In this blog, I talk a lot about “The Curse,” because I believe that Satan’s primary way of subverting God’s will for our lives is to keep us ignorant. If the truth about the curse really sank into our minds, we would see the world the way that God sees it and we would live for God’s purpose rather than for our own.

Yet another blog post about the curse.

On one occasion, some friends and I traveled to eastern Chad, deep in the Sahara Desert. The Chadians were experiencing another drought at the time and there were great physical needs. We walked into town to try to find some lunch, and there was an amazing aroma coming from one little restaurant.

The restaurant was open to the street and beggar boys stood just outside watching everything that we did. The restaurant only sold meat and bread and so that is what we ordered. The meat was cooked over a charcoal pit on a metal bed-frame and came to our table with hot sauce. The flavor was fantastic, but it was almost completely gristle and just could not be chewed. It was as if we hadn’t been served actual meat but rather meat-flavored rubber. Try as we may, it was thoroughly non-masticable.

Is non-masticable even a real word?

We worked on our meals until our jowls were too sore to go on and then we just gave up. The experience helped me understand why all Chadians are so thin. There are no calories in meat-flavored rubber.

One guy in our group was soft-hearted, asked for some way to carry the uneaten “food” back to our hotel to give to the guard dogs, and was given a nice doggy bundle. As we were leaving, the beggar boys latched onto us asking for money. My friend softened even more, handed the pack of meat and bread to one boy, and we tried to step away. As we did, three other boys plowed between us to take the food that had been intended for dogs. They bumped violently against our legs and sides trying aggressively to get past us.

They attacked the boy with the dog food and the four boys fell into the deep dust and coiled together like snakes, grabbing, hitting and pulling for the doggy bag. They were desperate for any kind of food. The fight went on and on as the patrons of the restaurant looked on for a few seconds and then resumed their important work of chewing. The dust was three inches deep in the street and the boys were covered in it. The scene was heart breaking.

In the Sahara, the symptoms of the Curse are at surface level and are so easy to see. The Sahara Desert, from all appearances, is Curse Central. But let’s not fool ourselves. God didn’t curse one part of the world more than others. The whole world is under the same curse so that you and I, though it may not be so apparent, are also living in Curse Central. For many of us, especially in a prosperous nation, Satan blinds our eyes so that we don’t see the Curse around us.

Satan is a crafty devil.

Satan is a crafty devil. He confuses and confounds Christians with many clever tactics. He covers up and camouflages the consequences of the curse around us so that, as the consequences of the curse are largely out of sight, the curse itself is out of mind. He distracts us from the curse by artificially elevating the importance of religion, domestic problems and seemingly necessary tasks of daily life. We live right in the middle of Curse Central, just like everyone else, and we don’t even know it. We feel sorry for those living in places like the Sahara Desert, whose lives do appear to be cursed, and we are blind to the cursed world that we live in. We are so well-fed. We have everything that we need. Our futures look so bright.

The reason that recognition of the curse is so vital, for every disciple and for every church, is that a really, real, truly, true recognition of the curse should naturally precipitate a change of behavior.  If the world is literally cursed, then how can I sit by the swimming pool and enjoy my iced tea?  Surely there is some way that I can fight against the curse. How can a church vote to build another building if the people of the earth are literally under a curse? Surely we can find a better use of God’s money that will make some impact against the curse.

Main point: If we do not recognize the primary importance of the curse, then we will not recognize the priority of rescuing its victims from both the physical and from the spiritual consequences of the curse.

So what: One practical way that you can fight against the consequences of the curse is by being strategic with the money that God gives you. This is not a pitch for any one denomination above another, but we love to give to Baptist Global Response (https://gobgr.org) as they do excellent relief and development work with a secondary focus of making disciples among unevangelized people groups.