Recently one of my good friends was going through a lot of turmoil. Attacks from the enemy right and left. The attacks came physically, emotionally, and through friends and neighbors. The enemy was hitting her quite hard. This went on for several months. When it came to her health, doctors could find nothing wrong. It was clearly a spiritual attack.

Often she would confide in me, and in others and she would tell me what others had stated. “You just need to pray more, have more faith, close doors, make sure you are reading your Bible, capturing your thoughts and renewing your mind. Is there anyone you are not forgiving? Maybe that’s why. You need to really, really forgive.”

The thing was, she was doing all those things. I knew because she would tell me about how she spent a LOT of time in the Word, praying, fasting, seeking God ect.. And yet still her torment continued and she ended up taking months off work because it got so bad.

The enemy had it out for her. Was she doing something wrong? Was she bringing this on herself?

I went through something similar during her ordeal and for a little while after. Though admittedly not quite to the extent my friend had. Sure I had my health hit a bit. I also had strange happenings at the Healing House I manage. I had car trouble, attacks in my sleep.. (and although I wasn’t afraid, I was wondering… “Why is this happening? What is going on?”)

Like my friend, I had also reached out for prayer. And like my friend I was met with the same responses. “You just need to pray more, have more faith, close doors, make sure you are reading your Bible, capturing your thoughts and renewing your mind. Is there anyone you are not forgiving? Maybe that’s why. You need to forgive and mean it. You are being turned over to tormentors because you are not doing these things.”

Facing these barrages of comments and well-meaning advice can end up becoming added fodder when it’s all the person who is requesting prayer hears. The enemy can take this and twist it and use it to condemn the person who is already being weakened by the attacks they have been facing. The well meaning advice can do more harm than help.

The other evening I was listening to a teaching and the speaker stated “If you are doing everything, renewing your mind, not taking offense, not living in sin, God is going to protect you. He’s not going to let the enemy get to you. You are protected by him.”

But is this always the case?

What does the Bible say?

Job lived righteously yet God allowed Satan to wreak havoc on his life. Terrible things happened to him and his family though he was doing nothing wrong. His friends saw all this and insisted that it was because he was doing something he out not to be. Why did this happen? Because God, in His sovereignty, allowed it.

In Luke 22:31 we find that Satan asked the Lord if he could sift Peter. God allowed it, however Jesus prayed for him that his faith may not fail.

As we see, just because a person is living righteously, it does not mean that God will not allow the enemy to sift them once in a while.

In John 9 we are told about a man who was born blind. His disciples asked Jesus who had sinned, this man or his parents. Jesus had replied “Neither. The man was born blind so that the works of God would be made manifest in him”

Sometimes God will allow the enemy to attack you even if you have been renewing your mind, capturing all your thoughts, doing all the things that you know to do. God will allow things that are negative happen to show us miracles of his goodness, mercy and love for us.

Often our first instinct is to hurry up and point out what is wrong in a persons life when the enemy comes to attack but the Bible clearly shows this is not always the case. We should remember to be gracious to those who find themselves in such a position. Pray for them. Ask the Lord for revelation,wisdom and discernment. Things are not always as they seem. Trials are a test of Faith.

God has His reasons for allowing things that to happen that are beyond our human understanding.

His thoughts are above our thoughts.

His ways are not our ways.

Sometimes it’s a refining process.

Sometimes it’s for another reason.

It’s not always a result of “messing up” or falling into sin.

No matter what, we can always know that God turns everything to our good for His glory.

In both my friend’s circumstance and my own, God had revealed to us that it wasn’t anything necessarily that we were doing wrong. We both kept persevering, praying, seeking God and held on to our faith even as the storms darkened. And then, Breakthrough! She through prayer from another and I through a dream where God showed me that He had heard me and he was answering my prayer. From that moment on, everything stopped. All the major struggles, and specifically for me, breakthrough in an area that I had been struggling through for years.

It’s always darkest before the dawn.

So remember to ask God for wisdom in every situation. Sometimes a person may be dealing with something, and God will send them to you for help. And while this may be a test of the person’s faith, it could also be a test for you to see how you will respond and how you will attempt to help this person. How God can be made manifest in their lives through you. There’s a lesson in this for all of us. Remember to love one another, offer grace, be merciful, and don’t jump to conclusions.