Satan’s Vision for You

Fragile Faith

Editor’s note: Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson’s new book Fighting Shadows: Overcoming 7 Lies That Keep Men from Becoming Fully Alive belongs on the bedtable of every guy you love. Men need to know God’s vision in order to walk and live in their strengths and gifts! Enjoy this excerpt.

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In Luke 22 we are let in on one of the most startling conversations in redemptive history. It was a conversation between Jesus and Satan, and it was regarding Peter’s faith. Jesus said,

Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. — Luke 22:31–32

This is not the kind of revelation you want to hear from Jesus. Why couldn’t He just rebuke Satan on Peter’s behalf? Why couldn’t Jesus remove the attack? Why couldn’t He let Peter live in peace?

But we see a clue in this passage that has massive implications for you as a man. Satan overplayed his hand in his conversation with Jesus. He revealed his goal and his strategy for our lives. The clue is in the word fail. Satan was seeking to see Peter fail. Jesus was praying for him not to.

Here is the heart of the battle: we hate to fail as men.

Much of the pain we face arises from the sense of failure in our hearts. We feel like we have failed in our faith, doubting God, and disobeying His Word. We feel like failures at work, torn by ambition, frustration, and apathy. We feel like failures with women, not understanding how to love and respect them, while being tempted to use and commodify them. We feel like failures with our kids, getting snappy and bored at the same time.

Satan’s vision is for you to fail. Satan is at war to make sure you do. He is working toward the demise of men.

But failure is not just his goal, it is his strategy. The Greek word for fail is ekleipō, and it has the same root as the English word eclipse, with the idea that during an eclipse the light fails. When something comes between the light and us, it casts a shadow over us, and we scramble in the dark. In fact, Luke used this same Greek word to describe what happened when Jesus was on the cross.

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. — Luke 23:44–45

The sun was still there, but something blocked the light. An eclipse had occurred.

• Satan’s plan is to position something between you and God so that you cannot see His light.

He wants the shadow of this substitute to fall over your life. He wants you to think that God is gone, the problem is all there is, and you are destined to struggle in the dark. Satan wants you to fail. Satan’s strategy is to eclipse God’s presence with problems and temptations by bringing them so close to your face that you cannot see beyond them. He wants to distort your vision and bend your reality so that God disappears behind the temptation in front of you.

The Strength of the Shadow

Satan’s strategy may seem simple, but he has perfected it through countless generations of men. He knows that when we can see God with clarity, we can resist temptation and move forward. But if he can block us from the light, the shadows will fall and our faith will flounder. The Scriptures are full of accounts like this.

Consider Peter, one of Jesus’ most devoted disciples. He was a part of Jesus’ inner circle. Peter saw Jesus raise people from the dead, exercise power over nature, and cast out demons. He witnessed Jesus in His splendor on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was granted insight into Jesus’ true identity and invited to the place of secret prayer. Yet, Peter ended up denying Jesus three times in one night and running back to his nets, returning to his old life as a fisherman after Jesus’ death — even though Jesus had warned Peter and prepared him for that difficult time (Luke 22:54–62).

How could Peter turn back after seeing so much light? An eclipse. Satan positioned something between Jesus and Peter to distort his vision. He couldn’t understand the purposes of God and felt like all was lost. His fear eclipsed his faith, and he stumbled back. Ashamed of his inability to keep his own word, he went back to fishing. The shadows can lead us to do unthinkable things.

Think about the Israelites in the wilderness. God had delivered them through a series of stunning miracles, triumphing over the power of the Egyptian gods and the military might of Pharaoh. Yet when it came time to enter the promised land, they faltered. Their vision was distorted. Instead of seeing the power and promises of God, they saw the size of the inhabitants of the land God had promised to give them. They looked with fear and doubt at the Canaanites’ walled cities.

The challenges loomed so large they blocked out the Israelites’ vision of God and a shadow of fear fell over their hearts. Listen to how Scripture describes the Israelites’ warped perspective as their fears of the powerful Canaanites eclipsed God:

We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. — Numbers 13:33

The first generation that was delivered from slavery in Egypt would never see the land they longed for. Most would perish in the wilderness.

Or think about David’s failure, despite all God had done for him. He had been pulled out of obscurity to national prominence with the defeat of Goliath and handed the kingdom in the kindness of God. David had riches and power and fame. He knew those blessings came from God and was zealous for God’s Word and his will. Yet, when he saw a woman from the roof, all perspective disappeared (2 Samuel 11:1–27).

Zeal for God’s presence was gone, loyalty to the law was gone, the beauty of God was drowned out by the beauty of the woman. The light to his feet and lamp to his path was extinguished by his passion, and the shadow of sin fell over his heart. Abusing his power and taking advantage of the woman, David allowed the light of God to be blocked out by the shadow of lust.

This shadow would linger over David’s life all his days and cause havoc in his family for generations to come.

• The shadow of lust took out a man after God’s own heart.

Satan wants what happened to Peter, the Israelites, and David to happen to you. He wants to put things in front of your face so that the shadows of fear and temptation block out the light of God. He wants to distort your vision so your faith fails and you feel like you might as well give up. He wants to rob you of life, rub your face in your mistakes, and paralyze you with shame. He may even have had some success so far.

But take heart, hope is not lost. In the coming pages we are going to reposition your eyes so you can see past the eclipse, back to the source of light that frees you from failure and shame and lets you hold your head high with confident trust. God can even use your points of failure as a place of ministry, learning to strengthen your brothers as you regain your footing and begin to move toward the light.

Excerpted with permission from Fighting Shadows: Overcoming 7 Lies That Keep Men from Becoming Fully Alive by Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson, copyright Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson.

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Your Turn

Satan’s plan isn’t a secret. It’s not new and it’s not even well hidden! He knows that it’s God’s presence and our relationship with Him that brings peace and wholeness. It’s His light that changes our lives! ~ Devotionals Daily