Things are getting harder everyday and in most cases our early rising and late sleeping are hardly making a dent on the problem. Mari hadziskubatana “apa hauna cash”, Monday morning comes and its back to dragging our miserable feet to the jobs that we hate and the customers that we take it out on. I’m not big on the blame game so I’m not going to go into whose fault I think this is.

I am however big on the end game and will always be found playing my part to the best of my abilities. It may not be news worthy that you or I woke up today but I know that it’s a testament of His grace and there is a purpose for each and every one of us in our individual and corporate capacities.

We are made strong by His spirit in us and anyone who has breath in their body, a functional mind and a mouth that knows what to speak is a serious force to be reckoned with. We have a bigger fighting chance than we think in this God who loves us whether we accept it or not. He doesn’t specify His reasons for it but deep down in our secret honest place we know that His love exists and we can have it consciously when we choose to receive it.

We are warned by scripture that “…our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” [Ephesians 6:12 NIV] and that is why these forces attack our minds and the way we think about things so that we struggle against the wrong enemy which is often ourselves.

When we are disconnected from God by focusing on the magnitude of the problem and not the magnitude of God we are like spineless Lions inert and incapacitated. A vessel cannot operate at full capacity if it is in such a condition and so we live our lives strong enough to thrive but too weakened to do so. The enemy knows that It takes binding the strong man before entering his home to plunder so he plays mind games setting traps that lead us to fall into repeat loops for months or years at a time.

You will be puzzled until you find your missing peace

We like sophisticated solutions to the challenges that present themselves in our lives and though this is useful when we are students in the classroom it can be somewhat of a hindrance when it comes to things of God because His ways are quite simpler than ours. Because these are our lives in which these situations are occurring it’s like we take the bigger bit of ownership and leave the supporting roles to God especially when we hit the moment of crisis.

We hardly think about the strategic positioning in Him that can help to save us the trouble well in advance.  In her article ‘Good strategy’ is Good [Forbes] Erika Anderson outlines strategy as “consistently making those core directional choices that will best move you toward your hoped-for future” and it resonates so well with me because it doesn’t rely on some external force that I can’t control. To me it’s basically an instruction to keep choosing God because nothing is more strategic than that .

It is only from a place of peace that you or I can truly be effective in battle. It was never about how aggressive we sound in prayer or how many scriptures we know how to throw around, it was always about trusting God and believing that our lives are in his hands come what may. “thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” [Isaiah 26:3NIV].

This doesn’t mean that we should passively lay back and be bullied by the enemy it simply means we should work smart by calling the right weapons to the fight “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” [Proverbs 3:5 NIV]. This will mean different things to us all depending on our levels of understanding so my closing prayer is that God may reveal the specific meaning from this message that he intends for you. Amen

About the author

Sharon Rateiwa is a lover of art with a natural flair for the artistic. When she isn’t sharing inspirational pieces with the world, she designs and performs as a singer and poet. Sharon believes that we of God’s generation have a mandate to take up Godly arms in the fight for a meaningful existence. She gives encouragement by sharing her own colourful encounters.