The Devil is in the Details
This phrase is commonly used to talk about the danger of missing details – how quickly a detail can mess everything up! The devil is also in other details – the ones we may miss frequently, or not give him “credit” for. Very quickly, they will mess everything up.
Very often a thought will cross my mind – not a positive one. It’s usually about my motherhood, a work issue, or how someone else thinks of me. It either condemns someone else in a sense (how could they think of me like that??) or it condemns myself (I’m not good enough – I need to work harder!). This typically is labelled anxiety – a medical term. I know it is a medical condition, mostly triggered by stress – that is a way we have come to learn about the effects on our body. But I wonder who had that idea to begin with, to create these thoughts in our head that bring us down. It wasn’t God, that’s for sure!
There is a spiritual war going on, every day. The devil has lost and he wants to bring as many of us with him as he can! This earth is his stomping ground! I often get carried away with this world, medical terms, diagnosis, and forget who is really behind it. In my opinion, we are only labelling weapons the devil uses to try and bring us lower – “out of reach” of the grace of God (he thinks he’s so smart!).
What is that phrase people say? Something along the lines of God never takes a step back, its only us taking a step back from him!” That’s what I believe the devil wants me to do in my head. The more negativity I allow to be truth, the farther I get from the grace of God. I have a new friend – a friend I admire quite a lot – she always says, “Give yourself grace”, more so than I’ve heard any other person say. Grace is what God gives us, grace is what the devil wants to steal from me.
My new practice now in dealing with negative, intrusive thoughts is to treat them like lies, the devils lies. The last two days, these negative thoughts have won in my head. I failed to treat them like lies, and the result was me becoming scatter brained, distracted, and not productive. Assuming others intentions, assuming my own failures – they were all lies. So, I sat down this morning after realizing that I had become carried away, and what I do is I put my thought on the left hand side of my journal labeled “Lies”. On the right, you guessed it, I put truth. I go through my long list of negative thoughts, and I prove them wrong. It helps for today – I may have to do it again tomorrow, because the devil likes to throw something new at me just about every day.
Gods grace covers me. That is a fact I struggle with every day. I tend to think I earn my way into the kingdom of God – but no, I only respond to the gift of God. I am imperfect, and I do sin – and yet God covers me anyway if I have the heart that seeks Him. Therefore, bringing myself down constantly is not from God – it is only the devil seeking to take away the blessing of Grace from my life.
I hope that if you also struggle with negative or intrusive thoughts, this perspective can also help you! Don’t let the devil win!
