FEARING ENEMIES PRECLUDES DIVINE PROTECTION
If we fear an enemy, God will break us to pieces, or will let them brake us. So was the advice by God to Jeremiah, the prophet. He who fears a spiritual or flesh enemy, does not have faith in God nor in Christ.
"Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee; be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them." ( Jer 1: 17 )
There are many occasions in which our spiritual enemies obtain victory over us by simply instilling fear in our spirit, and making us doubt divine protection. In many cases our spiritual enemies, knowing that they are defeated, and knowing that they cannot do anything against us, bring another method into play: to make us doubt and fear. This is how we ourselves drop our duties, for fear of something that cannot happen. Even though they cannot do anything against us, and though they cannot prevent us from doing our job, they make us not abandon our plan or job, and thus obtain a victory they really shouldn't have obtained. By using this slyness they obtain the same success as if they had the power or authority to prevent us from doing it.
These kinds of situations are similar to as if God would order us to walk along a wide highway, where He would guarantee that nothing would happen to us; and that our enemies wouldn't be on that road, even though it seemed possible to us. The promise is that our enemies, who are on both sides of the highway, cannot get closer than 200 feet from the road, and so they can never use their swords against us. Nevertheless, there are several other roads that connect with this one, to which our enemies can get access easily, and attack us; but on the one that God put us on, it is absolutely impossible for them. As they are malignly shrewd, they know that they have to do one of two things: a) convince us not to keep walking, or b) convince us that it is better for us to take any of the secondary roads.
As we walk along the main highway we look far away, near the horizon, to the point where everything seems to merge, and we see as if our enemies were real close to our highway, even on it. Now, doubt takes our hearts. Seeing our enemies so close to the road, we start thinking that they could harm us if we keep walking. Then, if we lack faith, we will stop walking, and our spiritual enemies will obtain a victory that they shouldn't.
If we have faith and keep walking, trusting in God's word, as we get near the point where everything seems to merge, it will be then obvious that our enemies are at both sides of the road, but 200 feet away, so that they can't use their swords, the only weapons they have. And sure enough, we pass harmlessly through the zone that we thought was terribly dangerous. But really, all the "danger" was in our minds, in reality everything was safe as God promised us.
In other instances, worse things occur to us. When we see our enemies far, near the horizon, where everything seems to merge close to the road, instead of stopping, we take any of the secondary roads that join the main highway. We do so, because as we look far away into these secondary roads, we do not see any enemies. We take the secondary road trusting our own intelligence, and when we have walked long enough that we cannot escape back, then our enemies get out of their hiding places and attack us.
If we would have kept walking on the road God told us, which was the only one that our enemies couldn't access, nothing would have happened to us. They are very shrewd. Along the main highway, where God promised protection, our enemies show themselves in order to instill fear in us; but on the secondary roads, where they obtain access and can harm us, they hide themselves, to not frighten us.
This is exactly what occurs with jobs God wants us to do, and with His divine commandments. We think that we will be better off if we change His commandments. In doing so we discard the main highway, where God has promised to protect us, in order to walk along a secondary road, where our spiritual enemies can destroy us.
Never change nor "improve" God's commandments.