Battling Ourselves

We have all heard the saying that we are our own biggest enemy. At one time or another we have experienced the voice inside us that whispers to us when things are hard or when we are under pressure. These voices inside us can discourage us, they can pit us against those that we love and they can fuel suspicion, resentment, and distance between us and others in our lives. Flipping through the Book of Psalms I read the songs and thoughts of a man that must have struggled often with those voices. And like many others, its in those writings that I see reflections of my own story.

Time and time again King David would write about those that sought to do him harm, he wrote about how they lay in their beds thinking about ways to damage him. I think that like Peter, Satan desired to sift David like wheat. The pressure he felt and the stress he found himself under amplified the voice that caused his torment. I can imagine that voice, I hear mine clearly in times of distress. It calls out and paints darkness all around me. When mine gets louder I have to consider the complete story of David.

Why did God allow David, His chosen king for Israel to be exposed to such pressure? Didn’t God call David to that position and authority? And didn’t God know all the trouble David would face and the ways that he would fail? In my pragmatic thinking, this could have all been avoided if God shielded David from these pressures, leaving him to lead with confidence and a clear mind unconcerned with these troubles of survival.

Along side this question there is a constant, God is good. And if God is good then the trials that we come against must be for our good. One more look at the complete story of David reveals one thing was constant through every petition and cry of Davids heart. No matter how bad it was, he rushed to God’s shelter. His conflicts both internal and external chased him to God. You could say that David needed these times to keep him as close as possible to God during his reign.

So what does this mean?

When things are coming at us from every angle and we feel paralyzed or worse, like we could strike out we need to see things from outside the forest. We need to see that these voices are allowing us to make a choice, to exercise our free will. We can submit to the voices and become cold, and relationally dangerous to those around us, or we can embrace their purpose in our lives. We can draw closer to our God when the voices are loudest and rejoice that God has given us the opportunity to depend on Him in a greater way than we did the day before.

This is hard for me, but I know its right. I am not sure how I have become so pragmatic and rigid over the years but I know that its times like these that God is surely forming me into the man and the leader that he expects me to become.

God, keep my eyes sharp and my feet quick when these times of struggle against myself come around, my desire is to run to you!