Distracted by Decoys

I was prompted to walk around my house yesterday. As I was walking, I asked the Lord to open my eyes to see whatever it was I needed to see. There was one point in the yard where I looked down and saw dirt in places where I should have seen grass. The quick thought that went through my head was that my grass is not as thick and lush as I’d like it to be. I didn’t think anything else of it and I kept walking.

 A few minutes later I came back around to that same area. This time I was prompted to take a closer look. It wasn’t that the grass was sparse, but rather the dirt that was covering the grass in those areas were actually ground-level ant beds! I had never seen anything like it. I was accustomed to seeing ant piles being mounded and easily visible. When I’ve seen them pop up in the past, I’ve been able to treat them to prevent an overpopulation. But these beds maintained a low profile, and as a result they had spread everywhere! I can’t even imagine the number of ants that must have called my yard home.

 Now things were starting to make sense. Over the past week we began to see ants inside because there were so many ants that had gone unnoticed for so long outside. It almost seems as if the one visible ant pile on the opposite side my yard, was there to divert me from noticing the invasion that was taking place just a few feet away. While I was actively handling the things that were seen, I was being overtaken by the things that were unseen.

 Ephesians 6:12a warns us, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world.” So, we can’t just sit back and wait for the invasion of the manifestation of the workings of the unseen world before we begin to fight. We have to stay alert. We have to be persistent. We have to stay on guard. We have to watch and pray. If we don’t, the enemy will maintain a low profile, invade our space, and gain territory that rightfully belongs to us. Let us open our spiritual eyes so we may see what our natural eyes can’t see and so we can fight the real war rather than being distracted by decoys.

To go even deeper, get your copy of one or all of our Everyday Wisdom Book Series and subscribe to our Everyday Wisdom Podcast.