As a Christian, you will not always know for sure why some things happen to us. There is always that temptation to find out whether one’s challenge – be it health related issue, financial challenge, educational challenge, marriage problems, decision making challenge, etc, are directly an attack from the Devil or an intentional decision from God to train you or test you for the purpose of your spiritual growth and life.
God does not come and explain to us why we go through what we go through in life. However, there is a way He wants us to think and look at the issues that confront us. God wants us to be assured that whatever we are going through as obedient children, He is still in control of our lives, even if we think that we are experiencing an uncomfortable moments directly from the devil.
We have no detective mechanism to see for sure what is intentionally brought our away by the Lord to test us, and what is intentionally brought to us directly from the devil as part of his fight against Christians ever since we got saved.
God has given Christians the solution to depend on concerning things that they don’t understand in their lives. If we fail to apply God’s solution and start pursuing why the problem first happened, not only will we add more frustration to ourselves, but we can be deceived also since we cannot be sure whether what we assume as the cause is truly the cause.
The spiritual life solution is never about investigating causes, rather, you rely on the solution as stated in the scripture. Just as you don’t get all the answers from your Doctors as to the cause of your health challenges, yet you take whatever medication that is prescribed to you, so it is with the spiritual life challenges – you take the prescription, you don’t avoid the prescription just because you do not understand the cause.
If God can protect our soul and help solve our psychological or soul problems, then we must be obedient in applying the instruction given to us in the Bible. In Ephesians 6:11,13, we are told to “put on” and “take up” the whole armour of God so that we can be able to first *stand firm against the schemes of the devil in verse 11, and then be able to resist in the evil days in verse 13.
Sometimes our frustrations, inner struggles, inbalanced thoughts or lack of focus, unexplainable unhappiness can all be attributed to the effects from the attack of the devil and his demon allies. So you may experience the devil’s attack as an experience or scheme. But there is no need to spend time to understand why he attacked or is attacking you. Asking such question will not stop him from attacking you. It is for this reason that God gives us the solution, not the cause so that the devil does not succeed in stealing, killing and destroying us.
We need to put on both the armor and take it up for action (Eph 6:11, 13), that is, by applying the word. We need to consider it all joy (James 1:2) whenever we are into any unexplainable or inexpressible situation – only the Lord knows. During our suffering times, we should not forget about Christ’s suffering. We should immediately remember that He suffered undeservedly and that we as Christians also share his sufferings in many ways. We should be ready to accept these truths. This is the only way that we can maintain our happiness in this life as Christians. Until we take our last breath, life challenges will keep facing us; let us be on guard by putting on every armour. Shalom!
Cyprian Antwi Awuah 