Between Angels And Demons

I feel like I’m in a battle between God and the devil.

Yesterday, I mentioned that the Lord saved me yesterday through music. Today, the demons are after me again. (I’m going to say “the devil” or “the adversary”, although in truth I understand I’m not nearly important enough for Satan himself to mess with. I hope you’ll understand.) That voice is deep inside my head right now, knowing how weak I am.

You see, on Tuesday I tried sleeping at my fiancée’s house in a recliner she has got this very purpose. I’ve slept in it before... but now, my condition has worsened to the point where sleep is increasingly uncomfortable. In an unfamiliar setting, I couldn’t sleep until four.

So I was in bad shape Wednesday. I worked half a day and that’s all I could handle. I came home and tried to sleep. It didn’t work well, but in my own chair I got a little rest... and only four hours the next night. So Thursday, I had no shot. I fell down (into my chair, thankfully) during the pledge, looked at my teaching partner, and emailed my boss that I needed to go home.

And yet...
And yet.

I took extra sleep medicine last night, went to bed early (by ten) after napping a little during the day. I slept solidly for four hours, and couldn’t go back to sleep. Shoot.

So, I’m a mess. And the adversary knows that. The voice is back in my skull, reminding me that my disease will only continue to get worse, that the pain and fatigue would just get worse and worse. The voice assured me that Heaven awaits, that in a moment I could be rid of the disease and the pain would be gone forever.

Today, God’s weapons were His preachers.

If I have time in the morning, I always listen to my two favorite radio preachers: Greg Laurie and Richard Ellis. And today, Laurie’s sermon was rather relevant: what is temptation and where does it come from...and how do you defend yourself against it?

Ellis’ sermon was more blunt: how we can throw a monkey wrench into God’s plans, sabotaging His arrangements through our choices...including and especially through suicide. Ellis made a terribly convincing argument how only God should decide when we leave here. He talked of his mother’s death, one like my mom’s where there is a moment when “you shift from praying for her survival to praying for God to send the bus and take her Home.” But he also said that his mother “crossed the finish line like a champion, and teaching him right through to the end.”

God couldn’t have been more blunt with me if He’d had them say my name when speaking.

All day, I can feel the devil messing with me - papers flying in the wind, emphasizing my weaknesses, and so forth - and the Lord recovering my sanity for me with every attack against “us”. Because it IS a battle in which I have a Partner, One much stronger than any the adversary could ever throw at me. As Paul said in his letter to the Romans (8:31),

31”What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can beⁱ against us?“