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Sunday, September 16, 2018

Against Our Ancient Foe

I have gone through a strange thing this weekend... all tied up in a packaging of conversation, Hurricane Florence, delicious food, and letting myself fall asleep without finishing a routine.

So much strangeness. But it is all perfect, the perfectest strangeness.

I won't go into what exactly happened. Maybe I will later.

Because of what has happened, I've been brought back to something that I've thought on intermittently in the past: the spiritual fight, against Satan, that C.S. Lewis delves into a bit in The Screwtape Letters. I have a great deal of anger, and I realised more concretely that my anger should be directed at Satan... that it is fitting to direct it at him. He is the one who has done that which I am angry at.

So throughout these past two or three days, I thought of the last part of the first verse of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Then, now, I looked it up, and I want to post it here, because all of it is rather pertinent to what I'm going through recently. It seems that one does not always realise what a hymn is saying until somehow things in one's life relate to the hymn.

A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing:
Our helper He, amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work his woe;
His craft and power are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabbaoth is his name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,—
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! His doom is sure,—
One little word shall fell him.
That word above all earthly powers—
No thanks to them—abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also:
The body they may kill:
God's truth abideth still,
His kingdom is for ever.

So right now, I have been thinking particularly about Satan's 'craft and power', how he keeps me from doing things, by keeping me from caring about anything. And when I was steeling myself to do what I intended to do this weekend, all the doubts and half-truths came creeping in, telling me why I should not do the thing, why it won't work, and revealing that (indeed) I had no idea how I was going to do it, and I couldn't even focus well enough to figure out how: my brain is a fog.

And so, I fought. Satan will not have me... I will try to fight the influence, to let God fill me with the intention to do what is right. I have not let God do that. I have not followed my conscience, and done what I knew I ought to do. May God's glory flow in, in richness.

'In your hearts enthrone him, there let him subdue 
all that is not holy, all that is not true'

(from the hymn At the Name of Jesus Every Knee Shall Bow)

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