If It Could Have Destroyed You, It Would Have... and that's fact. Steal, kill, and destroy is the M.O.
Many of you have things you survived that you rarely want to talk about anymore.
People see who you are today, but they may never know how close you came to literally falling apart. They weren't there for the nights when your mind wouldn't stop racing, the betrayal that changed something inside you, the season when you couldn't imagine life ever feeling normal again. They don't know how far you wandered, what you almost lost, or how many times you wondered whether you had enough left in you to keep going.
But you know.
And looking back, perhaps you're beginning to realize something else: you weren't holding yourself together nearly as much as you thought you were.
Scripture doesn't minimize the reality of an enemy. Jesus' own words were those that I echoed above, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Peter warned that our adversary prowls around “like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Satan's intention is not merely to make life difficult. He wants suffering to become hopelessness, wounds to become bitterness, temptation to become bondage, failure to become identity, and disappointment to eventually convince you to walk away from God.
But Satan has never had unlimited authority over your life. The book of Job gives us a rare glimpse behind the curtain. Satan wanted to destroy Job, but God established boundaries he could not cross. Eventually God said plainly, “You must spare his life” (Job 2:6).
The enemy had intentions. God had limits.
Jesus revealed something similar to Peter: “Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you” (Luke 22:31–32). Peter was about to experience the most humiliating failure of his life. He would deny Jesus three times and weep bitterly over what he had done.
Yet Jesus told him something remarkable before it ever happened: “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
Jesus saw Peter's failure coming, but He also saw Peter coming back. And that, right there, may be the part of your own story you've overlooked.
Maybe the miracle wasn't that the terrible thing never happened. Maybe the miracle is that it didn't get everything it came for.
It hurt you, but it didn't own you. You fell, but you didn't stay there. You wandered, but Jesus kept calling you home. You lost things you desperately wanted to keep, but somehow, through all of it, God kept you.
That doesn't mean every painful event was a direct attack from Satan. Scripture doesn't give us permission to assign a demon to every tragedy, accident, illness, or broken relationship. We live in a fallen world where painful things happen.
But Scripture does reveal an enemy who desires destruction and a God whose authority infinitely exceeds his.
So look back for a moment at the thing or things that you thought would finish you. Think about the season you thought you would never survive. Remember the the failure you thought permanently disqualified you. Imagine again, the night when you couldn't see a morning. You're still here.
Maybe scarred. Maybe changed. Maybe still healing. But here.
And some of those scars are becoming the very places from which you can strengthen someone else, just as Peter did.
Perhaps you called it survival because you couldn't see what was happening. Looking back, you may have another view point for it now... God kept you. And your testimony is becoming someone else's healing manual.
~Devin
Devin Osborne
The Early Church
