Dealing with the Adversary

January 28, 2009

I Peter 5: 8-11 (The Message)

“Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.”

This past Sunday our church approved a million dollar budget. Sounds great doesn’t it? Until you consider that the million dollar budget is a cut from our recent years of a 1.1+million dollar budget. What that means is that our programs will be cut by 10%, our mission efforts will be cut in half and our staff salaries will be cut by 10 %. After worship, our now former personnel committee chairman came up to me and apologized, “I’m sorry this has to happen,” he said. To which I responded, “It is what it is.” He then replied, “It is what it is but miracles happen all of the time.” I looked at him and said, “Yep! We say that we are people of faith . . . now is the time to prove it.”

These are not easy days for any of us. While we on staff may be pinching pennies, many of you have lost your jobs and are witnessing all manner of bleakness in your lives. You struggle in ways that you try to prevent us from struggling. (We are grateful for those efforts by the way.) Nonetheless, suffering is fast becoming a familiar companion to many of us.

Peter’s community was dealing with a different kind of suffering—not monetary—more relational and oppressive. But the advice that he offers them remains the same for us. Stay cool! Be disciplined and alert. Those of us who grew up in more conservative Christian environments used the sort of language that Peter uses here. “The Devil is trying to get you!” “Satan is after you!” It sounds very dramatic and the phrases have always freaked me out until I came to understand the Hebrew. The word for ‘devil’ in Hebrew is “hasatan (pronounced HAH-SAH-TA-HN).” It means “The Satan” or more accurately “the adversary.” The adversary is poised to pounce. An adversary can take any form but ultimately it is something that challenges you. It would be easy to go with the flow of an adversary if you didn’t have your guard up. Peter’s point is that they people must know what they believe. They must live their faith. Their charge is to stay on guard to witness the adversary challenging them, to know that they must depend on God, and then to make a choice to choose God’s way as they discern it. God will be their strength in this time if they make the choice to allow it. God will give them the strength to weather the period. And eventually, in time, the people will witness how God has brought goodness.

In these trying times, the adversary (whatever form yours may take) is poised to pounce. Take our staff situation. We, as the staff, can choose a woe is me—my salary is being cut—demeanor. Or we can choose to be grateful that we still have jobs. We can choose to know that God will provide for us. We can choose to understand that whatever befalls us, like a parent, God is there to catch us when we fall and fail. The message is true for each and every one of us. We have to choose to trust in God’s unfailing strength and then watch as God’s goodness opens in ways we cannot yet imagine. May we, this week and always, be willing to trust God fully—knowing that ultimately we will land on our feet! Amen.