I am alone. No one understands my problems. I know me best. No one understands my situation. No one has the pressures I do. No one…no one…no one….Satan, as tricky as he is, will use anything to pull us away from God. Satan can use feelings of being alone, separated or isolated to destroy our trust in Him and ultimately in the family of believers.
Where do these feelings come from? Didn’t Satan put a lack of faith in Eve when he asked her, in Genesis 3, “"Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" Of course he did.
We know from our Bible reading that God only instructed Eve to not eat from one particular tree, but this question the serpent asked placed a seed of mistrust inside Eve’s heart that made her suspect and question God’s true motives. Note that Eve never asked Adam for input on this dilemma, her whole decision making process was internal, in her mind.
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.”
We can learn something from her mistake.
Some of us are in the habit of what I call “self-talk.” I actually believe self-talk is a very useful and helpful thing, provided the talking that is going on is one that is Godly in nature. Satan can use negative self-talk to pull us away from the family of God and from God, our Father, himself. How? By convincing us that we are alone in our struggles, that we have no one that understands us, and the ultimate lie that people and maybe even God himself doesn’t love us!
Have you allowed more than just a seed of doubt come into your heart that has begun to take you off the path of unity and trust in God’s plan for your life?
When we were baptized, we chose to allow Christ’s mind to dwell in us. In even more straightforward language, we chose to kill our minds and way of thinking that we grew up with and allow Christ to take over...completely.
“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature…You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these….Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." (Col. 3:6-10)
Look at what Paul says. "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words…."For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. 2:12-16)
Negative self-talk can kill the urges of the ‘new self.’ "Loner-ism" can destroy our unity within the brotherhood/sisterhood and begin to make our own thoughts seem more ‘right’ than God’s…just like it happened with Eve. It breeds insecurity, faithlessness, doubt, and makes us question our very worth before our heavenly Father. Don’t give Satan that touchdown. Don’t hand Satan your worth before God and Jesus. Don’t make Eve’s mistake.
If you feel like your self-talk has become ungodly, worldly, unspiritual, distrusting or negative, get open with a brother or sister today and get it off your chest. God bless.
"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
Jennifer Coe is a mom to two boys and a full time writer for the Reminder News. She has been a Disciple since 1995. Jennifer is a part of the Greater Hartford Church of Christ.
