When God fights your battles.

The enemy is good at being bad. Knowing our weaknesses, he camps out with bated breath just waiting for his chance to launch his missiles. And he does it with extreme accuracy.   He knows what hurts us the most.  

In a book called Boundaries, Townsend and Cloud tell a story about a man who continually goes down a street and falls into a hole. The story paraphrased goes like this:

A man would go down the street, see a hole, and fall in. The next day the man walked down the street and saw the hole and fell in again. The third day the man partially changed his route but eventually still fell in the hole. The fourth day he altered his route a little but then looked back and fell in the stubborn hole. Finally when the man became tired of his failure, he decided to walk on the other side of the street. Enough was enough. He stopped thinking he could do it. Many of us still think we can. When we keep trying to get different results by doing the same thing, others recognize it as insanity; we think we are persevering.

It's helpful in our battles to remember God's track record. He has proven himself in each of our lives. I need to remember what he did in my life because that's the life I'm living. When I am tempted to feel unwanted and unloved, I must choose to focus on how God cares enough to know my name.  He not only cares enough, He has given me a name that only He calls me by.  He has given you a special name, one that only He call you by.  That is how much you are loved and wanted by God.  God goes before you and fights the battles.  He claims you are His child.  When we feel anxious, discouraged, hopeless or overwhelmed He is going before us and fighting for us.  When bad things happens, He is preparing a powerful life change.  

God is in control, but that does not mean we followers of Christ get to avoid the battles - in fact, the Bible states the opposite.  "Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." (Romans 5:3-4).  In order for a believer to live a life of endurance, character, and hope, we must put on our armor and trust the Deliverer.  We can not put our confidence in ourselves, or others.  Our confidence must be in God, who will fight our battles.  Be still, He goes before you and He always wins.