OLD SUPERSTITIONS DIE HARD

"The blessing of the Lord makes one rich,
And He adds no sorrow with it."
(Proverbs 10:22)

This post is a continuation of a post entitled FEAR that I published on my other blog yesterday.

To recap, I had recently celebrated a milestone birthday, and after a stretch of blessings and answers to prayer, the Lord chose that special day to gift me with an awesome surprise. At first my joy was supreme, but soon it became tainted by feelings of foreboding. Each time I shared what the Lord had done, it was followed by a pang of fear that something really bad was about to happen. Does anyone relate to that?

I think it is a common superstition in many cultures, and I remember my mother knocking on wood to keep bad luck away, and my mother-in-law spitting three times to ward off punishment for bragging, whenever we spoke about our good luck. So steeped was I in this mindset, it eventually became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and each time I felt extraordinarily happy about something, I would immediately become fearful of the bad news to follow, and I was never disappointed. Most times it would happen the very next day.

Old superstitions do die hard, because after all these years of studying the Word of God, I still slip back into old ways of thinking. And that is exactly the way Satan would like it to be. He is always looking for our weak points, the buttons he can push, in order to gain a foothold in our lives (John 10:10). That is why we are exhorted to renew our minds with the truth of the Word, and to bring every thought into captivity to it (Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Satan is the father of all lies (John 8:44), and we are warned about how he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8-9). He may be a roaring lion, but he is also a toothless defeated one, as a result of the blood Jesus shed for us on the cross.

Despite how things may look to our natural eyes, the battlefield is in our minds. That's why we need to stand strong in the Lord and put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-13,16). The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). The only way we can be defeated is if we allow Satan to deceive us.

Anyway, all this to say, bad things do happen, but they happen because we live in a fallen world. It's not the sharing of our blessings that causes them to happen. One thing has nothing to do with the other, although Satan would like us to think it does so he can steal some of our joy.

Dear God, let me never fail to share the things you have done in my life for fear of some evil to follow. You are totally awesome, and worthy of my praise!