It’s Only A Chair…

I remember sleepovers at my grandmother’s house as a child. I loved everything about them, except waking up in the middle of the night – alone! Every noise I heard was someone coming to get me and every shadow was that someone! I can remember laying in bed wishing myself back to sleep! Even when my eyes adjusted to the dark, I swear I could still see someone sitting in the room waiting for me to move so they could grab me! Eventually morning would break, and that “someone” was the chair in the corner with my clothes hanging over it! The light from the sun seemed to silence the unfamiliar sounds, and bring clarity to everything I couldn’t see without it!

Quiet seasons with the Lord sometimes remind me of those overnights at my grandma’s house. Everything is fine until I find myself alone in a situation where I’d rather not be! Inevitably all things uncertain become like the chair in the corner appearing as something they are not! In these seasons deception hangs out out in the corners of the room, and the enemy finds darkness and isolation his playground!

When God is quiet, the enemy can take truth and put a slight twist on it because he knows the Word of God. Then the wrong person at the right time can influence a thought, and the twisted truth can counterfeit itself as reality. Before we know it, there are more questions then we have answers, and confusion is unrestrained.

Isn’t it funny how when we are in the light that same dark room doesn’t seem so scary? Truly it is light that brings revelation, and so remaining around a core of solid believers is imperative when the Lord appears quiet or absent. Quiet time with the Lord is ok, but long periods of isolation is not of Him. He designed us for relationship and fellowship. Remember it was God who said “It is not good that man should be alone…” (Gen. 2:18) If at those sleepovers I’d awoke in my grandmother’s bed, those same noises wouldn’t have seemed so intimidating. That is how our relationships are with other believers in these seasons. They can help differentiate between the enemy and a chair in the corner, or the voice of God and the lies of the enemy.

It’s pretty obvious to the one walking in the dark that things aren’t the same… but what isn’t apparent is the deception. In my grandmother’s guestroom, you couldn’t have convinced me that the chair wasn’t an intruder – that is how powerful deception is. It wasn’t until the light shined in that I could see the truth. Faithful friends, who have been serving God for a long time, are those the Lord will keep in your life to shine His light on deception.

Four signs that you may be vulnerable to deception:

1. You feel more confusion and less clarity. God is not a God of confusion but of peace… 1 Cor. 14:33

2. You find yourself isolated from other believers; even those you once loved spending time with. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Heb. 10:25

3. You often feel alone in your thinking, and find your personal revelations are veering from mainstream Biblical ideology. Now we know in part and we prophesy in part… 1 Cor. 13:9

4. You find yourself isolated and apart from the corporate body of Christ. So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Roman 12:5

I tend to think God allows seasons like this so that we can work on needing one another. Remember He designed us for relationship and not to be alone. The enemy is looking for the isolated ones, those are his easiest prey.