A story of God’s foreknowledge and grace.

“Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” Ephesians 6:11

In the cold of late December snowy while I was talking in the hall with our upstairs neighbor about the problem of getting more fuel oil for the furnace, one of the landlords of the building walked by. I took the opportunity to talk with him about his share of the building’s heating bill, which he had not paid. However, because he doesn’t live here. he was unreceptive to my suggestions, which meant that the rest of us had to shoulder his share of the cost--if we wanted any heat in our homes.

As he resisted all I had to say, I felt a hot flash of anger beginning to rise up in my chest at his imperious and negative replies. Knowing that if we talked much longer I was going to say something I’d regret, I abruptly and somewhat impolitely cut off the conversation and retreated into our apartment.

It was obvious, however, to all involved that I had become angry and I was chagrined about that. It was one of those instances where I hadn’t seen one of Satan’s traps coming my way and fell right into it.

One of my regular prayers is that God would help me to see Satan’s wiles before I fall into them, not afterwards. However, God does not always choose to answer in the way I’d like. In this case, He helped my humility develop a bit more with a little humiliation, and, more importantly, without my knowing it, prepared me for a more significant event.

A couple of days later I was having a very difficult conversation with one of our teammates here, and the same hot flash of anger began to rise in my chest. But the Lord used my previous failure to alert me so I could recognize what was happening. I could immediately turn to God for help, use His weapons of the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation and not fall into Satan’s attempt to trap me in my natural temper.

This situation was much more important than the earlier one, and I am so thankful that the Lord chose to warn me as He did, so I would not ruin several months of careful relationship building with one impatient response!

He very definitely answered my prayer: “Lord, today help me to keep on the armor and see the wiles of the devil before I fall into them! Amen.”