Spiritual Warfare for Dummies

This means WAR!

These were the lyrics to a 90s Christian rock band song that my dad and I used to listen to as I was growing up. Fun song if you don't listen to the lyrics much past the hard beat.

Spiritual warfare meant nothing to me growing up. The Holy Spirit was the only spirit I ever heard of and didn't really know what to make of Him... but I had two other persons in the Trinity to focus on, so I didn't let it get to me.

After 6 weeks in Taiwan where spiritual warfare is much more real for people, I thought I understood it, and I knew that the demons and spirits people saw and battled with were real and terrifying. But when I came back to my life in America, where spirits are ignored and laughed about, I forgot again. I never consciously made the distinction of how I would be more aware of spiritual warfare in my life.

I think I finally am getting the hang of it though, as my husband and I had an uncharacteristically bad few weeks. We thought it was odd that every time we would make a resolution of any type, some major struggles would cloud our path and set us off course. This week was a perfect example.

We had our business conference this past weekend and it was awesome. I think I always say they are awesome, but I also realized this time that the awesomeness is really dependent on taking the content and applying it quickly before momentum is lost. So we came out of the weekend swinging! We built our business Monday night after a full day of reading and audios and affirmations. Then we started Tuesday early with a workout, more readings, audios, and affirmations. Then Wednesday I allowed myself to slack because I was focused on going to see my grandma in the hospital. Then Thursday, I was cold and tired and let myself put off a workout until after work... but then let everything run late and didnt get it in or do any business calls before people arrived for our briefing. Then because I had been running late the day before and eaten some unhealthy foods, I felt pretty terrible Friday morning and skipped everything, including my readings, affirmations and audios... and let myself fall into more unhealthy eating with a bunch of chocolate. See how quickly my week, led unintentionally, went right into Satan's hands?! And not that I can blame him and not take credit, but I can actually think back and see his work. Yesterday at my worst, I remember telling myself, "I need to speak life, I need to speak positive." And somehow before I could even get an affirmation out of my mental mouth, he had put another distraction in my way. This happened 4 times, at least, yesterday.

All in all, looking back, God had given me a choice, strength and control, but I forfeited it. I could have punched the morning in the face, right from the 5am alarm... and that is the lessons learned.

This is a short entry in my overall compilation of "How to be Exactly Awesomely You for Dummies." ;-)