So you’re going about your day.  Things seem to going okay.  Woke on time, had breakfast, maybe got a workout in, even spent some time in prayer and scripture, and then you begin your day. Things seem to be going good.  Maybe sitting in some traffic heading to work, but no big deal.  As things progress, something happens.  All of sudden you feel this tremendous sense of anxiety or a sense of frustration and anger that you just can’t explain.  Everything crumbles all at once and you feel like the day just got shot to hell really quick.  What in the world just happened?  You can’t explain it, but still feel this feeling of negativity or even anger and you don’t know why.  Have you had this feeling before.  That feeling of unexplained anxiety, frustration, anger, or worry.  I know I have, and it comes out of the blue.

The answer to this is really simple, yet very big.  We are at war.  There is a never ending, continuing battle that is ensuing in this life and the battle is over our hearts.  God is in constant pursuit of us.  He has devised a full plan to pursue our hearts and has been on that path since man fell.  On the flip side, there is an enemy, Satan, who is also after our hearts, but with a different purpose.  Jesus explains that his purpose is to steal and kill and destroy our hearts.  He wants to destroy every aspect of our connection with God’s heart through lies, deception, temptation, and even infiltrating us with worries, fears, anxiety, and anger.  It is a battle that is constantly happening in this life and no matter how much closer we get to God, the enemy is constantly trying to pull us back.

Our lives are constantly full of things going on.  We live in a busy society, and we seem to to always have something going on.  In the book, Waking the Dead, John Eldredge says it like this, “Ask the people you know how things are going. Nine times out of ten will answer something to the effect of “really busy.” I know I’ve thrown that answer out and hear it all the time.  With so much going on, we don’t see this battle even when it’s right before our eyes and hearts.  We get filled with so much from all directions that even when we don’t notice, it can come crashing down and those moments happen where it all hits us at once.  It’s almost like, the enemy was blinding us and then when we least expected it, he pounced.    I know it sounds crazy, in some sense, but I think it is very true.  Satan is always out to destroy our connection with God.  It all started in Eden and continues now with even more fury now that we are under Grace through Jesus.  Satan, knows he has lost and is going to try to take as many down with him has he can.

Many of us have lost site of this.  I certainly did for a long time.  Actually, I can honestly say that I did not know about this battle for a long time.  I did not have a real glimpse of the real struggles we all face every single day and no matter how much we try, it is always there in some form or fashion.  John Piper said, “There is a war going on. All talk of a Christian’s right to live luxuriously “as a child of the King” in this atmosphere sounds hollow — especially since the King himself is stripped for battle.”  The battle for our hearts will always continue until Christ returns to destroy the evil one for good.  We must always remember this and be ready to combat the evil when it comes and know that God is always ready to battle for our hearts as well.