I love Orca’s. I have studied them for years and their hunting style is not one that we see in the wild often. They hunt their food in family units and have an intelligence that is comparable to that of a human. One of the cruelest hunting styles that they have is how they hunt seal and sea lions. To the onlooker, it will look as though they are a 5-ton toddler, playing with their food by means of tossing the unsuspecting seal or sea lion into the air with their mighty fluke. Their buddy catches it with his mouth and tosses it back to the first and they continue with their game of catch until finally they decide they’re done and enjoy their meal. From the outside looking in, it seems like a cruel game to play before killing their food, but there is a purpose behind it.
Seal and sea lions are smaller and more agile than their 6-to-10-thousand-pound assailant and are able to escape rather easily if given the opportunity. They also put up more of a fight than one would think possible for such a small animal. Once the orca has managed to capture it’s prey it doesn’t toss it up in the air to play with it (or because it’s cruel and just wants to see it suffer), but instead it does this to make it easier to kill. They will toss it and beat it time and time and time again so that when the battle is over, the seal doesn’t have the energy to even run away, let alone fight. It is exhausted and eventually lets the orca take it so that the beating can just be over with.
This is exactly what Satan does to unsuspecting Christians. The “games of badminton” are spiritual attacks meant to beat us down until we give up. It can happen to anyone, but for the purpose of what has been laid on my heart, I want to focus on new believers that are just beginning their walk with the Lord and why Satan preys on them.
He Wants to Keep You Depressed
It is impossible to be full of joy and be depressed at the same time. Most people that come to the Lord later in life do so because they’ve hit rock bottom and they just can’t do it anymore. They find their way to a church that they start attending regularly and as God smiles for His son who has returned home, they are filled with the joy of God.
Up until this point, Satan hasn’t really been paying attention to this person. They haven’t been a threat to him or his evil agenda. As soon as a non-believer steps into faith and begins to feel the joy of the Lord, however, alarm bells are sounded and suddenly the enemy is paying attention.
Although Satan can’t read our thoughts the way God can, he does know our past and he LOVES to use it against us to influence our thoughts. He will fill your head with thoughts of questions and doubts. He will poison your mind with the idea that you have never been good enough, you are not good enough, and you will never be good enough. For some, these thoughts are enough to put them into a state of depression and despair and they just give up. They conclude that there are unforgivable sins, and they choose not to waste God’s time (or their own) and they give up before they’ve even learned how to walk.
I have personally seen this happen to more mature Christians, and the results are catastrophic if the person is unprepared. Like the seal being tossed in the air, we don’t recognize that we are being attacked until its too late, and Satan decides to keep the beating going until we give up.
He Does it to Keep You from God
When we are depressed it is hard to experience the true love of God. In fact, when a young Christian is in the beginning stages of his or her faith, when the bad things start happening and life begins to pour a stroke of “unfortunate events” upon them, it is easier to think one of two things; That God really has given up on them or that their original belief of “there is no God” was correct. At that point, instead of trusting in the Lord (which Satan will try to attack before they learn how to do this), they will be like the beaten seal and completely give up, giving evil the satisfaction in knowing that it won.
He Does it to Stop the Kingdom of God from Growing
When a non-believing soul gets lit on fire with a passion for God, like wildfire, it can spread. In order to get to a point of being able to spread the love of God and start witnessing to people it means that they have made it past the initial attacks of Satan. They’ve made it past the thunderstorms that have been brought upon them and Satan will try to pull out the “Hail Mary” and make life so miserable that all the young Christian’s friends see is a pit of misery making it impossible to witness to them about God’s love for them. When God’s light and joy aren’t showing through, a person will never be able to help the Kingdom of God grow.
Whether you are a mature Christian or just starting in your faith, if Satan is able to snuff out your light, then you’ve lost the battle. The alarm bells are no longer sounding, and he will give you one last kick for good measure to make sure you don’t get back up, and walk away, only checking back in if he thinks you’re going to stand back up.
I have experienced these attacks, numerous times, in the three wonderful years that I’ve spent getting to know my Lord and the attacks always come when I feel God’s light grow brighter in me. But I will let you in on a secret. We don’t have to be the unprepared seal that doesn’t stand a chance.
Be Prepared Before the Battle Even Begins
Knowing is half the battle, and this stands true on the spiritual battleground as well. Knowing that an attack will come means that you’re on the lookout and Satan and his goons won’t be able to blindside you. I don’t care how young in your faith you are, read through the “Armor of God” verses that are found in Ephesian 6:10-18. Read it in whichever version makes the most sense to you and if it still doesn’t make sense to you, ask someone who you know can explain it to you in a way that you understand. It’s not called armor for the laughs of it. You need to know it and you need to be able to put it on efficiently.
Ask for Help When You Need It
Transient orcas will take down bigger prey such as blue and humpback whales because of how much traveling they do. Even hunting in groups, they don’t stand a chance against the adult whales (unless it is alone) so they normally will go after the babies. They’re slower, they’re weaker, and not only are they unaware that the orca is even a threat to them, but they also have no idea how to fight one off let alone an entire family of them. But the adult whales know the tricks of the orca and they surround the babies from above, below, in front, and in back to keep them safe from the oncoming attack.
This is how it needs to be in a church family unit. The more mature Christians that are familiar with all the devil’s tricks need to surround the babies when a battle is coming. Your church family can’t efficiently do this if you don’t let them know that that you’re in desperate need of help. They can circle you with prayer and help you fight an enemy that you’ve never encountered before.
As a side note here, in a church family, anytime the church sees one of its members (new or old) going through a spiritual battle, we need to step up and protect our family members. If it’s at a point where the church sees that there is a battle going on, then odds are it’s a battle they’ve been fighting on their own for a while and they’re probably tired.
Christ is the Solid Rock on Which We Stand
Christ must be your foundation. He must be your rock. In Psalm 18:2 it says, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.” In Matthew 7:24 Jesus tells the story about the wise man building his house upon the rock and the fool building his house upon the sand. The Lord MUST be our rock.
In dire situations, Orca have been known to purposely beach themselves to catch their prey. Usually, the unsuspecting seal will get out of the deep water and into the shallows, thinking that it’s safe now that it’s on land. What it doesn’t know is that the only place the Orca won’t follow is into the dry sand. So long as the tide is coming in, the Orca can make its way back to open water. It will use all of its strength to come up as far as it can into the sand (safely), snatch its dinner, and then rock its body from side to side until the unstable sand beneath it gives way and allows it to catch the next outgoing wave back to the ocean. What an orca can’t do is climb a rock.
There are many rocks off the Washington coastline that have sea lions congregated on them because there is a pod of orcas in the water and sometimes you can even see the orca family bobbing their heads in and out of the water, waiting for one of the sea lions to make a mistake and fall straight to their demise.
We must make God our rock. When we do this, Satan can harm us no longer unless we give him power to do so. Stand on the rock.