The 12-Step Plan

“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

How still are you each day?

Blaise Pascal once said, “All human evil comes from a single cause: man’s inability to sit still in a room.”

How important is it to “be still”? Apparently a lot, because God commands it in the Bible. It’s not only a way to know God, but it’s also a way to defeat Satan.

Satan loves to destroy; he especially loves to destroy families. He uses a secret weapon that isn’t even something he has to put much effort into—we are really good at doing it all on our own: being too busy. Too busy for God. Too busy for our families. Too busy to accomplish the plan God has for us.

Instead, we are busy with our own agendas. It may be a good agenda, but does our agenda match God’s agenda? Are we so busy and so occupied and so consumed with the things of this world that we have no time, no energy, no desire to invest in knowing God and growing in our relationship with Him? Instead of first place, God often comes last. Our prayer time and quiet time with Him turns into a hurried 5-minute mutter … or perhaps gets pushed off the agenda entirely.

How does Satan keep us busy? One devotional outlines Satan’s plan (1). Satan is determined to have victory in believers’ lives with the following 12 things:

1. Keep them busy with nonessentials.
2. Tempt them to overspend and go into debt.
3. Make them work long hours to maintain empty lifestyles.
4. Discourage them from spending family time, for when homes disintegrate there’s no refuge from work.
5. Overstimulate their minds with television and computers so that they can’t hear God speaking to them.
6. Fill their coffee tables and nightstands with newspapers and magazines so they’ve no time for Bible reading.
7. Flood their mailboxes with sweepstakes, promotions, and get-rich-quick schemes; keep them chasing material things.
8. Put glamorous models on TV and on magazine covers to keep them focused on outward appearance; that way they’ll be dissatisfied with themselves and their mates.
9. Make sure couples are too exhausted for physical intimacy; that way they’ll be tempted to look elsewhere.
10. Emphasize Santa and the Easter bunny; that way you’ll divert them from the real meaning of the holidays.
11. Involve them in “good” causes, so they won’t have time for “eternal” ones.
12. Make them self-sufficient. Keep them busy working in their own strength that they’ll never know the joy of God’s power working through them.

This 12-step plan of Satan’s is working … it’s working in homes all across America, all across the world. Shamefully, it’s often worked in my own home.

Satan can be defeated in one mighty way: “Be still and know that I am God.”

Begin your day with being still, asking God for HIS agenda. Be determined to be  apart of God’s plan, not Satan’s. Work as a soldier in God’s army, for that is the only place where there is victory!

Join me on Facebook and Twitter!

(1) “I Never Thought I’d See the Day!” Dr. David Jeremiah (Faith Words, 2011);

Photo Source