She stood in perfection. Sheer utter perfection. The perfect woman, with the perfect body. Frizz free hair in the perfect climate controlled garden. Her husband standing at her side with adoring eyes.
No stretch marks.
No cellulite.
No split ends.
No complaining about crow’s feet around her eyes or smile lines…or that silly line on her forehead from scrunching her face and yelling at her kids.
Eve stood in utter perfection. And even then, she fell prey to comparison.
A sneaky snake whispered half-truths and half-lies; and Eve bought his garbage, hook, line and sinker. Satan turned Eve’s eyes away from everything God had given her and pointed her eyes to the one thing God hadn’t. And He’s been playing the same game with us as women ever since!
BUT! There’s always a but….but, we can stop the madness. If we only change the game. Instead of living in competition or comparison, we can chose to live in community and send the devil straight back to hell.
I never thought this would work, but the freedom and security that comes from living as a loved and treasured daughter of the King, totally changes our lives. I’m living the truth of this transformation myself!
1- Community Combats Satan’s Lies.
As I intentionally built community with other like-minded women (take note- I didn’t meet perfect women, just like-minded,God-seeking women) I began to see Satan held less and less power over our lives with his lies. As women began sharing struggles, other women began speaking truth.
It’s easy in isolation to hear the lies of the enemy as shouts to our souls, and the only way to overpower those lies is by speaking truth. But there are times when it’s just hard to speak that life giving truth into our situations. And having women, who love Jesus and love you, to speak that truth into your life helps combat Satan.
Some days we are strong enough to use our fighting words….other days we need women who are in the Word of God to give us fighting words.
2. Community Combats Competition.
For years I looked at other women and worried that if God blessed their lives in a way I wanted Him to bless mine, then surely they had used up all God’s blessings….so He couldn’t possibly do the same for me.
Y’ALL! This is the dumbest lie EVER!
In fact, the more and more I spend time building relationships with women, the more I see firsthand that God is SOOOOOOO abundant. If God can do it for you, well then surely He can do it for me…and if He doesn’t do it for me, there’s a reason. And often times, it’s because He has a different blessing for me- one more perfectly tailored to my life and my circumstances.
But when we nurture relationships with women, we are able to look beyond ourselves, see God in the middle of the relationship and encourage them on to live in the fullness of their talents and gifting. As we live in the habit of encouraging women we find less and less to compete with them about. We become more focused on being with each other than we are about being “better than” one another.
3. Community Creates Accountability.
There’s something beautiful about accountability. There’s something liberating about people knowing your weaknesses….now don’t get me wrong, it’s still terribly vulnerable and crazy scary. I’m not advocating we all air out our dirty laundry….BUT, having girlfriends in your life who can bring you back down to reality when you’ve flown off on the crazy plane, well it’s something amazing.
Women who are loving Jesus and seeking Him know just what to say and how to say it when you need a good dose of humble pie.
Satan works his web of deception when we feel weak, lonely, isolated, and under valued….all easy feelings to get sucked into when we’re without a support system (or every 28 days, depending on your cycle). But when we live in community with other women we have ladies to anchor us back to the Truth. Women who will call us out on our actions. Women who will listen to us vent, then set us on the right path. Women who seek God’s best for our lives and not just our own will.
Knowing people will ask hard questions and call us out on our actions makes it more work to actively live a life of sin.
There’s something powerful that comes when we live in unity and love with other women. When we seek to look beyond our own desires and toward the desires of others. When we sacrifice our judgments, self righteousness, insecurities, sharp tongues, etc. on the altar of friendship, well, it there that God can do some beautiful work in growing the Church and changing culture. Satan wins far too many battles by dividing us as women.
I’ve spent far to many years fearing women instead of befriending women. But thank God that we serve a God who is able to “restore what the locust have eaten” and is in the business of building community.
How about you? Do you have a community of women who are seeking Jesus? If you do, spend some time this week loving on people. Send text messages, e-mails, or a hand written card to a friend letting her know how much you appreciate her friendship.
If you don’t, we’d love to have you join our online community of Girlfriends in the Word. You can request to join by clicking here now.
