How do we distinguish between what God is doing in our lives and what Satan is doing?

That may sound like an odd question. How can I confuse God’s work with Satan’s? But I think we do confuse the two.

I believe God is doing everything—that he’s behind everything that happens to me. I believe that God ordains every sniffle, every sneeze.

Well, where does that leave Satan? Doesn’t the Bible say that Satan is like a roaring lion seeking to destroy? Doesn’t it say I’m to be on my guard against him?

I think we need to ask how Satan destroys. Does he destroy people by making them suffer with illness and poverty? Or does he destroy them by giving them riches? Or does he destroy by using both circumstances and whispering in the ear, “God doesn’t love you, he’s letting you suffer.” Or, “You don’t need God, he’s a tyrant. You’ve worked hard for this money, you deserve to enjoy it.”

Satan does not destroy us by giving us different outward circumstances, I don’t think. Wasn’t that the one of the main lessons in Job? Satan cannot steal a man’s faith by stealing a man’s wealth and health. We don’t have to fight the demon of poverty or the demon of wealth. We don’t have to give any thought to whether we are healthy or wealthy. If we are in Christ, we are healthy and wealthy beyond our wildest imaginings.

I agree with the posts I put on here by Bob Vincent (here, here, and here), but I also think that physical health and wealth is minor in light of eternity.

God does give me the health and wealth I need to do the things he asks me to do. I don’t need to chase after the things the pagans chase after. I don’t need to worry about what I’ll eat or what I’ll wear. (Matt. 6:31&32)

I think I have to beware of Satan not because of how he buffets me on the outside but because of how he buffets me on the inside. I think I have to flee from Satanic thought—from temptation to hate God because I’m poor or to forget God because I’m rich.

This is important: Temporal stuff is passing away and it can’t harm us. It’s like food that goes into the body and out. An excess of money today can’t hurt us. A lack of money can’t hurt us. Money is not the root of all evil—the love of money is. It’s not the money and the health that are so dangerous to us, it’s the way we idolize them.  And we idolize money and health whether we are rich or poor, healthy or ill.

So I don’t pray for health and wealth or for illness and poverty. I pray in health and wealth and in illness and poverty, asking God not to change my outward situation, but to make me gain from my outward situation. Give me more of Christ. Make me more like Christ. This is what I ask of God when I am sick and poor.

I do ask God to give me food daily—physical as well as spiritual. I do ask him to meet my needs. But for years and years I prayed regularly that God would give me neither poverty or riches. (Proverbs 30:7-9)

I still think that’s a good prayer. I want to lift my eyes off of the lack or excess of today and look into eternity. I want to use my wealth and my poverty, my successes and my failures, my prosperous times and my times of suffering, to praise God for his mercy to me and his willingness to mold me and make me after the image of his Son.

So who gives cancer and who gives health? God gives both and Satan gives both. Ultimately God, because he’s the big dog in charge. But I don’t think I need to look at every instance of suffering or prosperity in my life and try to discern who gave it and whether I should pray against it or be thankful for it. I think I am to give thanks in all things, for this is the will of God in Christ (1 Thess. 5:18). I think I am to rejoice always, and again, I say, rejoice (Phil. 4:4). I think Satan can’t crush me under suffering because I see all suffering as a good gift from God, and Satan can’t lure me away under riches because I see all riches as good gifts from God.

Clear vision is what we need, not health and wealth.

I’ll tell you what I don’t see: I don’t see a down side to saying, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) My prayer against Satan is not that God will keep him from harassing me in the physical realm but that he’ll keep him from sending fiery darts of doubt and bitterness and worry and fear and pride and greed and self-righteousness and self-sufficiency into whatever situation I find myself in physically.

This, my friends, is the secret of being content in all things. Knowing that God gives all things—the temporal good and the temporal evil¹—for our eternal good and his eternal glory.