by Holly Swafford
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ.
2 Corinthians 2:14
I want to begin this by saying that I am so honored and grateful to the Pursuing Virtue team for allowing me and Lexi to be a part of what they are doing. I have had a burden to do something like this for young women and girls for around three years and had talked to my friend Lexi about it. We had considered starting our own blog this year, but are very privileged to have been given the opportunity to put our thoughts on Pursuing Virtue’s platform. I hope and pray that we can be a help to the blog and our readers!
I’m going to jump right into my thought for today–victory. It seems that victory is something that can almost be seen as unattainable by the young women of our generation. I realize, as girls, that there are a lot of battles that we face as we mature in our Christian experience. And often, the devil would have us all giving up and feeling defeated before we ever actually start to fight. This is just the way he wages war on our minds. We find ourselves facing things like anxiety, insecurity, depression, doubt, and fear and really aren’t sure how to combat them.
I realize I’m not much older than most of you and may even be younger than some of my readers. I do not claim to be an expert in spiritual warfare, but I would like to share some things that I feel the Lord has helped me with in my fight:
First, you must recognize who it is that we are fighting against.
Satan is the father of lies and the enemy of your soul. He wants nothing more than to destroy and devour you. Because of this, we have to keep in mind his tactics or we will become hopelessly confounded in his tangle of lies. You must learn to recognize the voice of the enemy so that you can ignore it. Any voice that goes against the Word of God and what you know to be true is not of God. Satan wants to isolate you and make you feel inferior. He will attempt to make you think less of yourself and of others. You must guard your mind against his voice.
Secondly, God has supplied you with the weapons you need to win.
The Bible tells us that we do not war against physical enemies but spiritual ones. Therefore, we must fight with spiritual weaponry. God has given us the weapons of prayer and the Bible. I can personally testify that these work. God showed me firsthand that He is a faithful Comforter and Friend when I went through a hard time as a teenager. I could go to prayer or read the Bible and find His presence there with me even when I felt alone.
Thirdly, as long as you are on God’s side, you are not defeated.
Know that God is fighting for you and as long as you are living your best for Him (and we are promised that we can have confidence in this), there is no need to fear the enemy. Never forget that God has given His children authority to put the enemy to flight. It is not through your own power that you are fighting but through His, and that is why you can be victorious. As long as you are fighting, God will make up the difference where you are weak. Defeat is inevitable when and only when you stop fighting.
I love the verse that says “He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms” (Psalm 18:34). God may be allowing you to fight battles now so that later on you will be prepared for the more difficult battles you will face in adulthood. So be intentional about learning from the things that you go through right now. You can learn the tactics of the devil so that next time you face a battle, you have a defense strategy. God may even be training you in a battle so that you can help someone else fight someday.
So don’t ever give up. God is fighting with you, so fight on girl! You can stand victorious because of Him.
