Murphy's Law
Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. That's certainly true for the work we are called to do for the Kingdom. The devil will always battle against our gifts and against anything that might bear spiritual fruit. This attack is on our apostolate.
An apostolate is how we use our time, talent, and treasure for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. This blog is one of my apostolates. My mother's apostolate is writing cards. She designs the cards using her original artwork and sends them to everyone on the parish prayer list. I know a couple with a meal apostolate, bringing delicious food to older adults. My sister and her husband have a weekly game night ministry. Some people lead small groups like a Bible study. Others serve the poor through charitable groups like the Franciscans and St. Vincent de Paul Society. You don't need to lead a group to have an apostolate.
If you are working for God through your apostolate, Satan will attack. He wants us to be without fruit. He doesn't want us to glorify God or save souls.
There are three ways Satan attacks our apostolates: through the people, the structure, and the work.
Through the people.
Consider Moses in the book of Exodus. He is called to bring the people out of Egypt and into the promised land. But the people are a real problem. At one point he asks God, Why did you burden me with this people? They complain. They rebel against God's instruction. They lose faith in the God who did miracles to rescue them. Have you ever felt like Moses? If so, you were under spiritual attack through the people.
People are broken, and that brokenness sometimes results in conflict. The attack may be through the leader. I know leaders who run their groups with an iron fist, trying to control every detail. They rarely plan for a successor, and if that happens, they talk a lot about what the new person is doing wrong. That approach is not of God.
Broken people can be members of the group. They come in and stir things up, creating disunity. I heard an interview with a Satanist who converted to Christianity. While a Satanist, he would go into churches (usually Baptist and Catholic) and create doubt and suspicion about fiscal malfeasance and sexual misconduct of the pastor. This was a deliberate attempt to break the church.
Broken people may be overly sensitive and easily offended, or insensitive and unable to recognize when someone needs to hear an apology. They can get annoyed when someone is moving too slowly or too quickly. They won't express their opinions in the meetings but tell others about what is wrong with the group.
People problems are very common, although we don't always recognize them as spiritual attacks. Any time I am led to uncharitable thoughts about others, I am under attack.
Through the Structure:
Every apostolate has a structure. It's the way we get the work done. Do we have a clear agenda for our meetings? Are we keeping on track? Are we willing to modify the agenda or structure if we find that it isn't productive? Is God part of our meetings?
What is the vision for the apostolate? Does everyone know it and agree? Does it include the salvation of souls? Satan wants to our vision to be vague or to grow beyond what God has called for so that we cannot achieve the mission.
How do we handle conflict and disagreement? Can we be honest with each other? Are we respectful in our manner of disagreeing? Satan wants us to claim "righteous indignation" when we disagree. He wants us to demonize those who think differently.
Do we allow for the Holy Spirit in our meetings? Is God and prayer front and center? An apostolate is not a secular non-profit. Its purpose is always to advance the Kingdom of God—to save souls. Satan loves to have us skip this part because the work is "so important."
If the structure can be disrupted, the work will not bear much fruit.
Through the Work:
I'm all about getting the job done, and sometimes that doesn't go as planned. Remember Murphy's Law. We need talents we don't have, but we know that God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called. The apostles are a perfect example of that. If God has called you to do something, He will also give you the people who have the gifts to make it happen. Satan, on the other hand, will discourage you and remind you that you are not good enough.
We might want to control every aspect of the work. I might be a perfectionist. I might insist that I have to do almost everything to be sure it's done right. I might not listen to others who bring up concerns. Satan closes my mind to the value of the others on the team and makes me think it's all up to me. It's MY work, not God's.
Sometimes we run into obstacles with the work. The package with Bible Study materials is delayed and won't arrive until after our first meeting. We are hosting a dinner and the power goes out while preparing the meal. We expected 40 people for a meeting and only 10 showed up or 70 showed up. It's time for VBS and we still don't have enough volunteers to make it happen.
Each of these is a spiritual attack. Satan wants to slow us down or get us to stop doing the work. God says, Trust me. I have a plan B (and C, D, and E if necessary).
Satan does not want any fruit to come from our apostolates, and he will attack through any means—and sometimes through all three—people, structure, and work. How do you typically respond when something goes wrong?
One option is to give up. That may be Satan's goal. When the going gets tough, do you fold or do you get going? We might get so frustrated with a group that we leave.
Another typical reaction is to let our emotions take over. People shout at each other. They are uncharitable. They complain to anyone who will listen. Satan loves that! He creates division and harms relationships.
The third option is to persevere through the attack. Many saints show us the way:
St. Juan Diego was given a mission from the Blessed Mother, but the Bishop wouldn't see him because he was a nobody. Then he had a relative get very sick and couldn't return to see Mary when he was supposed to. He had failed in the work he was given. But Mary called him back and gave him the miraculous image you can see at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.
The children of Fatima experienced visions of the Blessed Mother. She told them she would return on the 15th of each month with a message. Their parents didn't believe them and punished them for lying. The church accused them of being attention-seekers. The town jailed them so they couldn't meet with Mary on the appointed date. Despite all the trials, which were spiritual attacks, they remained steadfast in their vision. And God made a way for a miracle to be seen by over 70,000 people.
We know the apostles faced many spiritual attacks, including arrests, shipwrecks, beatings, exile, and more. Yet they continued to teach about Jesus and the Good News, but the devil wasn't going to make it easy, and it may not be easy for us either.
When we recognize that we are under attack, we can take action.
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Look for confirmation that you have heard God correctly. How much of your vision is from you and what part is from God? For example, I started a support group for anxiety and depression at my parish, but it wasn't working. Part of that was the structure. I thought there needed to be a therapy element. That wasn't from God—it came from me. God wanted the spiritual element as the focus. In hindsight, I can see that my ideas were mixed with God's calling, and that affected what I did. We could adapt but could have just as easily ended the group, which would have been a win for Satan.
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Identify the attack. Is it the people, structure, or work (or a combination of the three)? What is Satan's goal? Be specific. In one group I know of, they had too much on their plate. Every initiative was good, but they could not do it all. The attack was in the work. The demonic goal was to spread everyone so thin that they would burn out and everything would collapse. In time, that is exactly what happened.
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Check your perceptions. What are you thinking about the attack, other people, yourself? Which of these thoughts are lies or partial lies? Do I see myself as a beloved child of God? Do I see others in the same way? We want charitable thoughts. When we accuse, we are behaving like the devil—the Accuser. Keep the truth and reject the lies.
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Find a spiritually wise friend to help discern the situation. You may be too close to it. If you're overwhelmed, frustrated, or ready to give up, you need perspective. Find someone who can give you that.
If our apostolate is from God, no matter the obstacles, we persevere. How we persevere matters. We persevere with humility, obedience, prayer, and patience. We seek help. We control our self-talk and our communication with others so that it is worthy of God because our apostolate is not ours—it belongs to God.
Murphy's Law is real. But it isn't a deal breaker. Every struggle we overcome is a win for God. So don't give up when all seems lost. You never know what God might do!
Questions for prayer:
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Have you experienced an apostolate under attack? What was happening? Was the attack successful, and if so, what could have been done differently?
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Are you facing a spiritual attack in your current apostolate? Where is the attack – people, structure, or work? How can you resist the attack and help others in your group do the same?