You may have noticed, when you have come through a period of brokenness, that compassion for other people will begin to rise up in you without any effort at all. Unfortunately, for some people, those moments of brokenness become a snare. They get stuck in the eddy of ‘looking after poor me.’ When we live in self pity, we are leaving a pathway open for the enemy to continually harass us. He lays down snares that take us out of the flow of the Holy Spirit’s compassion. Self-pity, blame, and distraction are satan’s tools.“Poor you” is a snare. “It is someone else’s fault not yours” is a snare. “Ignore it and it will just go away” is another one!
When we allow those things room in our hearts, we are postponing the opportunity to gather in more of His Grace. Personally, I need all the Grace I can get .. all the time. I run out of it a lot, particularly when I am stressed, over-stretched by circumstances, sick, or tired. But there is a real transaction that happens in the spirit when we acknowledge our spiritual poverty and we ask the Holy Spirit for His input. His Grace starts to flow in us again and then through us. I’ve noticed it is very important to learn how to reverse quickly. What I mean by that is that its good to quickly back up, and back down when you are going the wrong way. The Holy Spirit loves to transform situations and He is incredibly good at it. He once took dirt and made a human being, remember?
In combat warfare, soldiers are constantly on the alert for any sign of danger. The Holy Spirit can see any snares or danger better than we can. We need to listen to Him and stay alert. The bible says this: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:12. It is critical to understand that the presence of this kind of sneaky warfare in our lives doesn’t mean we are doing something wrong. It is often enemy attack. satan hands us thoughts and then blames us for thinking them! However, the ONLY place to find real justification is in Jesus Christ.
There are some people who try hard to distract themselves from pain and difficulties by ignoring them. Pain is common to mankind. Since the fall, we all experience pain and suffering, and a passive response is an easy one. But those people who have transformation in their hearts take an active stand, pick up their sword (verse/s of scripture) and fight! They live alert to the real enemy around them. That doesn’t mean we fight others! We need to fight that kind of thinking – bad thinking feeds itself – and our enemy often stands by handing us reasons to stay there.
There are plenty of pitfalls and snares that pop up when we purpose to take our thoughts captive to Christ. EG: We can end up blaming someone else. This is another pointless pathway. We have no control over another person’s behaviour, the only thing we can change is our response to their actions. Blame is a distraction. It takes our focus away from the real battle – which is our transformation – and creates a smoke screen. Taking ownership of our own faults, and inviting other people’s help to overcome them, is a pathway to humility. But blame leads to bad outcomes. We need to identify all that for what it is, and stand squarely against the thoughts that hand us illustrations about other people and how they have treated us badly.
Distraction is another snare. Distraction clouds our ability to identify what is really going on by telling us to go somewhere else, watch TV, or not to think about it so we won’t feel bad anymore. In my experience distraction nails one of my feet to the ground and I go round and round and round feeling bad, and not knowing why. I try to pray and the words fall right on the ground in front of me. I need to seek God as a priority instead because at this point there is a possibility that I have shut off God’s bowels of compassion for others. 1 John 3:17. Our position in this life is to forgive others and we are to reach into their lives with His love.
To avoid snares we need to stay alert spiritually. Our primary focus is always what Jesus wants. It can help to realise that repentance is a normal part of the Christian life, it is not something to be avoided or used only in emergencies. Repentance shows that we have spiritual strength – we know we don’t have to be ashamed to be wrong. And we know that we can ask for more of His love and grace after we have done what we need to do. The Holy Spirit will sift our hearts for us if we ask Him to. He can see all those snares ahead and warn us and help us avoid them. Bye 👋🏻
