The
Heart of Spiritual Warfare
.
recognizing
the front lines of spiritual assault
.
by Sam Williamson
Plato urges
us: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is
fighting a great battle.” If you are
breathing, you are under a spiritual assault.
The question we face is not, “Are we under
attack?” but, “What is the heart of the
attack?” Let me tell a recent story of mine.
See if you can recognize the field of battle
for the spiritual warfare.
Two friends and I host a weekly podcast on
various spiritual topics. Last Thursday we
planned to discuss (I kid you not), How to
Recognize Spiritual Assault in Our Lives.
Schedule conflicts and illness had caused the
cancellation of our two previous podcasts. We
didn’t want to call off a third.
To complicate matters, one of my friends was
still under the weather, the other was swamped
with work, and I had a longstanding 6:00 pm
dinner date with great, out-of-town friends. I
planned to leave the dinner at 7:30 to make
our 8:00 call.
That was the situation going in; this is the
story that followed:
- Late in
the afternoon, my wife and I had a tense
discussion. I missed much of my podcast
planning time, leaving me irritated,
distracted and unprepared.
- Our
dinner reservation was changed from 6:00
pm to 7:00 pm, leaving me little time for
conversation, and even less time for food.
- The
closest parking spot was half a dozen
blocks from the restaurant, and I arrived
five minutes late.
- As I
left the restaurant, a torrential downpour
greeted me with open arms, and I splashed
and waded the six blocks back to my car.
- Three
different traffic jams—three!—delayed me
further. I arrived home with two minutes
to spare, soaking wet and freezing.
- I began
the call in a frenzied, intense, and
distracted state of mind.
Do you
recognize the frontlines of the spiritual
assault?
It’s not what we normally
think
When I later reviewed that story with a
friend, he exclaimed, “Whenever I speak on
spiritual warfare, the same stuff happens to
me: my wife and I get into a fight, my car
breaks down, the PA system shorts out, and I’m
an emotional wreck. We’ve got to pray against
Satan’s evil orchestration of events.”
But the inconvenient incidents weren’t my
problem. The battlefield of my spiritual
warfare was not the events. They were just
triggers.
The bullets that leave us bleeding on the
battlefield are the warped beliefs that burrow
deep in our hearts.
The book of Job may be the best spiritual
warfare manual ever written. And in it, seven
verses describe Satan’s evil orchestration of
events: marauders, natural disasters, enemies,
weather, and illness (Job 1:14-19 and 2:7).
That’s it, seven verses out of forty-two
chapters.
The rest of the book of Job reveals the
distorted thinking—the warped beliefs—of Job,
his wife, and his friends. The book of Job
concludes with God revealing himself, and it
is God’s self-disclosure—displaying how
reality really works—that brings the healing
Job needed.
It’s the lies that we buy
that kill us
Scripture’s depiction of Satan underscores
his messages, not his physical power. He’s
called a liar, the father of lies, a deceiver,
an accuser, and a blinder of our minds.
Scripture doesn’t call Satan the demon of
thunderstorms, the terrorizer of technology,
or the evil spirit of illness.
He may cause some of these, but he always
lies about them. He offers us false
interpretations.
Satan’s objective is to distort our view of
reality about God, others, and ourselves.
Once we believe Satan’s lies about God (others
or ourselves), he has us in the palm of his
hand. It is those false beliefs that make
us act in fear, rage, timidity, domination,
misunderstanding, and oppression. Satan’s
attack on Job was to get him to “curse God to
his face” (Job 1:11).
I could have handled that call
differently
The changed reservations, poor parking, and bad
weather triggered inner responses: intenseness,
distraction, and forcefulness. I thought: “Why
does this always happen to me? At the very worst
times? Now I’ve got to make this call
work, even though I’m unprepared.”
What if, instead, I believed that God works out
all things for the good? Even poor podcast prep.
I would have approached the call with peace not
frenzy (Success doesn’t depend upon me),
and delightful curiosity not distraction (What
is God up to?). Everybody would have had
more fun. Including me.
Instead of fearing thunderstorms, we can learn
to dance in the rain as we wonder, “What great
marvel is God up to now?”
Sam
© Copyright 2016, Beliefs
of
the Heart, Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Sam
Williamson grew up in Detroit, Michigan,
USA. He is the son of a Presbyterian pastor
and grandson of
missionaries to China. He moved to Ann
Arbor, Michigan in 1975. He worked in London
England from 1979 to 1982, helping to
establish Antioch,
a member community of the Sword of the
Spirit. After about twenty-five years as an
executive at a software company in Ann Arbor
he sensed God call him to something new. He
left the software company in 2008 and now
speaks at men’s retreats, churches, and
campus outreaches. His is married to Carla
Williamson and they have four grown children
and a grandson. He has a blog site, www.beliefsoftheheart.com,
and can be reached at
Sam@BeliefsoftheHeart.com.
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