Spiritual Warfare Is Real

I have been pondering about writing on the topic of spiritual warfare. A driving factor in sharing with you today is that the topic was used against me recently. I had to testify in a case and the defendant’s attorney attempted to make me seem unstable or even crazy because I believe in spiritual warfare. Before testifying I knew the defense attorney would do everything in his power to discredit me.  He had to because I was telling the truth and the truth was not conducive for his client to have a favorable outcome. He pulled out all the dirt he could.  He brought up the fact I was legally in trouble with the Federal Government, my past struggle with alcohol, and my bipolar disorder to name a few.  Needless to say, it was not a great day to answer such personal questions in front of a jury. The whole time I thought to myself that this guy is either a person with little morals, possibly a lost man, or just a person that would do anything for money. My addiction to alcohol was a disease. People struggle with substance abuse because it is an uncontrollable habit that hurts their day-to-day life showing up as struggles at work, conflicts in relationships, money problems, legal issues, and above all spiritual disasters. The shaming or ignorance he spoke of kills more than 140,000 people in the U.S. every year.  I was unaware my binge drinking was only compounded by my bipolar disorder. Being undiagnosed was a huge problem in my situation. I know now combining the two is a very dangerous combination. As I reflect back, I understand more the “Why” I did things in the past. I can remember the huge mood swings or the days of depression.  It was a soul killer. You know I didn’t like the fact the attorney tried to use those things against me. I pray that he or no one else in his life ever suffers from alcoholism or bipolar disorder. As the attorney continued in his character-killing mode. He brought up something that bothered me more than anything else. He brought about my struggle in spiritual warfare. He specifically used passages out of my first Blog post titled, “What to do when there is nothing left.” In the post I reference the devil visiting me on two different occasions. The feeling was real. I have never been that scared before in my entire life. I still remember his weight bearing down on me and the struggle I couldn’t move. I would encourage you to read the article as I detail how the encounters occurred.

I realize that spiritual warfare is a Christian concept of fighting the work of preternatural evil forces. Simply put, it is a fight between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness in our lives. I feel in order to believe in spiritual warfare, we need to acknowledge that we are in a war. I believe this would be something hard for someone that is not born again to fully understand. The battles we go through are only small components of the larger picture. Our spiritual battles and warfare are real, and even though the lawyer could not physically see the attack doesn’t make what I experienced false. Many unbelievers today don’t want to deal with a world they cannot see, feel, or touch. They think the physical world we live in is tuff enough. The issue many people internally battle is that they cannot discuss the spiritual world and have to believe in a spiritual realm. We have a tendency to act like a three-year-old child who closes his eyes and places a blanket over his head to hide from the boogie man. He really believes that since he cannot see them, they do not exist or they cannot see him. Just because we cannot see the spiritual realm in the conscious does not mean it is not there.

We are a vessel that God only wants to draw closer to him. As I struggled to change the way I live and become closer to God it seemed the devil would only come at me harder. For instance, putting negative thoughts in my head for me to down myself. Or tell me that hey you are on medicine now for your bipolar so you can drink responsibly. Go ahead and drink a couple of beers with those oysters you will be fine. What could it hurt? I know these thoughts don’t come from God because he was working in me, pulling me from the grip the devil had on me. Why do we go back to bad habits? Simple, we are not living the life God wants us to enjoy and tend to lean on our human instincts that only brings destruction in our life. The Bible states in John 7:37-38, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” God puts a well within us and if you live for God the devil will attack you. Think about it why was the devil kicked out of Heaven? He was kicked out because he wanted to steal God’s glory. In life, it is not a matter of “IF” he will attack but “When”. When God uses us, the water flows and allows us to affect others. It could be just sitting down and listening to someone or God placing a burden on your heart to donate money to someone. Simple people have the misconception this is us just being kind. It has nothing to do with us. It is the Holy Spirit in the flowing water from God.

As we battle each day, the devil wants to dam our life up with disruptions and problems making our water stagnant. When we become stagnant, we have given in to ourselves and slowly dry our well up leaving us in a vicious cycle of being unhealthy to everyone around us and ourselves. We must realize God will run to us if we only seek Him. He wants to pour his living water into us. Most of us have that one thing in our life that we tell ourselves if we can get under control everything will be perfect. The problem is we think we have a hand in getting it under control. Friends, I can tell you nothing is done without God’s will. If we think it was only one thing holding us back from being happy and possibly following God. Why wouldn’t we pray and give it to him? It is simple, we are human. We get in our own way and bring a lot of the chaos on ourselves. In our lives, our one thing can be huge and have consequences that become generational. Take the fact if Adam and Eve didn’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge all of humanity wouldn’t know sin or death. Why do we keep doing the same things expecting different results? That my friend is the definition of insanity. How many things does it take to spiral your life out of control? One. I think the biblical reason is God is jealous of us. He doesn’t want to share us. In 2 Corinthians 11:2, the Bible states, “For I am jealous over you, with godly jealousy:” The best way I can explain this is much like opening and shutting a window. Life is like opening a window. When it is open good and bad things can flow in and out until we have had enough. We can raise the window with little trouble it slides perfectly, but then when life gets hard and we want to shut our open portal it takes all the strength we can muster to shut it. As I gave in to the negativity in my life, the harder the window was to shut. The more I pushed the window it would only move a little. So, I would give in and open the window up again and not change anything in my life. The devil wants us to leave him that open corridor to our hearts and mind. It gives him the ability to corrupt and destroy our lives.  When I turned my life over to God, He gave me the power to shut that window. It is hard to give up familiarity and live life in blind faith but the reward is so much greater. As we approach Easter, we must remember Jesus died on the cross not for His sins, but for ours. He is the only one that can bind the devil and the quicker I learn I am no match for the devil and let God fight for me the better off my life will be. Remember, we are not defined by what we did wrong, but by what Jesus did right.

I am going to have to testify again against that same attorney in a few months. I suppose he will try to use maybe me going to AA to help with my sobriety or even something I wrote in this article against me again. I rather he takes the time and asks me about Jesus Christ. What he has done for my life? Or even, how he suits me up each day with His armor. I am a child of God!