Die A Little More Podcast
A podcast for the everyday man who loves Jesus, and is in the fight of his life for his family, friends and himself.
Die A Little More Podcast
Submit First, Then Resist: Reframing Spiritual Warfare
The most honest spiritual conversations often begin with admitting a hard truth: sometimes we struggle to trust God completely. This deeply personal episode explores those uncomfortable moments when our faith collides with our fears, and what happens in those gaps.
Ever noticed how we misquote Scripture in ways that subtly shift responsibility from God to ourselves? We unpack the commonly abbreviated verse about resisting the devil, revealing the critical first step most believers skip: "Submit to God, then resist the devil, and he will flee." This ordering isn't arbitrary—it's transformative. When we position ourselves in surrender before engaging in spiritual battle, everything changes.
The biblical accounts of David facing Goliath and Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac take on fresh meaning when viewed through this lens of submission. Both stories feature protagonists who appeared outmatched and situations that made no logical sense. Yet both illustrate God's pattern of working in the eleventh hour, often after we've given up hope of resolution.
In our drive-through culture of immediate gratification, we struggle with God's timing and the uncomfortable silence of waiting. But what if those quiet moments—sitting beside a flowing river, watching the continuous water—are precisely where God does His deepest work? The endless flow of that river offers a powerful metaphor for God's limitless provision: there's always more than enough of His grace, love, and power available to us.
Have you been trying to fight battles without first submitting them to God? Where might you need to surrender control and trust His timing, even when it makes no logical sense? Join us for this raw conversation about finding God in our doubts and discovering that sometimes the path to victory begins with getting on our knees.
I know I said it to you just a couple weeks ago, like I was like either Just say it. I said either I'm not saved, right, or I don't know God in this way, right, and I know I'm saved. And so it has to be the other one, which is that I don't know him or understand him in this way, and yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's things about God's nature and God's personality and the way that he deals with his children, right, that we have no idea about, and I'll use this as my example. Feel free to write in or leave a comment, or, if you feel that it's not this or you have another one that's better than this, but, right, okay. So in Revelation, where it says that the angels the seraphim are flying around his throne, right, yeah, that the angels the seraphim are flying around his throne, right, yeah. And it says that, um, they're, they're constantly. They have eyes in their wings, right, they're constantly moving around.
Speaker 2:Everybody's crying out holy, holy, the whole throne room scene, right, well, it's like, as they're flying around, like they're catching a new glimpse, dude, of something they never saw before yeah of god's character or his nature or something right, and it causes them to have a fresh revelation of, like, how awesome he is and who he is in that thing that they just it was just revealed to them, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think in a lot of ways, it's like we're we're doing that same thing, just in a different capacity. Yeah, we're going through life. We're like we're bumping up against these things where, like, we don't know the Lord in that area, we don't know how to trust him, we don't know how to surrender that, we don't know if he'll be there for us, and it could be something major, it could be something completely minor. But then we catch a glimpse he deals with our heart, peels back the layers, shows us the things that are in our heart in this area that we're dealing with, and then we learn through those those things, through surrender true surrender how he can be there for us in that moment, right? So then what do we do? It causes praise to erupt from us because of how good he is.
Speaker 2:Right, it's like he proves his goodness all over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's probably the greatest revelation in you know that we have areas where we don't trust him and like we were saying, like growing up in the church and even I don't know everybody, I mean like you ain't supposed to say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You ain't supposed to say that.
Speaker 1:And it does sound bad, it's like embarrassing to say, but it's like, well, you know, maybe that's why I like, I mean not, maybe that is why, when we bump up against areas we get so like fussy dude and we like, you know, it's because we're not sure we can trust him, and I think it's the greatest thing in the world to know that and then to be able to be like, yeah, lord, like I, I'm confused about this. Where are you on this, you know, and what are you doing on this?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And what are you trying to teach me? You know it's like those are some good questions. Yeah, you know, and to be in that kind of communication and that kind of a like a back and forth with the lord is probably like the most healthy thing that we can do yeah you know, maybe even if we're just like I, I trust him, I trust him, I trust him in all things.
Speaker 2:Like you know what I mean. Like that's fake too, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just saying that to you. Like I just there's like another side of it of trusting like, oh, I just trust everything and, like you know, like whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what was that thing you told me the other day about submitting? We were, we were, we were away on a business trip for work and we were talking about submitting. Yeah, say that because I think that's really pertinent to what's going on right now and what we're talking about in terms of submission.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Generally it's kind of like the verse I don't have it in front of me, but the verse that talks about like warfare, you know, and the verse people say like, oh, when you're getting attacked, right, you resist the devil and he will flee from you, and like that's the verse, right, right, that is not the verse I didn't.
