Talkin' the talk

I got a call from brother Hollis in Michigan today. He has been out of prison a couple months now and has interviewed for a few jobs but, of course, it's hard. He didn't go into detail, but in the course of the conversation one thing he said to me, natural as you please, was, "The devil has tried to throw up a roadblock but God is my deliverer."

I would like to talk about that for a moment-just that one comment, made in passing.

First off, I had to ask myself: Does the devil throw up roadblocks, or is that just a folksy metaphor? How would one know if a problem one was encountering were courtesy of the devil, or if it were just "stuff that happens"? Then I remembered the Apostle Paul saying the same thing about some unspecified snag he encountered:

"… we wanted to come to you-I, Paul, again and again-but Satan hindered us" (1 Thessalonians 2:18).

What brother Hollis was doing was seeing the world through spiritual eyes, just like brother Paul. Both are saved men, and now about their Father's business. Both are keenly aware at all times that there is more to this world than what we see: There is a vast supernatural realm peopled with principalities and powers, some of whom want our undoing.

And when I hung up, I said a prayer for my brother, that he would stick close to the God who drew him near in prison and not drift away. I felt a certain confidence that God would bless him. Why? Because even in the briefest and most mundane of phone conversations with a woman in Pennsylvania, he honored God by speaking truth and not worldly interpretations, and he gave the glory to God.

And when you stop and think about it, this is the only thing and the main thing we are given to do on earth. No heroics. Just believing God and saying so.