Spiritual Battlegrounds

When people hear the words spiritual warfare, they tend to react in two ways. They either see the devil around every corner, or they think it’s stuff that doesn’t really involve them. Our western cultural thought can’t always wrap our minds around some of it, but for a majority of the world the spiritual realm is dealt with as a reality and not a possibility. We Christians must find our balance within these realms. No, the devil is not involved in every little ailment and infraction in our lives, yet there’s also not always a “natural” explanation. After great success the previous month in teaching, meetings, and advancement in our visas and plane tickets, the beginning of October brought headaches, back and neck issues, and literal nightmares. Our son experienced respiratory, ear, sinus, and toe infections on top of eye issues and a bloody nose from a fall. Now the enemy wasn’t involved in all of that, but he also wasn’t missing from the picture. The devil works dirty but likes to look clean (2 Corinthians 11:14). It’s not our job to decipher where he was and was not involved. It’s for us to look to Jesus and find our balance. When I get that headache, I pray for the Lord to remove it but also thank him for the doctors who made the Tylenol I’m about to take. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Our little family of four knows we go through spiritual battles. We pray against attacks, but we don’t focus on them. Instead, we fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) and pray that you do the same.