Spiritual Warfare.

Spiritual warfare. Oftentimes, I think the immediate connotations are overly zealous cult participants, preachy church people, or normal people who don’t mention it for fear of the first two stereotypes. I’ve been reminding myself to blog about spiritual warfare for months now (since Denver actually), but I kept putting it off. Who knows why… Maybe because the issue is so broad and beyond my comprehension. However, multiple times in my life, I’ve experienced warfare, and I think it’s necessary that Christ followers recognize and talk about this in order to encourage each other, realize the gravity of their life on earth, and stay close to the only One who can truly save. 

One of my most obvious encounters with the supernatural recently was during my time living in a house/apartment with all the gap girls during our semester in Denver. We loved that house; it’s where we became a family. Our adorable home was rented out to us by an organization called the Open Door Ministries (who also owned the church/homeless shelter next door and a few other homes on the block). Because of this, multiple Christ-affiliated groups had stayed in the house (such as short-term mission groups, NGO staff etc). Basically what I’m saying is that this house was a fort of Christ’s army, and I and the other gap girls were lucky enough to find ourselves in this rank. However, since the first night, many of the girls mentioned having very lucid and scary dreams. Night after night, my roommates would wake up terrified of having seemingly demonic dreams or even waking up to hear “voices” in the rooms. As this kept happening, we began to notice that the same girls would get the dreams and visions- only the girls on the bottom bunks (four of them). A pair of bunk mates even decided to switch beds (for reasons unrelated to the dreams), and the new girl on the bottom bunk began having nightmares while the previous bottom-bunker ceased since moving to the top bunk. The whole scenario was very strange (luckily I was on the top bunk, so I didn’t have to deal with the nightmares; only avoiding the fan inches from my head. Pick your poison). Anyways, because we shared our experiences with each other and began noticing the patterns, we decided to fight back with a weapon much stronger: Our Father and our relation to Him. We put signs declaring our faith in Christ on our bedroom doors, and began praying together each night asking for God to protect us from all attacks of the Enemy, give us peace, and use us for His glory. Eventually, the nightmares stopped. Through prayer and encouragement, we had won. I actually found it as a strange honor that the Devil would find us worth attacking. I figure we must be doing some kind of good if we’re worth the effort of messing with our minds. In the end, I think this battle actually brought all of us closer to each other and to God. I only mention this situation and the entire topic to encourage others who may be going through battles of their own. There is nothing to fear because the war has already been won. The fighting is still present, but the true end has been decided. Because of this, there is immense joy and peace in Christ when we draw closer to Him. On the other hand, I think it’s unhealthy to constantly dwell on fears and the thoughts of the Devil. That can only play with our mind more and make us perceive things that may not even be there. It’s a balance: recognize that there is more that meets the eye, but through Christ realize that there is nothing to fear or constantly think of.