Tare Tactics

I was a huge fan of mysteries and horror movies when I was growing up. There was always the right blend of suspense, mystery, intrigue, and, sometimes, comedy. With those movies, there was always a score that hit the nail on the head. Take the movie Jaws. Anyone that saw that movie knew when that giant great white was about to strike because the music warned us. Those films did a great job of grabbing hold of the targeted emotion they wanted from viewers. 

I was a huge fan of mysteries and horror movies...

Life thrives on that type of experience. Granted, we don’t live our everyday lives with a movie score queued and ready to go. However, we have a tendency to know what sort of emotion or reaction we want from the  people we interact with. We smile if we want a smile back and so on. Our nature has pretty much taught us from birth that if we want a certain reaction, we have to do a certain thing, right? As infants, if we are hungry, tired, or just want attention, we quickly learn how to get the attention of the grown ups. Our spiritual lives parallel that in many ways.

When we are in place of hurt or uncertainty, we learn to pray. We learn to spend time with God and seek the answers to the questions we may have. We learn to pour out or hearts and shed tears, but we also learn to wait and hear from Him. That’s just a glimpse into ways we connect with God, often with the goal of a response. Likewise, there may be times where God needs our attention. Things may happen that stop you in your tracks and your thoughts instantly shift to him.

But what about those moments that come that shake us to our very core? The moments where we are so hurt that we don’t want  or feel like praying. Perhaps you’ve never had that kind of moment, but there are some people who have experienced that and are experiencing it right now. One of the reasons that we stay vigilant is because the tactics that the enemy may use to target us are always shifting. We grow and get stronger along this journey. That means that what may have affected us when we were a baby Christian, may not have the same impact as we’ve grown. That doesn’t mean you’ve escaped the crosshairs of the adversary. 

Tares are described in the bible as those weeds that have a similar looking appearance to wheat. Even in the parable of the sower, the adversary sowed tares in the field of wheat. That means that those tares have a specific purpose in an otherwise untainted field. Likewise in our daily spiritual walk, we become targets of Satan. On the daily those tares, obstacles of intent, are thrown our way. We have to become determined to trust God to do the separating. For a tare that looks like a wheat, you can see how it might be deceptive enough to get us to uproot the wrong thing. Suddenly, we have a field full of tares and it’s too late to fix it! 

So as with any and all circumstances and obstacles we face, be intentional about casting those cares on God. Trust and take Him at his word. He cares for you. Knowing that, we can feel more confident that God will not set us up to fail. Instead, God is gifting us the tools and the strategies we need in order to be successful. If we are not being vigilant and intentional about listening for him, then the odds increase of us finding ourselves surrounded by tares. Don’t be intimidated by the tare tactics that the enemy throws your way. Instead, remember the promises and the security that God provides. 

Stay Sunny!

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