God is light

Yesterday morning I went to a little morning bible study with young life and we talked about spiritual warfare. Because it was for new christ followers, it was a pretty basic study just talking about what spiritual warfare is, the fact that the devil is real and not a joke and then looked at the armor of God passage in the end of Ephesians. But then today I was struck with the seriousness of spiritual warfare. Satan is really at work in every christians life. And I am finding that every christian needs to identify each of their fears and figure out their "thorn" and the less seriously we take these thorns the more capable they will be of destroying our spiritual life. And I began to think of how great my desire is for God and how little time I actually spend with him. There is a reason for that. The days are evil, Ephesians says. We have to really get to know our idols. because I think the power of idols and brokenness and sin in our lives is that it is embarrassing and uncomfortable and we would strongly prefer that it didn't exist. But there is no christian who doesn't have things keeping them from deepest intimacy with the father and obedience to him. And I think the further we get in our faith the more sinister and elusive the obstacles become. Henri Nouwen, I believe, said the way to handle brokenness is to expose it and embrace it. Not embrace it as in falling deeper into the battle, but embrace it as in identifying it, sharing it with another believer, saying it out loud, recognizing that it will probably accompany you the rest of your life, as terrifying as it may seem. There is nothing Christ cannot overcome. There is no desire of ours he can erase by right relationship with him. The very worst thing I can do, is pretend that its not a problem and let whatever it is continue to enslave me. We have been set free.
My YL leader Ryder said one of Satan's favorite things is when we don't take him seriously. His favorite thing we could do with are struggles and with the lies we hear that no one else can is to pretend they're not real. He loves all darkness. Darkness in our souls, lives, communities, churches.

"This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that GOD IS LIGHT and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin." 1 John 1:5-7