Who hindered your walk with God?

When we look back at life; the choices we have made, the directions we went, and the mistakes that have happened along the way, it’s very easy for us to point to “things” that have affected our decision making. Our first instinct is to say “If _______________ hadn’t happened, then I wouldn’t be here.” The truth is, it is not things that affect our walk with God. Our relationship with him is not dependent on external circumstances, or ‘fate’, chance, coincidence, whatever you want to call it. A good solid relationship and walk with God happens on purpose. It is a choice you make every single day. So then what happens? What causes “good, running Christians” to stop and sit down in their walk with God?

The hinderance

Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?

Galatians 5:7

Did you notice in the verse referenced above the Bible says “who” did hinder you that you stopped running well? Look again in Galatians 3, here is another verse that mentions a “who” rather than a “what”:

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth…?

Galatians 3:1a

The fact is, when we stop running well with God, and we fail to obey the truth of the Bible, it is clearly a WHO not a WHAT (circumstance, event, fate) that has affected us. When we further study scripture, we will notice that there are 3 main “WHOs” that can hinder our run for God. These three are: Satan, others, and ourselves.

The help

“If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I don’t have a clue who Mr. Sun Tzu is, but he is right about one thing – you have to identify who your enemy is in order to be able to fight and win a battle against him. In this life of Christianity we are fighting a war daily.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

We must be in our Bible daily. Pray without ceasing! Put on the FULL armor of God (look this up here:) https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/eph/6/11/s_1103011

Our help comes from the Lord. (My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:2) In order for us to obtain this help, we must seek it. When we are in constant communication with Him, and constantly seeking His will for us, “running diligently”, we will not be tripped up so easily by others, or Satan, or our own fleshly desires.

One final thought:

When David admits or confesses to God in Psalm 51:3 “I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.” Perhaps he wasn’t saying that his sin is a constant problem for him, and he can’t seem to get victory over it. Perhaps, instead, he was choosing to be aware of and acknowledge the thing that constantly trips him up in life. Maybe choosing to remind himself continually to stay away from that danger, and that temptation so he doesn’t hinder himself and his run with the Lord by choosing instead to sin.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

Hebrews 12:1