I rose early this morning, even thought it´s Sunday. Rising early can be a good thing when you have spent a sleepless night…
Once again I have been fighting my demons.
The apostle Paul mentions something he calls a thorn in the flesh, and he later on identifies this thorn as a demon, allowed to humiliate him in order to keep him humble. He never however describes this demon any closer, so we do not know what kind of actual damage it was causing him.
Maybe it was a physical weakness of some kind. Some have suggested the man was nearly blind, which would explain why he is using a scribe, and why he writes with XL letters when he signs his epistles.
And yes, physical weaknesses are no doubt a thorn in the flesh. I myself have some kind of allergic reaction, cause unknown, which from time to time causes different parts of my body to itch and swell in a most uncomfortable way – as was the cause three in the morning this night, when my lips and cheek doubled their size. But can such a thing be called a demon? I don´t know – hardly, I would say.
Or maybe the apostle was fighting his own doubts. I can image him thinking: ”Will this new teaching survive? There are so many false teachers around, and the congregations that I myself have founded are turning their back on me while I´m still alive – what will not happen when I´m gone?”
So am I fighting my doubts, too, from time to time, doubts that go like this:
”Am I spending my life on some kind of spiritual wildgoose chase?
Is all this preaching of mine doing any good?
Maybe I just should have stayed in the factory and kept on making some useful stuff?
Face the fact, this so called ministry of mine keeps on producing little but nothing”…
And thoughts and feelings like that comes a little closer to my picture of what a demon is.
He is a hard one to fight, this one, at least to me he is!
I try to remember that a limb of a fruit tree bears no fruit by examining itself, only by abiding in the Tree…
Maybe Paul was fighting fears and anguish, too. At least he once describes himself as frightened and trembling.
Sometimes I wake up in the night and feel like I am choking, like something is strangling me. Sometimes I lay awake and feel a iron belt around my chest, a belt that someone – something – is tightening hole by hole. Nothing but the name of Jesus can break it and make it go away.
This is clearly a demon – or several.
My worst demon, however, all along has been this question: Whose cart am I pulling? Am I really serving the Lord Jesus in what I`m doing and saying? Or am I straying? Have I in some way been fooled by the so called angel of light?
I have tried to hold on to the Word of God.
But so did the Pharisees.
To the best of my understanding I have obeyed the Lord, but so did Paul when he still was Saul and persecuted the Christians.
This is not a demon of the dark hours of night, this is the one who pops out of nowhere to haunt me in the broad daylight. And I have found no other way to fight it than to say the Lord is my shepherd, may He bring me back on the track if I truly am straying.
So, brothers and sisters in Christ, I`m still thankful for your prayers…