Tempting to believe that, but don't let the enemy rob you of your relationship with your Daddy and your strength. Remember the baptism of Jesus? The Holy Spirit descended on the Son in the form of a dove and the voice of the Father came from heaven saying "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." That must have been sweet. How awesome to have Daddy announce in such a public and dramatic way that He's proud and pleased. That verse is Matthew 3:17. Care to guess what happens next?
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
This is the very next verse. I am pleased says the Father and the Spirit comes down and then before the glow of the praise can fade, the Spirit leads Jesus to the wilderness, a place of desolation and lack, where He fasts (doesn't have his needs met physically) for forty days and is tempted by a manipulative foe. And next? The devil left defeated, his temptations had failed and angels came and ministered to (took care of) Jesus.
Maybe we have times when it feels like this. We feel like God is pleased with us, like our Daddy especially loves us, like everything is wonderful, and before we can get from the prayer closet or the church building to our job or the grocery store it feels like we've been brought to a place of desolation and lack where God seems to be distant. What the frustration is that all about? And to make matters worse, here comes Satan trying to twist and manipulate our thoughts to get us to fall or forsake our relationship with Daddy. Hating highs and lows and not wanting what feels like bipolar spirituality the thought comes to avoid the closeness and wonder of the good times with God to avoid the times of wilderness and warfare.
But appeasing the enemy never works well or long. Giving Satan the exact result he's going for, which is distance between us and Daddy and causing us to seek comfort, pleasure and the things of this world over the relationship with our Creator and the refreshing of angels, isn't going to keep him from trying to twist our thoughts and manipulate us into making things worse and leading us further down the path toward destruction. It's what he does, He hates us. The enemy is coming for me. And for you. He can not be bought nor appeased. He will come hard and fast or subtle and slow, but he's coming to steal what God wants to give us, to kill the life of relationship and the power that the Spirit gives us, and to destroy our life worth living, our peace, love and joy. But God knows. He knows what's coming and what we are about to face.
Jesus didn't get set up by the Father! It was never about something good triggering the bad that happened next in the life of Jesus or our lives. It was about Daddy seeing the bully coming and spending some time with us to give us what we need to defeat the temptations, hold fast to what we know so that it can't be twisted and to see through the wiles of the enemy. So no matter what comes we can stand and say, "Nu'uh My Daddy is bigger and stronger than you and HE LOVES ME!"
Let us not rob ourselves of the closeness that makes the wilderness not as bad and gives us the strength to go through it. The wilderness is coming. The enemy is gunning for us. Let's have the time with Daddy and be ready. The alternative is to feel down, depressed and distant from Daddy because of our own decision and then to walk unprepared, weak and doubting into the traps the devil sets before us.
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