Speaker 2:I don't know how I saw it.
Speaker 1:I didn't, I don't know, I just read it was that it says submit to God comma and resist the devil and he will flee from you. And I was like wait a minute.
Speaker 2:Listen to this.
Speaker 1:I don't think. Well, I'll just talk for myself, but I don't think like I didn't. I didn't, I've never thought about the submitting part. I thought about the submitting part, I thought about the resisting part, like, right, like we're gonna go to war, man, we're gonna like pray and we're gonna like cast out the thing and bada, da, da, da and bind it and you know, like the strong man and all the things, dude, but did you submit? And I felt right, I felt like the Lord was like everybody's missing it, because you go right to that warring thing, which is which we can do very well if we can get all worked up and just Right, right, which is works also
Speaker 1:maybe Right, I'm going to get to the part of me doing something, right?
Speaker 1:But are you?
Speaker 1:And so this is why I felt like the lord said to me when the warfare is strong, like when you're like you know, you know he said envision yourself coming to me.
Speaker 1:Like this is what I see. I see him on the throne and I see me like, like, getting on my knees before him. You know, like God, lord, I submit to you, like I, I submit to you, like I, I'm on my knees in front of you, you are the king, you're the boss, like I'm just, I'm just your, your boy, like I'm going to get on my knees and submit, lay all my stuff down in a posture of on my knees before him. I'm submitted to you, lord, whatever you want, you're the boss, you're in charge. And once I do that, then it says resist the devil. And for me personally, in these last couple of weeks, since I saw that, I started doing it and what I noticed was I wasn't even really having to resist the devil, because it just as soon as I got in that spiritual posture of like I'm on my knees in front of you, I'm right in front of you, like the things seem like it would just go away, and maybe it's proximity.
Speaker 2:I'm close to the king dude.
Speaker 1:And the devil can't come there, you know, and, and sometimes you know, I would still like, like, like you know, kind of do some resisting of the devil, which is cool, like, and sometimes I had to, but more times than not I was able to just submit, I submit, I just I lay the thing down and I submit it to you you know, and I'm just getting in front of you, you know, and yeah, it was it's been.
Speaker 1:It's been awesome. Try it. Yeah, because once again it's like I falsely knew the word Right. What does it say about warfare? Resist the devil and he will flee from you. It's like so go get in a fight with, like, all the demons you know, like all the darkness and all the demons and like, like you're going to like win, like maybe you're not going to win.
Speaker 1:you know, like, if you're not going to that battle with the Lord, scratch that, if you're not allowing the Lord to go to battle for you, then you're not allowing the Lord to go to battle for you, then you're probably going to get the tar beat out of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, remember I was saying about the, the.
Speaker 1:there's that, uh, the dude in the Bible who tried to like cast out the demons from the seven sons of Sceva, right? Is that what it is? Yeah and uh, and like the demons like beat the tar out of the guy and left him naked, like whipped, and.
Speaker 2:I was like well, maybe that's what happens to us, you know when we try to, you know, go against the darkness dude in our own flesh. I'm going to find this. I'm looking something up right now.
Speaker 1:Keep talking yeah, yeah. So yeah, look up that verse, just Google it and see that, check that out for yourself. It says submit to him, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. I think it's a key.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say this is why I think it's important to take time like there was like a lot of years where I would like read the bible in the morning out of like religious duty, but I've tried to, more recently, like actually take time to like read and like not really have a goal of like like reading a certain amount, but to actually like read it and like digest it and like see what it says and then also just be open, just you know, be like Lord, like what do you want to say to me and show me something new, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm fine in it. Bear with me, this is so good. He's scrolling, I'm scrolling. Sorry, I'm older.
Speaker 1:Well, you're doing it on a phone, you're not like old, like doing it in a Bible. Okay, so here it is.
Speaker 2:All right, so here it is. 1 Samuel, 17, david and Goliath.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We're going to go there. You just got done talking about submitting, right, yeah, and then resisting the enemy.
Speaker 2:Yes, and he'll flee Right, right, right. Verse 45,. 1 Samuel 17,. Verse 45. Then David said to the Philistine you come to me with a sword, with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth. That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
Speaker 1:That's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he couldn't have done that, in all seriousness, he couldn't have done that unless he first submitted to the Lord Right and then he was able to resist the enemy and conquer. Yeah, but his entire attitude, if you know anything about David, was surrender and submitting to him just out of reverence and love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting too because, like, the whole story doesn't make sense physically, right?
