Squirrel!

Just now my friend Kelly called and when I answered the phone she was already laughing on the other line. She said “I have to tell you what just happened! You’re gonna love this!” She was driving to pick up her sick son from school (Please pray for Tristan) when she had to slow down because there was a squirrel in the road. As she approached the squirrel, expecting him to finish darting across the road and get out of the flow of traffic, he didn’t! In fact, he stood up on his hind legs in the middle of the road, placed his little front paws on his hips (or at least that’s what it looked like anyway) and stayed right where he was, staring down the giant silver Explorer in front of him! She said that both she and the people in the other car on the road were laughing hysterically at this ridiculous behavior of the squirrel. After having a great laugh about the entire episode, I had to explain to her how God just used her story to enlighten me to the behavior of the Enemy in my life lately.

You see, I’ve been taking great strides into the Enemy’s territory (winning great victories) and receiving a lot of attacks because of it. BUT, what God let me know this morning was that the Enemy is that squirrel standing in my path, with his little paws on his hips, staring me down… while I’m in the giant Explorer! If you’ve seen the Pixar movie “Up” you may remember how all the dogs in the film react when they see a squirrel. They may be in the middle of sentence or a chase and suddenly shout out “squirrel!” as they freeze and stare at the squirrel. Our family has picked up this habit as a joke and every time we see a squirrel now we point and shout out “squirrel!” And now that I’m thinking about it, that’s what I’ve been doing with these attacks from the Enemy too. I’ll be in the middle of something else and I’ll notice an attack and then instead of ignoring it and simply moving on, I will “shout squirrel” and take my attention from what I was doing to what the Enemy is trying to get me to focus on, him. He knows that if he can get me to look away from Jesus and to look at the storm around me out on the water, then he can get me to sink. Well… not any more!

When we hand the controls over to God, we are placing ourselves in the passenger’s seat of the giant Explorer. So that when satan the squirrel stands in the middle of our path with his hands on his hips, staring us down, trying to get us to stop. He is only ACTING bravado and tough and big, but he is NOT! He is NO match for God. His attempts to stop us are nothing but LAUGHABLE! And that, is precisely what I am going to be doing, laughing at his attempts to slow me down! Because he can’t. He won’t. He simply isn’t big enough. Period.

“I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me,” John 14:30

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” 1 John 5:4 KJV

^“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 15:55-58 KJV

“And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps [which represents joy] of God.” Revelation 15:2 KJV

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