Whack a Mole...Smack a Puppet

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” Ephesians 6:12.

I’ve begun a new Bible Study from Priscilla Shirer and I’m already worn out this morning! The Bible study is The Armor of God and she shares a powerful analogy of an experience she had at a Harvest Festival in her hometown. One of the games at the festival was a table set up with a curtain on top with 6 openings where puppets kept popping up. The object was to take a mallet and pop the puppet back down in the hole. A little 4 year old boy became so frustrated that the puppets kept popping back up he tore the curtain off of the table and revealed the 6 adults controlling them. Exposed were the controllers and depleted was the power of the pop ups.

I can’t tell you how many times I take a swipe at those pop ups...angry at a person who has wounded... anxious about decisions my grown children are making...taking credit for something out of my desire to be visible. Whack a mole...smack a puppet. But we need to be clear about our efforts which is what Paul was saying in Ephesians. He was saying that our war isn’t against our loved one for something they did or did not do, it’s against Satan who manipulates the circumstance. He was saying that we are not to fight sin with sin, hurt with anger, wounds with slander, but our weapons must be more spiritual than earthly. We can whack our circumstances with hurtful words but they are not the root. We can throw money at our loneliness but the issue is much deeper. We can work ourselves into an early grave, but the battle will not be won. We must expose the darkness of the battle waged against us, and live with an awareness that our issue is with the controller, not the pop ups in life. When we live and walk in this awareness we realize things that are important for our success. ‘Satan wants us unstable, our mind and heart in a state of utter peacelessness, riddled with chaos and confusion. He wants our most vital and potent relationships divided with discord and dissention permeating throughout them. He wants you and me to be lulled to spiritual sleep, with apathy and indifference so we are not making a difference in the spiritual realm and experiencing abundant life. People and things are not our problem...spiritual darkness is our problem. We cannot be distracted by the things we can see and feel, because the real issue and fight is against the enemy we cannot see’ The Armor of God video, Priscilla Shirer. Our spiritual minds are huge in this battle and we must be confident in certain truths.

Satan is not God's peer or equal. Only God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent and eternal.

‘Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil’ Ephesians 6:10-11.