Speaker 1:No, like, there's this little kid and he went to war against this like dude who was like a warrior, warrior, and he beat him with like a little tiny rock right in the sling.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make sense, right like so, without him being submitted to, like, listening to what the lord's saying, that's how he conquered that fight. It wasn't like you said, it wasn't through, you know, putting on Saul's armor, right, it wasn't through like this big, huge sword, it wasn't through all of the things that all the other guys were saying, which is what we do when we don't submit, right, we go to war, or we try to go to war, or we try to, you know, save, you know, our family or our neighbors, or like our whatever, like we try to do, like this work, with all of our big old fleshly ways of doing it, instead of submitting. You know, like the Lord, literally, if you think about it, the Lord encouraged David to walk out on that field, literally with nothing, cause he didn't even have the rocks when he walked out there right, he picked them up on the way.
Speaker 2:He picked them up out of a brook. Yeah, On the way to the battlefield he picked them up out of a brook.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Mm. Yeah, I mean, it's just like Abraham and Isaac and sacrificing. It's like you know, abraham told his son, like the Lord will provide a sacrifice, right All the way to the point of him tying him to the altar, dude, and drawing the knife back, dude, and the angel of the Lord having to stop him before he, like, plunged the knife into his son's heart.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's like he was submitted, but that submission caused him to have so much faith where it's like, dude, we're going to walk this thing out all the way to the 99.9% yeah, and the Lord will provide a sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, I'm hearing something in there. It's like in the flesh, like if you were watching that and you saw Abraham like do all the stuff, dude, tie him down, pull out the knife, pull it back, you would say to yourself it's too late.
Speaker 2:It's too late, he's gonna do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's how many times do we say that in our own life, dude, like it's too late, like the lord's not gonna come through, like he's not gonna. It's the 99th, like you said hour. It's then, whatever, you know, it's the 59th minute, dude in the hour and it's like it's ticking still and I haven't seen him come through. So we give up if we're not careful.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, see, I knew he wasn't gonna come through, oh yeah see, I knew it wasn't gonna happen. Oh yeah, and see, I knew he was wasn't going to come through. Oh yeah, see, I knew it wasn't going to happen. Oh yeah, see, I knew it was going to fail me. Everybody else has you know. See, this is par for the course and you've got two seconds dude before the clock ticks over.
Speaker 1:Just let it go, man. Just let it go. You know like walk away, you know with dignity.
Speaker 2:Walk away, you know, with dignity, Whatever. Dignity is overrated. No, you know what I'm saying? That's what people say.
Speaker 1:It's like it's too late, you know, and those stories are great reminders that you know. I mean God, I guess, works in the last minute. I wish he wouldn't, but you know. And how do you keep your faith? You know, I think that's what I struggle with all the time. It's like how do you continue to keep your faith until he comes through, without getting discouraged? You know, it's tough, it's tough.
Speaker 2:That's why it's important to build that relationship with him. You know it's so multifaceted. You know he can be working on so many things at once. You know not to say it's always going to be a life of working on things, but it seems like we're forever in process. But it's just, you know, to get us to the place that we should be in, to walk in freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. We don't realize how much in we give ourselves to bondage and slavery.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We've been freed from it, yeah, for all these years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess it's too. It's like why we should always be in the word Right Cause that it's full of stories like that, yeah, you know that God comes through, you know, even when, you know when things don't look great, you know I mean it's actually all throughout the scripture right Like, even like the Israelites coming out of Egypt, like to the Red Sea.
Speaker 2:I would have been like what the heck Are you kidding me Like? This is dumb, you know like oh, so you're just going to raise the staff with the bronze serpent on it and everybody's going to get healed, right, ooh?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right Sorry.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Seriously Like yeah, and that's that's how we look at stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like I'm like the first guy who's going to get struck by lightning Right, like, like, that's not a good idea. You're going to do what. Whose idea was that God's like? Oh, it was mine.
Speaker 2:Oh, shoot, I'm going to have some explaining to do. Are you sure about that? Because from where I'm sitting it doesn't look like it makes any sense at all.
Speaker 1:Oh man, yeah, Again, it goes back to that thing. We're supposed to be believers. Yeah, again, it goes back to that thing. We're supposed to be believers. Yeah, and that is more troubling than most would let on. We're supposed to be believers, and how do you maintain it? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You read the word and let it slay you every day. Yeah you.
Speaker 1:Let it cut you so deep that you think you're gonna die yeah yeah, and then he fixes it yeah, you just keep believing until it comes true. Yeah Right, keep trusting. Yeah yeah, it's crazy. You know it's so funny. I woke up this morning and that song is so funny. Unless you were born and raised in the church like we were, you might not know this song but you know that song, it's a hymn Trust and Obey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh man. It's so weird how the Lord will put things in your head, you know, I guess that's how it works, man, I woke up. I haven't thought about that song in 20 years 30 years you know, and it's just like trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.
