They say your bedroom should be a place set aside, a place uncluttered, so that when we lay down to sleep, we aren’t distracted by work, to-do lists, people. We can rest.
My life is not a perfect world, so more often than not, the sanctuary of rest that is called my bedroom is not always that place. There’s a desk in there, because there’s no where else to put it. There’s piles of laundry some days. There’s my phone, right next to my pillow every night, charging.
Maybe this is true of you, too, but I know what to expect when I close my eyes every night or when I slowly (or abruptly, depending on if my boys are awake before me) wake up in the morning: A lot of battles happen in the night, lying in my bed, waiting for me when I’m looking for rest.
Just this morning, the thought arrived, “Do you even have close friends?”
I don’t think about those thoughts throughout the day. They aren’t my biggest concerns. They’re my hidden fears that keep me awake some nights or awaken me early in the morning. It doesn’t mean they’re true; it means the devil knows my weakness.
The battle will probably never cease. I will fight every night to remember the God who loves, because I am prone to disbelief in the vulnerability of the night.
Do you feel that way, too?
In the past few days, God has been pulling back layers to show me where I have fallen short pretty consistently over the past few years. You know how that feels? Almost like pulling off bandaids. Revealing weaknesses feels like revealing wounds; I’m often falling short in areas where I’ve hurt in the past.
And I lay in bed at night, and the devil says to me, “Look, you really aren’t that great,” and I am prone to believe him.
But it isn’t true! I don’t have to believe him! I don’t have to believe a fallen angel who thought he could win over an omniscient God. I get to believe in my Creator. I get to close my eyes as my head hits the pillows and say things like,
“Daddy, today was hard. Thanks for giving me this day to fight anyways.”
“Daddy, I don’t think I can. But You think otherwise, don’t You?”
“Daddy, do you think I am good enough? Make that truth an active truth within me.”
It’s a hard fight. One that I need scripture for. One that I need prayer for. One that I need to cover in a lot of grace, because you know what? I cannot win. The good news? HE ALREADY HAS.
He already has. Amen? He already has. I need to repeat it every hour. I cannot forget. He has already won. I am on the winning side. The keys to salvation are in His hands, not mine.
So we wake. We sleep. We lay our heads down on our pillows surrounded by a distracted world, but we have a whole lot of “get to’s”. Getting to believe otherwise, when the devil wants us to believe a lie. Getting to say things to a God who loves us regardless of how we feel. Getting to rise with the sun, prepared to stand on the side that has already won.
The devil knows where we are weak. And yet. And yet! Christ’s power is made perfect in our weaknesses.
There’s the good news: He’s already won.
JANELLE DELAGRANGE 