Paul said, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The main two areas that are targeted by the devil are as follows: 1) our efforts to get closer to God, and 2) any trouble that we may face in our relationships with others, as the devil enjoys encouraging conflict.

This is why, according to John 17, Jesus prayed over these two areas on the night before he died. His first prayer was that God would help his disciples be holy; his second was that God would help his disciples become united as one, in the same way that God and Jesus had become united. The first prayer related to our relationship with God, and the second was about our relationships with others. In essence: love God, love thy neighbour, which is at the centre of the biblical message.

Reading the bible and meditating over it, participating in church services, and praying alone – while seemingly simple, all these activities that help us become closer to God can be very difficult. Many report that reading a few verses every day and focusing on prayer for ten or twenty minutes each day can be surprisingly challenging. Of course this may be because we aren’t used to it and it hasn’t become second nature to us yet, but this is also the case because the devil continues to deter any of our such efforts.

Building a relationship with God is not just about reading the bible and praying – it is also about stopping ourselves from sinning and learning to obey his word. When we sin, we end up distancing our hearts from God, and therefore the bible and prayer, mediums through which we grow closer to Him. So we must treat this as a spiritual battlefield, set a time and place, and continue to focus our efforts on making time for God. Sometimes, we may not want to – even so, we should regularly do so. Exercising and studying are things we also do regularly, not because we want to, but because we think of them as important. As we continue to do so, we become more interested and end up with good results. This must be the case, even more so when in war, as these will be life and death matters in our spiritual battlefield.

The more we get to know the Lord and spend time with him, the more we come to realise how weak and inadequate we are to stand in front of him – and how much more we need his grace and mercy, which requires us to become closer to him. But there are so many things that distract our sight and hands, which block us from approaching God. It’s not that we don’t have the time – we just use it for pointless things.

But despite all the difficulties, and despite the fact that we find ourselves in a spiritual battlefield, if we are in Jesus Christ we have been given a new spirit and heart – and the Holy Spirit that lives in us will help us obey the Lord, with the same power that the Spirit demonstrated in reviving Jesus Christ from the dead. So if we resolve to obey, and continue to fight without giving up, we are destined to win, and can be more than conquerors in a battle that has already been won for us (Romans 8:37). So let’s start again – and march on!