“The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.” (Deuteronomy 28:7 NKJV)
This “flee seven ways” is likely just a figure of speech, but I know there is more than one way to win a battle. In Israel’s history, sometimes the Lord intervened with odd events like huge hail stones and the enemy armies were killed or they fled. Sometimes He distracted them with news of an attack on their homeland and they left the battlefield and went home. Sometimes God gave His people unusual battle strategies and they were able to win by using them. Or God struck the enemy with blindness or disease and they were defeated. The only thing He didn’t do, to my recall, is turn their enemies into friends.
Mothers sometimes give that advice; make friends with those who mistreat you. Hard advice to follow, but it sometimes works, at least in the school yard. However, when it comes to spiritual warfare, God never advocates it. The enemy is the enemy, and although he might fake it, Satan is never going to be a friend. He will always oppose those who belong to God. He will always try to defeat me, make me sin, make me give up prayer and obedience, make me mistrust the Lord.
Other “enemies” might become friends though. I once knew a person who may not have appeared to others like an enemy trying to ruin my life, but that person was opposing me in many ways. We were at odds, if not actually fighting each other. Then God intervened. He got hold of that person’s life (and changed me too). By His transforming power we became friends.
Regardless of which way it happens, this verse says that is God who causes enemies to flee. As I am praying that people be released from the clutches of darkness and sin, I cannot think that I will gain victory for them, or even that my prayers will do it. I’m in the battle, but God wins the war.
Yesterday my class was talking about our patterns of prayer. One woman shared a remarkable battle plan. She told how she had problems with anger and took it out on her children. Whenever her preschoolers acted up, she screamed at them. Her home sounded like a war zone at times. She didn’t want that, so asked the Lord for help.
The Lord gave her a strategy for this battle. Instead of sending her oldest to her room for a time out, she sent her to her room to pray. She said, “Mommy will pray too, and when you come out, we will pray together.”
This plan is having an incredible effect. Because the mother has taught her, the child knows to ask God for forgiveness and to help her with a better attitude. So when she goes to her room and prays, she comes out repentant, asking her mother to forgive her too. They pray together and peace is restored.
But that is not all. There is a little sister who is less than three years old. She has been watching this and after a short time, whenever she gets cranky or acts up, without being told she goes in a corner and bows her head. The mother says, “I don’t know what she is doing, but she comes back saying she is sorry, and with a changed attitude.”
Our God amazes me with His creative genius. This is not only a solution for this mother, but one to be shared with others. Several in the class plan on using it. As a mother of grown children, I can only say I wish I’d known this young mother 35 years ago.
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