Speaker 1:And um, it's, oh man, I mean, it says it right there you can't be happy without trust and obedience. Yeah, isn't that crazy, yeah. Without trust and obedience yeah, Isn't that crazy, yeah. So if we're struggling in our lives to find happiness or whatever, if we're not trusting him, we're not going to find it, and if we're not obeying, him we're not going to find it Right.
Speaker 1:You know which sounds counterintuitive? Yeah, you know I'm not happy, so I'm going to go it right. You know which sounds counterintuitive? Yeah, you know I'm not happy, so I'm going to go find happiness yeah, we're in.
Speaker 2:We're in impatient people. You know we have the drive-through lifestyle for everything yeah where it's like I want it the way I want it and I want it quick. You know there's something to be said. You know for the slow burn. You know waiting in the awkward silence. You know nobody likes the silence. Yeah, nobody likes the silence, but I think that's some some of where he does most of his work is in the silence.
Speaker 2:If you could discipline yourself enough in the silence that you could discipline yourself enough in the waiting that he actually gets more accomplished in that time when you don't realize he's even doing anything or don't even feel like he's ever doing anything which I think is a topic for another time that we could talk about because it's like you know when, what do you do when you feel like he's not even listening to you and he's not answering you and you can't feel his presence? Yeah, but not today.
Speaker 1:Right, not today. I don't think I told this story on the podcast and then we'll wrap, but, um, yeah, I don't think so I didn't tell a story about going up to the mountains and sitting by the river today.
Speaker 2:No, I think he just told me about it, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was A few weeks ago. I was just Having a moment and so I called you and you were like Dude, go for a drive, bro, you're tripping right now. You said get in your car, go get a Coke and go drive for a little bit, and I was like that should be in the Bible. That's stupid.
Speaker 2:That's stupid advice.
Speaker 1:What kind of advice is that? You're moral. I told you I wanted help, oh man, and it actually turned out pretty good. So I kind of like I got my Diet Coke, I went for a drive, I drove up kind of into the mountains and there's like a little river, which is pretty rare by us in Southern California and I kind of walked out to the river and I sat there and.
Speaker 1:I felt like the Lord was like close your eyes for five minutes and I was like the Lord was like close your eyes for five minutes and I was like all right, and I realized really quickly that it's hard to be in silence and in quietness and to quiet your soul for even five minutes in this world that we live in, especially when you're going through stuff and you're stressed and there's just like a lot of drama. I literally set the timer on my phone because I was like I like, and it was like it seemed like eternity. And it was really funny because I was sitting there like I was kind of in the mountains and I was like I'm probably going to sit here and like a wild animal is going to come up and eat me, like I'm thinking of all these stupid things right Reasons why like I can't sit here, or like a person's going to come along and see me and being like what's this idiot doing here right, sit in silence.
Speaker 1:Right. So, anyways, sat there for about five minutes and just kind of whatever sat there, and then I sat and then after that I sat there for like another five minutes. I felt like the Lord was just like just watch the water go by, like don't, I don't want to, we don't need to talk about just watch the water go by, right. And I sat there and I thought after five minutes I thought you know, it's insane Like where does all this water come from? It never stops running and I was like that's like a miracle.
Speaker 1:I mean I understand like it snows and the whole water circle thing from elementary school, like I understand that, but it's still pretty stinking amazing, yeah, that I can sit here and there's essentially this endless flow of water, you know, coming by and and I felt like the Lord was like that's me, like there is more than enough of me, of my grace, of my love, of me flowing through your life. There is enough, and it is a continual like river. That's like coming and cleansing you and, just like you know, of love, like for you, and and I just heard him say, like I got more than enough, you know and it's not going to stop.
Speaker 1:And um, really ministered to me because I I felt like I was like in a moment of like you're not enough, I'm not getting enough, I need something. And uh, and it was crazy, man, like a week later I was in a tough situation and I and I saw, like in my mind, like I saw it like this, that water like flowing, you know, like into the scene.
Speaker 2:I was in you know what I mean and he's like I have more than enough for you.
Speaker 1:I have more than enough Like I'm not, you know, I just have more than enough. And he just kept saying that to me and he does. You know, he has more than enough for all of us.
Speaker 1:You know in all of our situations, and so when you know when we're struggling or when you're like tripping out this week or about to have a meltdown or something, you know fix it by a river yeah, or just remember the story and just go like he is more than enough yeah, and he has more than enough like it's not going to dry up, like his uh provision, his love, you know yeah what he's doing in our, in our life. He has a continual flow. Yeah, yeah.