Self-Doubt

John 8:44

‘When he (the devil) lies, it is consistent with his character; for he a liar and the father of lies.’

We are fans of most water sports, and in particular, we love sailing. When you are sailing, one of the critical things is to be aware of how your course is being affected by the wind, the waves, the tides and currents of the water…all of which you cannot control. These external factors can easily take you off course and even take you to a different endpoint.

The devil’s plan is for us to fail to reach God’s chosen destination. Now there are times where the devil throws significant obstacles in our way, which stop us in our tracks, but the more common way he de-rails us is by the quiet whisper in our ear. Satan whispers that we will fail at the task at hand, that a relationship will suffer, that we will have less financial stability - all to throw us off course. He simply needs to convince us that we will fail so that we don’t attempt the journey in the first place. He plays on our self-doubt.

We need to recognise that small negative whisper as a lie. By recognising it for what it is, false information, we can know the opposite is true. So if we hear that we are going to fail, we can turn this into an act of praise and thank God that we are actually going to succeed. This will allow us to continue without the self-doubt that the devil wants us to experience and make us lean into God, holding on to faith that he will help us fulfil our task.

Prayer – Lord, I ask that you will give me discernment, that I will know when the devil is trying to make me doubt what I am doing, to stop me fulfilling your plans for me. Please help me not to be thrown off course so that I can reach the destination you have planned.