God, Feet, Satan, Lipstick, Eyeglasses, and the Blood of Jesus
In my first book, Finding the Secret Place,, I write about how God used visual images to make “real” His truths to me. “The Lipstick Story” in Chapter 3, is one such example. You’ll have to read the story for yourself to get the full effect! But basically, God used a blob of red lipstick that had landed on my tennis shoe to show me a truth about how I was “covered” by Jesus’s blood—and how this revelation would make all the difference to me in the end. I wrote:
Suddenly, I made the connection. The red stain was the lipstick I had seen earlier! Somehow it had brushed against the side of my shoe. I understood immediately. God Himself was desperate to tell me something I had nearly forgotten. The climax to the Big Story was true! Because I had believed and received, I was His. I was covered in the blood! The message came in loud and clear: The provision I made for you through Jesus’s shed blood is the difference. You will see!
This happened over thirty years ago. The lipstick was on my right foot.
Dashing My Foot Against a Stone
About three years ago, I was in Hawaii with my family for a Thanksgiving vacation. My daughter-in-law and I were taking a long hike over a trail that forced us to cross over a lot of lava rocks. She was bounding over them like a bunny rabbit. I had already run 4–5 miles that morning and was getting pretty worn out. I remember thinking, “I have to be careful, lest I fall on these rocks!”
Then I recalled how the Lord promises to protect me from such mishaps. If you make the Lord your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you, no plague will come near your home. For he will order his angels to protect you where you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone (Psalm 91:9–12 NLT).
Well, I had no sooner gotten the words “lest you dare to dash your foot against a stone” out of my mouth when I tripped and fell on the lava rocks! Caitlyn stopped to help me up and I hobbled the rest of the way back to civilization (which was a ways, I’ll add)!
Later in the day I was in so much pain that I could not even stand on my foot (the right one)! I recall spending the rest of the afternoon on the porch with my foot propped up, enjoying the incredible view from our balcony, and imagining the healing light of God shining down onto my foot, like a piercing beam.
I’m sure I also applied the blood of Jesus to my foot, since I had long before learned to do that in every difficult circumstance. But what I distinctly remember in this case is that I concentrated on the light of God shining on it, like a beam. Nonetheless, I went to bed later that night with a throbbing, apparently sprained foot.
But here’s the twist: The next morning I rolled out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. It took me a minute to realize it, but there was no pain in my foot, whatsoever! Later that morning I ran my usual 4–5 miles, just to prove it! No pain!
The Lost Pair of Eyeglasses and the Mysterious Nap
Yesterday, I took a run around the neighborhood with my dogs—like I do every day. Three miles. On these runs, I tuck my reading glasses in a little pouch that hangs around my waist. I also keep my phone in this pouch. I take my glasses just in case I need to use my phone.
Well, when I got home after the run, I realized that I had lost my glasses! Agh! I have been tucking my glasses in that little pouch for at least six months and they have never slipped out. Yet somehow, this time was different. Immediately, I jumped in the car and went to CVS to buy a new pair. (Can’t be without reading glasses!)
Hours went by. Finally, I decided to sit down and watch a little news. Now late afternoon napping is not part of my normal routine, but suddenly I felt very sleepy. So I nestled down and rested my head on the arm of the couch. About an hour later, I awakened with a start to find the TV blaring. And, oddly, my right foot was throbbing!
I inspected my foot. Didn’t appear to be bruised or swollen. But there was a sharp pain in the middle of it, on the top, below my toes (between the second and third metatarsal bones). I could not figure it out. What had just happened? My foot was just fine. Then I took a nap and woke up with a severe pain. I hobbled around on it for the rest of the night.
Well, you won’t be surprised to hear that I woke the next morning with another healed foot! The same one that had the “blood” on it over 30 years ago. The same one that got mysteriously “sprained” and then miraculously “healed” in Hawaii three years ago. The same one I can now say got injured somehow, during a nap, then healed again, overnight!
What God Said to Satan
God had something rather strange to say about Jesus’s foot in Genesis Chapter 3. He was talking to Satan when He said, “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15 NLT).
God was prophesying about how Satan would ultimately attempt to thwart God’s plan by “taking out” the Son who would be sent to save, heal, and deliver everyone. But the prophesy read that Satan’s attempts would be as a mere “strike on His heel.” Because the Son would ultimately defeat Satan by “crushing his head.”
When Jesus lived on earth, Satan tried to take Him out, defeat Him, many times. But even Jesus’s death on the cross was simply a “strike at the heel.” The reason is because Jesus rose from the dead, descended into hell, returned with the keys to the Kingdom (Revelation 1:18) and then ascended to reign at the right hand of the Father. He had “crushed Satan’s head.”
Today, this means Satan has no power over people who have believed and received God’s Son, having put their faith in his perfect blood. However, we must learn to see Satan through the right spiritual “eyeglasses.” We must see him as “defeated.” And we must develop our “faith” in what Jesus’s blood, applied to our individual lives, can do to keep us safe from this evil one.
What God has shown me through the years is that Satan will strike. He will try to cripple me. He will take my eyeglasses, hoping to blind me so I won’t see what God is doing. But he has no real power over me because the blood of Jesus covers me in some mysterious way.
As I have learned to apply this sacred blood to every situation, I have “grown up” into the understanding that I can have victory over anything Satan might be trying to do against me to keep me from fulfilling my destiny.
Then I heard a triumphant voice in heaven proclaiming: “Now salvation and power are set in place, and the kingdom reign of our God and the ruling authority of his Anointed One are established. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who relentlessly accused them day and night before our God, has now been defeated—cast out once and for all! They conquered him completely through the blood of the Lamb and the powerful word of his testimony” (Revelation 12: 10–11 TPT).