The Devil Has A Hold On Me.

If you are a Christian and do not believe in the devil, you better start.  This is not say that you should worship the devil, do not misconstrue my message. But this is to say that you should be aware that as a Christian the devil is out to destroy you (see my blog here for more on that).  I think it was TD Jakes that said it best.


“If the devil is not bothering you, then he does not see you as a threat, he does not see you as someone that is worth his time.”

Although this may seem like a good thing because no one wants to be bothered by the devil, it really is bad because it means that you are not doing your job as a Christian.  The devil has been after me lately.  He comes to seek and destroy you and to keep you away from your goals.

Just to give you an overview of what I have been going through.  I am taking the last classes in my PhD program before my dissertation.  I have always maintained above a 3.0, but for some reason in these last classes I have been doing terrible.  It seems like my mind is clouded, I am confused, I cannot think properly.  I am questioning my intellect.

Lately, my money has already been running thin.  But the devil true to form has been trying to attack my money even more.  Just yesterday my phone that I had for less that a year went out for no reason, and I had to buy a new one.  But in the midst of hardship God is always there.  I went to Walmart to get a new phone and a phone that should have cost me $129 was marked down by mistakes to $48.  As I went to the register, they told me the full price, but due to their mistakes they gave it to me for $48.

And just today, I needed my GPS to go to training at a location I did not know where it was.  My GPS malfunctioned, I was lost, and it put me in a frenzy.  Not just because of the GPS, but the failing grade that I got on my final exam due to a misunderstanding, and because of me having to spend money due to unforeseen circumstance.  It was because I was sleep deprived and I have not been on my A game at my job.  All this happened just this week. Not to count the past months or years that things have just been falling apart.

I was mad and tired and ready to take it out on God.  Wondering why after all this and me being tired, was God not protecting me?  Why was he allowing everything to fall apart, right before my eyes?  What was the deal with my heavenly father that he was allowing this attack to come against me? I was about to just give up and fall apart.

Then God spoke to me as clear as day.  He asked me why was I letting the devil get to me?  I know the devil was out to take away my future, the things I have worked so hard for.  And even more so, the devil wanted me to believe that God had forgotten about me and that God was not on my side, because everything and anything was going so utterly wrong.

Instead of calling out the true villan the devil, I wanted to blame God, because I felt that God was there.  But one thing that I have learned is that as a Christian, God does not promise that anything is going to be easy for us.  Not because God wants us to live a hard life, but because the devil is after us day and night trying to find ways that he can sabotage the promises that God has for us.

You may be asking the same question that I asked.

Why does God allow the devil to hurt us?

Why can’t God protect us from everything and we just live life in complete and utter  bliss all the time?

I do not know if I can adequately answer that question.  But what I do know is that the devil is in the world along with his fallen angels otherwise known as demons.  The devil tried to even stop Jesus from completing his assigned task, so we should know that he has no hesitation in trying to stop us from ours.


Unfortunately we live in a fallen world where the devil can roam free.  It has been like this since the day of Adam and Eve.  The devil was right there waiting to lead all of man kind down to the path of damnation.  And with the devil and Eve, he is responsible for the fallen world we live in today.  The only choice that we have it to just deal with it.

Not what you were expecting to hear huh?

One thing that I do know is that God is only going to let the devil go so far.  The devil may come against us, he may make us loose our job, our homes, and our money.  He may make other people come against us and be mean to us.  But he cannot stop our belief in God.  He cannot stop us from knowing that no matter what he does God will be with us making sure that the devil does not go too far.

Our only job is to trust God and not to fall into the devil’s trap.

My week could have went like this.  I could have walked off my job because I was getting frustrated.  I could have withdrawn from school because I was not doing so well.  I could have given up on everything that I have been working hard for because I do not see the results.  And then the devil would have won.  He would have cheated me out of a destiny that I know that God has for me.  And then I would be going no where fast.

But instead of giving up, I handle and do what I can and I believe that God is going to do the rest.  And guess what, He does.  It may take some sleepless nights.  It may take some tears and wondering why God has forsaken me, because sometimes this is how I feel.

Even though I do not see it clear in the natural.  This is what we call having faith in God and trusting him.  Having faith is having belief in something that you cannot see.  And this is what God wants. For you to follow him blindly even if it means walking with him in the middle of the storm, thinking you are about to die.

I have felt this way.  Wondering why I have followed God this far.  Wondering if this was some cruel joke, by God to lead me into the middle of no where only to put more on me than what I feel that I can bear.  And in this time and moment as I am sure many Christians reach.  God wants us to make a choice.  We can choose to walk away from him and out of the storm because it is too hard, we can choose to navigate our way through the storm on our own, or we can choose to hold on to God and allow him to take us all the way through the storm until we are on the other side.

Do you think it was easy for Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, being accused of rape, and spending years in prison?

Do you think it was easy for Moses stepping down from the Prince of Egypt, being an outcast murderer, and then coming back to do the impossible?

Do you think it was easy for David, running from Saul who wanted to kill him?

Do you think it was easy for Paul who was thrown in prison time and time again for declaring the word of Christ?

And do you think it was easy for Jesus, knowing he was the Messiah, to be persecuted, beaten, and then killed?

I have come to learn that life is not easy.  Especially when you are on the right path that God wants you to be one.  The devil will come on to you even harder.  We cannot get into the mindset of walking away from God during these times.  But drawing closer to Him, to make sure we get through.

If the devil is against you, then you must be doing something right.  He must see you as a threat that has the power to tear down his kingdom.  Do not let him destroy you.  Do not make him think that your problems will overcome you.  With God, you have already won.