One of the greatest lies the enemy could ever tell you is the lie that God isn’t on your side. And this may sound so simple, but if you take the time to really reflect on your life, you may see evidence of this lie and how it has affected your life.

I know I have.

For example, when I was growing up, I didn’t just want to go to college. I wanted a full-ride, all expenses paid, no debt. Freshman year, a close family friend told me about a popular and prestigious scholarship at UNC-Chapel Hill, and from that moment, I went through my entire high school career doing everything I needed to do to make sure I was competitive.

I made sure my grades were perfect. I was not only involved in extracurriculars but also leading them. I had great letters of recommendation, and I was believing God all the way.

When the time came to apply for the scholarship, I was excited to be invited for the first round of interviews only to find out 3 weeks later that I wasn’t selected. Needless to say, but I was devastated. I remember sitting outside my house in 50 or 60-degree weather without a jacket crying my eyes out. It was so bad that my mother had to beg me, then force me to come back inside.

It wasn’t so much that I didn’t get the scholarship. I just couldn’t understand why God would work it out that way. The same question kept repeating over and over, “If God is just going to do what He wants, then why believe in the first place?”

My mother was unable to answer the question, and this shifted everything for me. It was so subtle, but it was in that moment that I began to believe the lie that God wasn’t on my side. It was YEARS later before I realized the lie and the detriment it had caused: fear that I would never make a difference which led to comparison and resentment along with feelings of inadequacy which led to insecurity and shame.

Maybe you have found yourself in a similar situation. You’ve been believing God for a specific opportunity only to have it not work out. You’ve been heartbroken multiple times by multiple people no matter how much discernment and precaution. Or you’ve been believing God for healing, but keep waking up with the same disease/illness.

You take your disappointment and begin to think that God isn’t trustworthy. You feel like you did your part, and now you keep wondering why He hasn’t come through. Or you begin to self-internalize the message and blame yourself for what happened.

You start to ask yourself, “Why would God do something like this to me? Why would He allow me to go through this? What did I do to deserve this? I must be a bad person or it must be because I’m not good enough or worthy of His love.”

Next thing you know, you start to question God’s intentions towards you. You begin to believe He’s not for you or that He doesn’t care about you.

But this couldn’t be farther from the truth! God wouldn’t have sent His son to die on the cross for your sins if He weren’t on your side. In His infinite love, He chose to take on your sin, stand in your place, and die the death that you deserved. All because He wanted a relationship with you.

So no matter what you go through in life, nothing has changed from that moment. God is not a man that He should lie (Numbers 19:23), neither is He a man that He should change (Malachi 3:6). If He died to save your life, you can rest knowing that He will always be for you and not against you.

The problem is we are tempted to push God away when we are hurt because we allow our painful experiences to create a faulty view of God. But God doesn’t want us to run away, He wants us to draw closer to Him.

Knowing this is pivotal when fighting spiritual battles. It gives you the ability to hear His voice above the noise. It helps you understand that God never intends to harm you. Instead, He makes all things work for your good and uses what happens to help you become more like Him, to help you become who He’s called you to be, and prepared for what He’s called you to do.

The truth is we cannot experience God’s fullness whether that’s His purpose for us, His joy, or His peace until we change the way we see Him. You can look for it in all the wrong places, but you’ll only find it by spending time in His presence and reading His Word. The equally important deception is, if we don’t already have God’s Word stored up in our hearts, we are vulnerable to believe whatever lies we hear whether it comes from the enemy, ourselves, or from other people.

Make the decision right now that you will believe His Word over what it looks like. Sometimes, that means you’ll have to pray all day. Sometimes, you’ll have to sacrifice spending time with friends in order to seek His face. Or you’ll have to be intentional about guarding your gates like what you see on social media or what music you listen to.

But if it means that you’ll choose God over the temptation to believe that He’s not on your side, then it’s something worth fighting for! And like it says in John 16:33, “in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! He has overcome the world.”

Keep fighting this fight of faith, friends!