The World is Against Me

John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

1 Peter 5:8, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

This week has been a brutal battle at the office. Last month I had a file that the day before closing the title company refused to close because the property was Ag Exempt. It took a month to renegotiate and remove the Ag Exemption only to have title tell me once again the day before closing that the “rules changed” and that can no longer close properties that were “recently” Ag Exempt.

Then today, on another file I needed a tax return stamped received by the IRS so we can close, and after having the return expeditiously prepared, signed, and sent overnight to me because my client lives in the boondocks… the IRS tells me that two week ago the “rules changed” and the taxpayer has to appear in person to file a return for a receipt.

Nothing spikes my adrenaline like a “rule change” that destroys my expectations. As I left the Mickey Leeland Federal Building feeling like a wounded puppy I crossed paths with a Department of Homeland Security K9 unit. Crossing within inches of the officer and the dog, the dog looks up at me as if to say… I’m going to bite you. In my mind I thought, go ahead… it would be par for the course this week.

So as I got in my car, thankful I had paid for parking correctly and it hadn’t been towed, I cried out to God… the world is against me.

To that the Holy Spirit replied, “You are correct, but I am for you.”

And so that is just a part of life. Walking in love as the rules change against you. Trusting in God that His plans will prevail when our plans are hindered around every turn.

“I count all things loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having or it YET; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:8-14)