Sometimes the Lord Sends an Adversary

“And the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon….” (1 Kings 11:14).

Read: 1 Kings 11:9-14; Deuteronomy 28:47-50 and 31:15-18; Isaiah 54:11-17.

What is God Saying?

God gives us a choice. Solomon, wise beyond all of his time, allowed himself to be drawn into folly. He followed the importunate pleadings of His foreign wives and strayed far from God. They made it easy but he made the choice. And whenever we make a choice that interrupts our walk with God, He may send an adversary to bring us back.

How Does This Apply to Us?

When we recognize that all of God’s Providence is filtered through love, we know how to accept and face the adversary which He sends. It would be sometimes unbearable and beyond explanation if we did not know that the hard times and the obstacles thrown in our path are all because He loves us.

God wants us to stay close to Him and true to Him.

We should remember that even our adversaries are under the control of God. They can do us no harm. They can only make us pause to think. They can only force us to remember that God has a better plan in which, over all enemies and against all opposition, we will be and even now are,

“…. more than conquerors through Him who loved us”. (Romans 8:37).

We are fortified as we pray with the knowledge that

‘no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper” (Isaiah 54:17).

Pray With Me

Father, I am glad to own You as the Lord of the way I take. You are also God over all the obstacles that seem to block that way. For my good You can either removed the adversary or raise him up. For Your own good reasons, You can either put him out of the way or in the way.

In love that cares so much and according to wisdom that knows all about me and all that is about me, You can give me freedom or friction, rest or wrestling, leisure or labor. Help me to trust all the more in Your wise providence because I see it filtered through Your love.

When You raise up the adversary, may I recognize and submit to this as all-seeing love and not as a blind wrath. I ask that You will make the rough places smooth and the crooked paths straight.

I do not ask for steep and thorny ways, but when in Your wisdom I must be guided back to Your high purpose by pressures I would not gladly accept, may I recognize Your Lordship even over my adversaries.

When I find myself in the midst of events I can scarcely understand, may I recognize Your Lordship even over my adversaries.

When I am called upon to bear painful crosses I would never have chosen, may I recognize Your Lordship even over my adversaries.

Because I am saved for all eternity and because You have a perfect plan for my life, adversaries can do me no harm. They can only turn me to the higher good that You have ordained. I am a part of Your wholeness in which there can be neither mistake nor imperfection, neither fault nor flaw, neither blame nor blemish.

In the name of Him who has conquered my greatest adversary through His greatest victory, even Jesus Christ. Amen!

Moving On In The Life Of Prayer

In prayer God prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. They may be meant to bring us back to God but they are powerless to do any harm if our trust is in the wisdom, the providence and the invincible power of God.

He is almighty and all-loving.

The power of prayer is to make us calm in the presence of every adversity and confident that all our adversaries are meant to bring us closer to God and to His ideal for our life.

Through all circumstances and in spite of all circumstances, prayer gives us quiet assurance that Christ is still on the throne.

by William S. Stoddard
Used by Permission