Proverbs 31 Project: A Princess Under Attack

If you're a Christian, you will understand what I'm talking about.  You'll know how it feels for the enemy to rob you of your joy, to stretch you to your limit, to distract you from the truth, to stress you out and undermine your attempts at being who God says you are.  Our enemy hates our King, and because he hates our King, he hates US.  He hates ME.  So, he focuses on our human weaknesses and he uses them against us - the more we wake up to who we are in Christ, the more he reminds us of what we used to be.  Regular. Plain. Challenged.  Helpless.

In the past month, my Kindle and my new cell phone were stolen.  My Kindle was stolen literally 48 hours after I'd downloaded 4 books for this Proverbs 31 study onto it.  My phone, which I could have used (albeit inconviently small) to read those books, was stolen a week later.  So I paid for and didn't read 4 books for this study.  Also, over the past month, my stress levels have been higher than usual - bills to pay, household responsibilities, my workload - all have felt overwhelming and unduly burdensome.  I've lost receipts, spent hours on the phone with pesky company reps, dropped and broken dishes, burned dinners. Finally, I've had a strange feeling of insufficiency - physically, emotionally, relationally, etc.  I've been reaching out to (and lashing out at) my family, friends, and my boyfriend because of a profound feeling - realization - that I'm failing them, that I'm failing myself, that desite my attempts to be the best and to have it all together, I really don't.

Compare this to a month ago, when I decided to start this study.  I was on top of the world - family relationships strong, falling in love with the man of my dreams, enjoying solid friendships with girls who really "get" me.  Most importantly, I was really understanding my place in God's eyes, and I felt humbled by that knowledge.  I felt motivated to become this woman that God, in his word, tells me I CAN be if I would only hand over all my messiness to Him and be open to the transformation process.  Well, the minute I declared my faith in His promises and started down this path toward BECOMING that woman, the mess got worse.  On one hand, that's discouraging, but on the other hand...what CONFIRMATION that owning my position of nobility, my decision to enter into God's presence and rely completely on him for who I am and what I'm worth, is a threat to the status quo!  It's not just a threat to my status quo though - it's a threat to our enemy, to God's enemy, whose only goal is to keep us outside the castle gates!  Satan wants us outside the castle gates, doubting the King's love, doubting the King's goodness, doubting that I'm a princess.  The enemy wants us to stay out here, frustrated, defeated, hating ourselves and the people/things around us who are failing to fulfill us! 

In other words, the OBVIOUS effort our enemy has mounted against me is proof that my (our) goal is more important and the rewards of it more powerful than we even realize.  My battle is not against myself, against my own insecurities and sinfulness.  I am a princess against whom God's enemy is waging WAR!  This means that (a) I really AM God's daughter (if I wasn't, Satan wouldn't care about my goal) and (b) the obstacles and challenges I will face along the way are not due to my inability to meet some standard on my own.  These little bumps in the road are going to occur BECAUSE there is an enemy who wants to keep me down, to keep me from being a princess, to keep me from enjoying the castle and the King and all his goodness.  I do have responsibility for what I do, yes.  But I am fighting a battle against an enemy who is jealous of my calling, angry at my God-given ability to be magnificent. He knows I'm forgetful and distractable and prone to stress over certain things, and so he plays with my mind and convinces me I'm a failure in areas that he KNOWS will, all together, have the effect of bringing me down.

Satan lives outside the castle, and he hates that.  He rebelled against the King, saying (Isaiah 14) "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." He thought he'd be a better King.  But unfortunately for Satan, the only thing he has is power over those who live outside the castle with him, and as long as he can convince us that our highest calling is to sit, miserably, sorting through filth and wishing for more...he believes he's won.  If he has all the King's sons and daughters in his service, pawing through piles of messiness and feeling dissatisfied with the on-again-off-again false rewards the other people out here have to offer, he feels like he's won. Because his one goal is to try and convince us that life out here, life as the slave of a vindictive, power-hungry, selfish rebel is better than life inside that castle with the perfect loving creator King.

What a lie!  Let's refuse, together, to believe it!  I say to Satan, "bring it. Bring your worst.  Because your worst is NOTHING compared to the goodness my King wishes to give me and show me inside the safety of those walls!"

I'm also frustrated because "The Princess Diaries" is not available on Netflix, or at HEB, or at Target, or on Youtube...so all my lovely illustrations/clips I was intending to use to demonstrate our "princess training" process may have to wait.  But before this month is over, I will post one or two times about what BEING A PRINCESS looks like.

But it's important, for now, that you understand I'm not perfect.  When I started this project, I had struggles.  I was falling for lies, relying on people and things to fulfill me, stumbling and falling sometimes despite my best intentions.  Now that I've publicly declared my intention to be who God says I am, that hasn't changed - in fact, it's become MORE challenging to remember who I am in the eyes of God, because external factors have become more and more intense and distracting!  I should have expected that.  I'm not surprised it's happening.  But it needs to be a motivational factor for me, and for you if you are going through the same thing.  We are a threat to the status quo, and there is a very real enemy whose greatest fear is that we'll start to ignore him and bask in the presence of our King.

Let's start basking, ladies :) the enemy may try to lure us back to the streets, back to sorting through filth.  But we are made for more than that.  Do we trust our King to defeat that enemy and protect us, once we fully enter into his presence?

 

 

 

Comments

[D]

Stay strong!!!

[Jillian Morgan]

we just studied that chapter in isaiah this week at BSF!!! although it was actually the Babylon king who said that, but the Bible has used the same term "fallen star" (i think) for both Satan and King, so many people use those verses past AND future! my mom is also in a bible study this semester that talks about spiritual warfare, and girl, if we are not in that every single day! i will pray for you that you stay encouraged through this rough time. Satan is attacking, but how comforting to know that God will win. and therefore, WE win! :)

[Sarah]

I have Princess Diaries- love it, want me to mail it to you? :-)

[C]

:) Thanks Sarah! I am amending my Netflix queue tonight to order it next - it wasn't available on "watch it now" but I think I can order it. I just wish I could post CLIPS on here (but I don't have the time or tech savvy to make clips from a DVD so that's not happening).

J - thanks for the context, I knew there was a passage that described Satan's fall from grace, and I found that one so I used it. Looks like an interesting study in past-present-future Bibilcal history!

Thanks to all of you for these comments and for the many private messages I've received about this post. It is so comforting and confirming to know that I am not alone and not misunderstood in all of this. I am so blessed by you guys and I know that Satan HATES what is happening here but that makes me more excited and more determined to make this journey! :)