This week. Oh my, what a week. There have been so many frustrations this week. Arguments, negative thoughts, things breaking down. Andrew was blessed with a new car before Christmas and a couple weeks ago the heat went out. He had it flushed and then he had heat! For about a week. So, he texted me earlier this week, “no heat in the car again”.

Spent an entire day arguing with one of my children. Probably mostly my fault because I had a bad attitude.

The furnace quit running one morning. It’s been doing this about once a month, but this time it was only two weeks. Thankfully it restarts when I reset it, but it’s frustrating and I often wonder, “which of these times will it just not restart?”

Then yesterday morning we didn’t have hot water. It’s a brand new hot water heater so it better not quit! Later in the day it worked fine again. Never had a good reason why it did that.

Today, my son put his car in the ditch on the side of our driveway. You can’t even tell the driveway from the ditches and fields…it’s just one flat, cold, white, tundra, so I can’t blame him.

Andrew texted me and said he dropped a pallet of shingles at work this morning too. So, he spent unnecessary time cleaning up his mess.

Everyone has been contrary with me. If I offer advice, they know better. If I make a suggestion, there’s a reason it won’t work.

I recognize it for what it is. Sometimes I miss it. But this morning, I saw it clearly. I know what’s happening.

You see, we’re about to embark on a new journey. We’re starting a Bible Study this evening with some other couples. We’re going to dig into Truth. We’re going to pursue God. We’re going to pray.

And Satan wants nothing more than to stop it all. He would love to make us discouraged enough to call it off. He’d love to make us so exhausted with extraneous things that we don’t feel we have time for God. I see it. I’m calling him on it. And I’m saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You don’t get the victory on this one!”

If we are complacent and apathetic with our spiritual walk, Satan has no reason to attack. We’re doing a good job stopping ourselves from growing at that point so he doesn’t need to put in much effort. But, if we step out and say, yes, this is important, I need to spend time with God and other Christians, then Satan sees that and steps up his game.

Often I don’t recognize it quickly and I get sucked into the discouragement of his lies. It’s happened enough times in my life now, that I’m starting to see the pattern and recognize it earlier.

What’s interesting in it all, is that it actually brings me joy. I can look at this week and say with confidence, I must be doing God’s work because Satan has stepped up his game. I can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. And all those “bad” things that have happened this week fade and become almost laughable. I can rise above them because the victory is always God’s!