generals and warriors understand that battles aren’t always won by might; they are also won by perception. If you can convince someone they are defeated, they will stop trying to fight. These are tactics that aim to deceive, confuse, and psychologically break your enemy’s will to fight rather than relying on a direct contest of strength. This kind of psychological warfare is just one of the many tactics that our enemy uses against the body of Christ, against believers.

Satan is a cunning enemy. He never stops trying to take as many of us from the Lord or prevent as many of us from coming to the Lord as he can. He does this in many ways. One of the most obvious ways is through comfort. He makes it look so good to be independent from God and not worry about the consequences. He deceives people into thinking they have plenty of time and not responding to the tugging or the knocking while they have a chance. He encourages others to harm and hurt the innocent, making it seem deserved. He works at suppressing the message of the gospel in this way. These are the most obvious of his tactics, and we all know full well that he employs them.

Yet there is one tactic that is harder to identify but is employed just as often against believers. It’s the psychological warfare that we go through in our battle with the enemy. If he can’t convince you with creature comforts to sit out of a fight, like the survivor players who choose to take the reward instead of staying in to win the prize, then he’ll try other ways to convince you to come down off the obstacle and quit.

The psychological warfare that makes the pain scream louder so that you hear it, that makes the time stretch and feel like an impossibility to ever win even though winning is within your grasp, the feeling that everyone else is stronger than you so why even stay in the game because you won’t win anyway? He’ll try to distract you with temptations that would pull you away from this race that you’re running. He loves the compare game, you know which game I’m talking about. It’s a game where when you look at Facebook or when you walk around outside, that thing you’re struggling with is right in your face, and it seems like everyone else is winning but you. For me, this is at church on Sundays when I look around and everyone’s going home after church, and it seems like they’re all surrounded by their families with their partners and joyful, and I’m going home alone again. Or I’m going with just my boys and me but no partner to enjoy life us. I feel the lack because as I’ve looked around, I’ve seen others who have. It’s not that I’m envious; I recognize that having a partner wouldn’t make my life magically wonderful. It’s just an ache and an unmet desire that I have. I’ve known women who desperately want a child who experienced the same kind of feelings as they’re looking around, and all of a sudden, it seems like everyone is pregnant, but they can’t get pregnant. Maybe it’s not a relationship or a person you want in your life, but maybe it’s finances, and you look around and see that it seems everyone else has the new thing that you’re not able to get or that you really want. Perhaps even the things you need are hard to attain, and it’s discouraging when you look around because it seems so easy for everyone else. That’s the compare game that the enemy likes to use, his tactic of distracting you away from focusing on unity in the body of Christ and focusing on what you do have and your relationship with the Lord. 

I want to be very blunt when I say that if you hope in anything but the Lord, you will be disappointed. Everyone else and everything else that we can put our hope in besides God will disappoint us or fail us somehow. If not in the beginning, then eventually. We are fickle humans, and we live in a world full of mortal, fickle humans with corruptible and perishing things. There is not a single thing that we have here that endures or lasts forever; there is no one who is faithful without ever making a mistake or failing us. We cannot live forever, so we will ultimately disappoint anyone we love because we will leave them, and we won’t want to. I know we’ll see them again in heaven, but here on this earth, we will cause others grief in one way or another. The only place to properly put your hope where you won’t be disappointed is in the Lord.

Today, as I sit here, I fight the psychological battle with the enemy. He wants to discourage me, he wants me to play the compare game, he wants to point out all the ways that I shouldn’t be happy and all the things I don’t have. I don’t have to let those arrows hit me. I don’t have to believe the lies that are being thrown at me. I don’t have to allow myself to become discouraged and feel defeated. I will not lay down my sword, my shield, or take off my armor and quit fighting for the Lord. I will ask God to give me the strength to just stand. I will cover my heart and my mind with prayer and with truth from God’s word. I will ensure that the only playlist I have running is the one that speaks of the truth of who I am in Christ and his love for me. 

Recognizing the kind of battle we’re fighting is key. Once we recognize the kind of battle we’re fighting, then we know how to fight back or how to combat the enemy. My goal is that you would see the kind of battle you’re facing because it might be the same kind of battle I’m fighting now. Maybe it’s different versions of the same arrows: discontentment, disappointment, insecurities, maybe even pride and confidence in yourself, not in Christ. But the enemy lobs arrows at us. The enemy tries to distract us with all the wonderful things we could have if we choose our own way instead of standing there fighting the battle that God has called us to do.

When I was in my kitchen cleaning dishes, thinking about my life and my workday ahead and all the frustrations, and I was feeling overwhelmed, I realized that the enemy was trying to discourage me so I wouldn’t share this with you, but I am going to share it anyway.

My fellow believers, we have an enemy, and no, he is not at fault for everything we do, but he is the cause of all the lies and the deception and the hurt in the world. He is the cause of all death and grief. He wants to write your story, tell you that it’s better that you take the pen out of God’s hand, and you write it the way you think it would be best. Let’s win this psychological battle; let’s let God write our story. Let’s walk in hope for salvation and righteousness in Christ, not in hope of temporary things that don’t endure. Let’s invest ourselves and our time in building God’s Kingdom instead of being concerned about only building ours the way we want it to be. Choose to stand and say, “I am a child of God, and no weapon formed against me, whether real or psychological, will prosper, and every lie that rises up against me will fall, put down by the truth from God’s word.” I am not afraid of what the devil will bring or use to try to defeat me because I’ve already won because Christ won. I just have to stand and believe, and no amount of psychological warfare will defeat me because I have victory in Christ. The Son set me free, and I am free indeed. 

I will not be tied down; I will not be discouraged, and I hope you make that decision too. Sometimes it is a decision we have to choose because we don’t feel it, but even when I don’t feel it, I know the truth of who I am in Christ, and I will not allow the enemy to convince me otherwise and let him win. Lucifer, father of lies, I’m going to shine my light no matter what; you cannot dim it, not with any tactic you try to use against me. Because I have a fortress and a refuge, and I have armor, and my team has already won! 

Do you believe it? I hope you do, that the truth sinks into your soul and helps strengthen and sustain you today, like it has me.  

Scripture reference: Ephesians 6:11-13,  2 Corinthians 10:3-5, 1 Peter 5:8,  Psalm 91,  Isaiah 54:17