Can you avoid what you cannot see?

Just the other day, I was taking a short walk with one of the younger brothers in church. We were walking along a pavement strewn with bizarrely-shaped dried leaves and the occasional unfortunate branch that fell off a tree. So yes, there was lots of nature to keep us in step with God’s creation.


Being the young minds that we were, we started to chat about the humorous, silly stuff that young minds tend to engage themselves with. I observed that he was walking in a funny way – swaggering to and fro – and I asked him what he was doing.


“I’m trying to avoid the leaves. It’s more fun if you do not walk onto the leaves and branches”, said Younger Brother.


I told Younger Brother that I used to do such silly things too and we had a good laugh about how we would walk in equally-measured steps so that each footing would land within the area of a floor tile, and stuff like that. Admittedly these were silly endeavors, but at the same time they were fun things to do when growing up.


While we continued walking, I told him to try to walk in a manner such that he would not step on the hairline cracks along the pavement. We started to have a go at our new silly, youthful attempt of patterning. We didn't do very well because those hairline cracks were rather ambiguous.
Then I had a sudden motivation to raise a question. It went something like this:

“Hey, whaddya think? Can one avoid what one cannot see?”


*Silent rumintation*


So I continued, “If we try harder, maybe we could…Hey wait…Actually I think we can’t, really.”


We left it at that.

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When I reached home, the self-question was still simmering in my mind, begging for a self-answer from some self-reflection.


We can’t see the devil.
As Christians, we wage war against enemies that are not physical but spiritual. As Paul puts it so succinctly in Eph 6:12 that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places”.


The reality is that we are waging a spiritual war each day that we have our breath. This war cannot be avoided because this is a spiritual training and exercise for our betterment, and ultimately for the glory of God. If the whole world as we know it lies sway under the control of Satan (1 Jn 5:19), then this is no mere child’s play of trying to avoid the tessellations of the floor or to side-step the twigs and leaves on the pathway.


The spiritual battle comes to us on 2 fronts:
i)We wage a war to snatch the souls of the unbelievers,
ii)We do battle to protect our own temples – our own persons – through pastoring and cultivation of ourselves.


For these 2 battles, we find the 2 methods recommended by Paul, through the revelation and inspiration of God. In soul-saving, though we “walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Cor 10:3-4). In personal spiritual nurture, we seek to “put on the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph 6:11).


I believe it is worth noting that within the space of 2 verses, Paul reiterates this reminder for us in Eph 6:13. Given that we cannot avoid what we cannot see (namely, the devil), we ought “therefore take up the whole armor of God, that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand”.


This I think is the reality of it all:
That having done all we can in spiritual nurture, we still need to put on the full armor of God.
That having done all we can, we still cannot avoid what we cannot see.
That having done all we can to avoid the hairline cracks in our pathway of faith, we still remain susceptible to the ambiguous attacks and manifestation of the crafty spiritual charlatan.



Thankfully we have a God who is far superior above all our weaknesses.
Yes, this God is invisible for He is a spirit.
But at the same time, through a great paradox that requires faith to comprehend, we have been able to clearly see His invisible attributes, through the creation, through the Word that is Himself, and we arrive at an understanding of God:

We are able to see God even though we want to avoid Him – that is when we sin.
We are not able to avoid God even though we cannot see Him – that is His great grace.


So I conclude, “If we try harder, maybe we could…Hey wait…Actually I think we can’t, really.”