Heaviness
Last week was a difficult one. I cannot explain our household except for the overall fact that there was a heaviness over Ken and I for about seven days straight. My attitude was different, my fuse shorter. Both of us had anxiety that we could not pinpoint. My sleep was disturbed...either by night panics of some kind (never happens to me), or by bad thoughts that flashed into my mind as I attempted to slip off to dreamland.
Ken and I prayed over our household, our family time, our sleep. We felt that God heard our prayers and we felt His protection, yet the heaviness lingered.
Yesterday, it became apparent why we were experiencing this. Perry, our pastor at New Spring, spoke for the first time in over a month. This was his return from his brush with death, a reality that hit home and that he was compelled to share with our audience. And what an audience....4,387 people walked through the doors of the church yesterday.
I realized that spiritual oppression was at work when bizarre events also happened at church, some of which were disruptive to the sermon. (Several medical events happened....mainly fainting. We have never had anything like this happen thus far.) Suddenly it all clicked. Satan did not want Perry's sermon to happen yesterday....some lives must have been forever changed, and evil did not want that victory to occur.
C. S. Lewis stated once that one should not become obsessed with spiritual warfare ("there is a demon behind every tree"), but neither should one ignore its possibility, either. It is real, it is out there, and we must be prepared for it. Bathing our churches, families, and every aspect of our lives in intentional prayer will offer constant protection. Though unsettling events may occur, God still wins. The final victory is His. ("Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—" Hebrews 2:14)
I emplore you to pray daily....all through the day. Pray for regular days, and big days. Ordinary days, and extraordinary days. The battle for our minds is real and active....we must also remain just that....real and active....in prayer.
Ken and I prayed over our household, our family time, our sleep. We felt that God heard our prayers and we felt His protection, yet the heaviness lingered.
Yesterday, it became apparent why we were experiencing this. Perry, our pastor at New Spring, spoke for the first time in over a month. This was his return from his brush with death, a reality that hit home and that he was compelled to share with our audience. And what an audience....4,387 people walked through the doors of the church yesterday.
I realized that spiritual oppression was at work when bizarre events also happened at church, some of which were disruptive to the sermon. (Several medical events happened....mainly fainting. We have never had anything like this happen thus far.) Suddenly it all clicked. Satan did not want Perry's sermon to happen yesterday....some lives must have been forever changed, and evil did not want that victory to occur.
C. S. Lewis stated once that one should not become obsessed with spiritual warfare ("there is a demon behind every tree"), but neither should one ignore its possibility, either. It is real, it is out there, and we must be prepared for it. Bathing our churches, families, and every aspect of our lives in intentional prayer will offer constant protection. Though unsettling events may occur, God still wins. The final victory is His. ("Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—" Hebrews 2:14)
I emplore you to pray daily....all through the day. Pray for regular days, and big days. Ordinary days, and extraordinary days. The battle for our minds is real and active....we must also remain just that....real and active....in prayer.
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