Spiritual Warfare

As a general rule I'm not a big believer in spiritual warfare. Allow me to clarify. I DO believe that there are times when "the enemy" turns his focus on believers and tries to create discord in their lives but I DON'T believe that every struggle we face is the result of direct attack by "the enemy". Sometimes you're just having a cruddy day and it can be because of your own actions or those of others. In fact my own tendency in the past has been to NEVER attribute my troubles or frustrations to any type of spiritual attack. An attitude I have come to realize is just as wrong as thinking everything is the result of spiritual attack. So here's my question....how do you distinguish between what is and what is not spiritual warfare?

For me one of the most distinctive aspects of spiritual warfare is fear. I'm not ordinarily a fearful person. I tend to be pretty brave and assertive when it comes to things going on in my life but when the troubles I have are linked to fear, especially fear for others, I've found that those are the struggles that truly have a spiritual component. I don't know if that's true for everyone, but it seems to be true for me. I start to envision bad things happening and fear becomes my predominant reaction. Worry and anxiety follow closely on the heels of fear and my mind seems to run in a vicious little cycle that is completely characterized by fear.

I meet with a good friend every other week for prayer and it's really become a special time for me. The last time we met I was telling her about my last blog, about how I tend to picture Stephen's upcoming surgery in such detail and how much anxiety and fear that has produced in me and she said something that really has stuck with me. She said "the enemy is using your knowledge to create more anxiety" that he is in effect attacking me through my knowledge and abilities as a nurse. I had never thought of it that way before but I think she's right.

I decided to do a little more research on spiritual warfare. C.S. Lewis acknowledged the existence of spiritual warfare but cautioned against "seeing a demon behind every tree and believing Satan doesn't exist". I agree with him, and think the truth about what troubles have spiritual origins are somewhere in the middle. But Hank Hanegraaff makes the really good point that "we engage in spiritual warfare simply by pursuing Christ". He also points out that the eventual outcome is pre-ordained, it's a war God has already won! I guess that means that what we're involved in are merely battles, or more likely just little skirmishes! BUT...it's important to remember that you can get killed in a skirmish as easily as in a battle and the fact that the war is over doesn't stop the skirmishes from happening! After World War II ended there were Japanese soldiers on isolated islands who were still fighting, and still dying, in skirmishes for a war they'd already lost.


Even with great thinkers like C.S. Lewis and Hank Hanegraaff I think the last word is best found in the Bible. The Bible makes it pretty clear that there IS such a thing as spiritual battles AND it tells us how to win them! "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12 So if our struggles are against such forces as these why shouldn't we see a demon "behind every tree"? The answer to that is in Ephesians also...the 6th chapter keeps going and tells us that we have all we need to deal with spiritual warfare. We have the full armor to "be able to resist in the evil day". As I went through the different parts of that armor the one that really struck me was the shield of faith. Ephesians 6:16 says that with it we "will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one" (italics mine). I really like that thought. That our faith, our shield, the thing that we are actually using as our protection is in itself a weapon. It doesn't just protect us from the arrows of our enemy, it actually snuffs them out!

From there I moved on into the territory of how do I increase my faith? (and thereby strengthen my shield) I think that the key to increasing faith is praying. In Ephesians 6 Paul talks about the importance of prayer, not just praying for yourself but also intercessory prayer, the prayers of others. I know that when I ask my friends to pray for me the struggles lighten and the fear dissipates. And Jesus himself prayed for his disciples "I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one." John 17:15.

Some of the people who read this blog have made a point of letting me know they're praying for me as we prepare to take Stephen into surgery. Words can't express how thankful I am for that and I have only one request to make....keep praying!