Spiritual Warfare

Almost every morning, one of the elders from the church (Richard) comes to lead all of us here at Ocean’s Edge in some discipleship. The very first devotional he shared, he talked to us about spiritual warfare and taught a prayer that he prays often in his life that is specifically for spiritual warfare. 

In this prayer, he makes sure to in some way do the following: 

1. Establish the ground as God’s 
2. Push out anything that isn’t Jesus 
3. Put up a wall of protection
4. Set up communication with the Lord

The following day, he asked someone to open our time in prayer. After my teammate prayed, he opened space for us to give her feedback on her prayer. He also pointed out that her prayer was actually a prayer of thanks and not warfare and he specifically wanted us to pray a warfare prayer. 

Between this and feeling like the prayer he was praying was just something he memorized and not from his heart, I put up a wall against the warfare prayer. Right then I decided I wouldn’t ever pray this prayer he was teaching us. Even though each aspect of the prayer was backed by scripture, I didn’t want to be told how to pray. 

One of the mornings when he asked someone to open us in prayer and everyone was silent for a while. He then said “God, I pray against the spirit of stubbornness.” I knew immediately that’s what was happening in my heart. I was being stubborn in refusing to accept the warfare prayer as good or beneficial. The thing is, I didn’t care. I wanted to continue being stubborn and I still didn’t want to pray it. 

Until…. I was going to sleep one night when out of the blue I got really scared. Every image from every scary movie I’ve ever watched was going through my mind. The spirit of fear was heavy, so I immediately started praying. Of course, the prayer that came out of my mouth was the warfare prayer. As soon as I started praying it, both the spirit of fear AND stubbornness left me. At the next devotional with Richard, I opened us in prayer.

I realized too that God allowed that spirit of fear to help me overcome the sprit of stubbornness. You never know what God will us to free you. God’s ways are not our ways, but His ways are so much better. I am so thankful we have a Father who is patient and good. I’m also thankful for the elder in the church who is equipping my squad with new tools to fight against our enemy who is very real and always trying to attack us. 

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. Eph 6:12

Blessings, 

Kaci