She's Not Your Enemy: Conquering Our Insecurities So We Can Build God's Kingdom TogetherНамуна

Your One True Enemy

Here are a few of my experiences over the years. Can you relate?

Scrolling through social media, you spot photos from a girls’ trip you weren’t invited to.

You find yourself the awkward one out in a discussion as the rest of the circle shares experiences you cannot relate to.

“You’re not the right fit for us,” the email says after multiple rounds of a job interview.

It’s not a coincidence that rejection hurts. Rejection is a pain you can actually feel in your body because social pain and physical pain activate the same places in the brain. So that stinging, aching, or sharp sensation? It’s valid. It’s real.

But your enemy is not, as you might think, the woman threatening your position at work. It’s not the one who talks about you behind your back or argues with you about the pettiest things. It’s not the one who seems to have it all together, making you feel inferior. It’s not even the woman in the mirror.

Your one true Enemy goes by many names—the Accuser, the Devil, Lucifer—and is sometimes even disguised as an angel of light. His most commonly used name, Satan, literally translates to “adversary,” an enemy. And he’ll stop at nothing to not only destroy your relationship with God but also burn bridges with the women around you.

Ephesians 6:11–12 tells us to “put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Satan wants us to be suspicious and guarded. He wants us to fight and scrape to belong. He finds joy in seeing us interact in merely transactional relationships, not engaging with one another in collaboration and mutual understanding.

Our obsession with trying to fit in, our competitive drive to come out on top, and our fear of missing out lead to serious health and mental issues. We are more lonely, anxious, depressed, and insecure in our overly connected (yet disconnected), overachieving world.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Because this is not the story God has written for us.

When have you experienced life-giving friendship? When have you experienced rejection?