“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” (Isaiah 26:3)
During certain seasons the enemy wages a daily attack upon our spirit through our mind. He seeks to strike fear and sorrow in our heart. He focuses our thoughts on the predicament we are in, fostering despair and heaviness in our spirit. Like a powerful sickness that swamps a feeble immune system, his onslaught seeks to sweep away any promise of God we would hold on to. He points us to the “reality” of our situation and shakes his head at our foolish hopes. Every day that passes by in which things don’t improve is a fresh opportunity for him to torment us more deeply. Under the weight of such oppression our soul stoops. (Prov. 12:25) Heaviness can crush and suffocate our spirit.
Above all else, Satan would magnify our problems and minimize our God.
The mind must be guarded if the spirit is to be kept. In times of trial the tempter turns the battle to the gate of our mind. There he hurls his fiery darts in the hope of overrunning our whole being with crippling torment and crushing sorrow. David was under just such an attack when he penned Psalm 42. There he spoke of his mourning because of the oppression of the enemy. Indeed, the enemy would have us prematurely mourn. He would have us give up before we have lost and raise the white flag before the battle is over. He would have us in the grave before we are dead. He flames our fears and stabs our hopes. Above all else, he would magnify our problems and minimize our God.
David’s enemies attacked him with words. The most painful word was the continual question, “Where is your God?” The mind and heart must be guarded, not from a physical sword or dagger, but from the sorrow inducing words of the oppressor who would not just reproach us, but reproach our God. “As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?” (Psalm 42:10) Fighting such enemies means refusing to believe their words. It is to answer the question, “Where is your God?” with: “He is where He has always been and always will be – He is on His throne! His eyes are over me. His ears are open to me. And I will yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God!”
Those who trust in God, get to experience His help time and time again.
If we have been brought into covenant relationship with the Father through His Son, then we are His people and He is our God. In times of trouble we can count on Him. He is the “God of our life.” “Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.” (Psalm 42:8) Our strong city is not built with high walls and bulwarks; it is built upon His oath, His covenant and His blood. All those in Christ are more than conquerors through Him who has loved them. Conquerors glory when they win. Through Christ we “glory in tribulations also.” We glory even in those moments when it appears we are losing. We are “more than conquerors.”
Those who trust in God, get to experience His help time and time again. His love is shed abroad in their hearts and they are increasingly buoyed by a hope that is never disappointed. So the Holy Spirit comforts and counters the voice of the oppressor. Those who fully trust in their God are kept in perfect peace because their minds are upheld and supported by the knowledge that if He is for them, who can be against them?